Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings

by Kuzhali Manickavel

  I wondered what they would do with Jobin’s eye. Someone said they were artists so there was really no telling what they would do. They would probably wear it in a buttonhole like a chrysanthemum. If they had been animal rights activists they might have given it back.

  “D’you know what my grandmother used to say?” said Jobin. “She would say sit in the sun, Jobin. Keep your back straight, think of God and your ancestors blessing you with thick black hair and good eyesight. Everything will be alright.”

  I pictured Jobin as a small boy, hair neatly plastered to his head, his large, liquid eyes almost too big for his face.

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “Not really. I kept getting sunstroke.”

  “We could ask for it back you know,” I said. “I could take them a cake or a kitten or something. Maybe they’ve kept it on ice and we can get a doctor to sew it back in. Or maybe it’s still in there! Do you think maybe—”

  Jobin shook his head and adjusted the handkerchief over his eye. I leaned against the wall and wondered what would be harder—getting his eye back or finding a place to sit in the sun.

  He stood on the sidewalk pulling small, white cats out of his mouth, each one twisting in his hands like a scorpion caught by the tail. Most of them wandered off, one almost got hit by a car. Another curled up and went to sleep in a flowerpot. He pulled out five cats and then he leaned over and spat into the pavement.

  “Hey,” I said, though I was sure he wouldn’t respond. I said hey to anything—buses, children with ice cream cones, blind people. No one ever said hey back. The man shook his hand like he didn’t want anything, didn’t have the time.

  “Why are you doing that?” I asked.

  “Doing what?”

  “Pulling cats out of your mouth.”

  “Why, are you allergic?”

  “No.”

  “Are they bothering you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Want to see something?”

  Before I could answer, he began tweezing something out from between his front teeth.

  “I think this is yours,” he said and held up a tiny goldfish. My fish had died about a week ago but I had left it in the bowl, just in case it wasn’t really dead.

  “That’s not mine,” I said.

  “Sure it is.”

  “No, mine was black.”

  The man looked at the fish and frowned.

  “Are you going to do the cat thing again?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Will you come and do it tomorrow?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  I watched as he crumpled the fish into his fist like a piece of paper. I had a feeling that if I had said it was mine, everything would have been different.

  It was a completely useless Sunday afternoon. Two girls, A. Lakshmi and B. Lakshmi, were alternately yawning and sighing with boredom. The room was heavy with heat and ennui—even the chairs seemed oppressive. That’s when the beetle appeared on the windowsill. The girls eyed it with heavy eyes, slightly resentful that it had the energy to move on an afternoon that spoke of nothing but inertia. It teetered on the ledge and suddenly dropped to the floor with a soft tap. After struggling with the seemingly impossible task of flipping itself upright it began to toddle across the floor. It scuttled up to A. Lakshmi who promptly brought her foot down on it.

  “Chee,” said B. Lakshmi.

  The beetle’s abdomen had been crushed, its legs sliding uselessly as it tried to move. A. Lakshmi pursed her lips in disgust and lifted her foot again.

  “Wait,” said B. Lakshmi.

  “It’s messing up the floor.”

  “Why did you step on it then?”

  A. Lakshmi rolled her eyes and raised her foot again.

  “Wait,” said B. Lakshmi.

  “Why?”

  “It’s still alive.”

  “So?”

  B. Lakshmi opened her mouth to say something but decided it was too hot for an afternoon scuffle.

  “Whatever,” she said, sinking back into her chair.

  A. Lakshmi rolled her eyes and gave the beetle a swift kick, sending it skidding into the wall. B. Lakshmi watched as the beetle tried to flip itself upright again. She wanted to help but the thought of getting up was too overwhelming. She should put it back in the garden, under a flower maybe. No, she would put it in a cool, shady place on a huge leaf. It would waggle its antennae back at her and say “Thank you for saving my life.” She soon fell asleep, dreaming she was a pink angel in an oppressively hot chair, on a mission to save the squashed bugs of the world.

  •

  A few hours later, the world was a cooler, kinder place. A. Lakshmi and B. Lakshmi were on the verandah, watching the late afternoon wane into a breathtaking sunset. A solemn, crooked line of ants carried away the remains of the beetle, weaving silently down the porch and into the garden. Neither of them noticed it.

  There is nothing extraordinary about the East Coast Highway—just sand, the scent of decaying fish and the sound of her nylon sari swishing against her ankles. He feels all of this running through his veins like molten electricity, charging through his lips and hands. He closes his eyes and drinks from a dusty, green coconut while a snaking rivulet winds towards his elbow.

  She watches him. She pictured this moment when the bus lurched suddenly to avoid a dog. She replayed it over and over again as shabby boys tried to sell her stale tapioca chips and ginger candy. She watches coconut water course down his arm and drip slowly into the sand.

  “Was it sweet?” she asks and he nods. She has carried this coconut through two crowded buses—carried it with both hands as if it had a heartbeat.

  “Why are you still holding it?” she asks. He feels the sea sparkle and burn into his eyes; the blue sky tightens around his lungs like a fist. He wipes his mouth and lets the empty shell roll from his fingers onto the burning ground.

  •

  At night the crows fold up like cardboard boxes while moths cling uselessly to the street lamps. He walks briskly, wishing he had marked the place with a stone. He wishes he had put it in his pocket, like a photograph. He runs his fingers through the sand, brushing away hot pieces of broken glass. He finds the empty shell and takes it home, carrying it with both hands as if it had a heartbeat.

  Her mouth dissolves into a thin, cold line. I tap my finger on the table, watching as her eyes frost over like icy stones.

  “Just the margins,” I say. “And I’ll only use pencil. Promise.”

  Luckily her intense dislike for me comes with an equally strong need to be polite and accommodating. She slowly extracts her ruler from her box and places it on the neutral area of the bench we share. I already know the rules.

  Do not call it a ruler—it is a scale.

  Do not put it in your mouth.

  Do not use it to scratch yourself.

  Do not use it to cut pieces of mango pickle.

  When you’re finished, give it back. Immediately.

  I halfheartedly draw my first margin and turn to her.

  “Did you know that your scale is called Dimple?”

  I point to the name stamped boldly across the center of the ruler.

  “It’s an odd name for a rul—I mean a scale. More like a name for…”

  I can’t think of anything that could convincingly carry off the name Dimple. Out of the corner of my eye I notice that her fists are perched on the table like tiny anxious birds. We have shared this bench for the past six months and I have never touched her hands, not even by accident.

  I flip my notebook around, ready to draw the final margin. I can feel her eyes boring into the side of my face—her knuckles have whitened from the strain of waiting. I sigh, place the ruler back on the neutral part of the bench and watch as it disappears behind her thin brown fingers.

  I think of the coconut beetles that fly and fall into our house every night like wayward pebbles. I always corner them, hoping they will do something singular and memorable. But they ju
st lie there, the glint of the tubelight ricocheting weakly off their backs.

  Every day at 4 p.m. we drink coffee at the railway station. We burn our fingers and tongues while the Chennai-Mayavaram Express stretches along the tracks like a dead snake.

  “That fraud banana woman asked thirty rupees for a bunch today,” says Selva.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said ‘fuck off’. She sells to everyone else for ten.”

  Selva and I are cursed. We have silhouettes that don’t fit anywhere, even though we go to the temple every Friday and have a leaky roof.

  “You smell nice,” he says.

  “It’s this medicated soap. I got contact dermatitis.”

  “You still smell nice.”

  •

  For some reason our house attracts ravens. They settle on the railing like monsoon clouds and don’t do anything when we wave our arms and say ‘Shoo!’ They have stolen five spoons and thrown one of Selva’s sandals into the gutter. One day they took our guppies. We point to the empty fishbowl when we tell people about it but nobody believes us.

  •

  Some nights Selva gets entangled in my hair, his eyes darting back and forth as we listen to the moths swarming at our window. They whisper behind their wings about our white tongues, how coarse and dry our hair is. How we keep blaming the ravens for everything.

  “Why are we here?” I ask.

  Selva covers my eyes with his hands.

  “We’re not,” he says.

  Character 1 keeps his ties and a light bulb on the dashboard of his car. The ties are there because he keeps forgetting to take them inside. The light bulb is there because he can’t remember where it’s supposed to go. He has a feeling it has been there for a long time.

  Character 2 likes to collect imaginary diseases and key chains. Her past is littered with dead pets which include fish, squirrels, cats and a fresh-water shrimp called Caesar that was accidentally boiled to death when she put the fish bowl in the sun.

  Character 1 buys a black and white fish because it doesn’t look real. He thinks it looks spirited and pixelated and the man in the shop says that’s because of its spots. Character 1 believes it would be perfect for the empty fishbowl in Character 2’s room.

  Character 2 comes home and finds that her lucky bamboo has died. It has rotted into a brown mush and attracted a steady line of red ants. She thinks of all the things that she has named, fed, sang to and stapled into her memory.

  Character 1 sits outside Character 2’s bedroom door, watching two jumping spiders spar on the wall. He isn’t sure why she was crying but she isn’t anymore. She promises to come out and he promises to bring her a plate of fried noodles. When he gets back in the car he sees the black and white fish staring in mute surprise at the sky.

  I almost wore short sleeves today. It was perfect weather for lemon yellow and green apple, but the sun kept lighting up the scars that run along the inside of my forearm like puckered rivers. They are a tattooed testament to my own laws of physics; a body under immense pressure seeks release through the nearest available wrists. Results may vary—in case of failure, avoid short sleeves.

  •

  Mrs. Krishnan may have worn short sleeves once, possibly at a friend’s birthday when she was in college. She may have powdered her arms but not waxed them. She may have worn a full-length skirt to make up for the inadequacies of her sleeves.

  There is a good chance she did not have any scars.

  •

  Mrs. Krishnan should be sold in little plastic vials at ten rupees a tablet. She is better than Spirulina. She’s like super-charged carrots and spinach without the bother of carrots and spinach. She opens the lungs, revitalizes the brain and stimulates blood flow to the heart. No ingestion necessary. Even if you are wasted and useless at the ripe old age of twenty-four, Mrs. Krishnan will make you feel salvageable.

  Your sleeves might even go up inadvertently.

  •

  Mrs. Krishnan is wearing a blue sari today. She looks like she has draped the sea over her shoulder and I tell her so. A black handbag hangs from her arm like a dead crow but I decide not to tell her that. She doesn’t seem very talkative today.

  Mrs. Krishnan has a son in the States and a husband who wants to take her out for dinner tonight, which Mrs. Krishnan thinks is silly—she tells me this as she combs my hair. She says I should know better than to go out in public looking like a scarecrow. She doubts that I even oil my hair. Then she suddenly wonders if I wash my hair at all.

  I guess she is talkative today.

  •

  My hair is in a tiny braid, my hands are neatly folded on my lap and Mrs. Krishnan is very pleased. She does not tell me I look beautiful because Mrs. Krishnan does not lie—she just says it is good. It inspires her to muse on my future prospects. With such a neatly combed head and well-behaved hands I could resume my studies. Or I could find myself a job and start making some money. Or if I wanted, I could find a nice man and settle down. Mrs. Krishnan is sure that I will find someone though she is not sure where. We both agree we will not find him here.

  •

  Time always tosses me out before I am ready to go. I am sure I just got here and already I am outside, watching an aggressive bank of dark clouds crowd over the setting sun. I know it will be a damp, gloomy day tomorrow, void of any short sleeve conflicts.

  The high point will come at 3:45 p.m. when I will meet Mrs. Krishnan. She will hold my hand and tell me about her son in the States and her husband who wants to take her out to dinner that evening, which she thinks is silly. She will comb my hair and tell me to keep my hands still. Then she will say that I can resume my studies, find a job or find a man—I can do whatever I want.

  I look at the sky and realize I have no idea what tomorrow will be like. There is every chance of it clearing up into another short sleeves day.

  When Aparna Srinivasan’s wedding invitation arrived, Kalai threw it out because she couldn’t really remember who Aparna Srinivasan was. Shivani, on the other hand, pinned it to her soft-board at work, took out a piece of paper and began to map out everything she knew about Aparna Srinivasan’s existence. She used purple for things she knew had happened and red for things she thought would happen. She called Kalai every half hour to report on her progress.

  “She ate bread with curd, remember? And garlic pickle. Bread, curd, garlic pickle, I’m surprised she didn’t kill herself. Girls like that always kill themselves, it’s like having three nipples.”

  “Who has three nipples?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Srinivasan, da. College Srinivasan. We should go see her. Don’t you want to see her?”

  “I’m not sure. Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.”

  Kalai spent the rest of the afternoon listening to her hands. The heat was making them swell up; she could hear millions of dead seeds and dried tubers jostling against her bones and skin. She fell asleep in her chair and dreamed her hands were huge balloons. They carried her over ships filled with sailors who whistled at her and said hey girliegirlie. She tried to whistle back but ended up spitting at them. The sailors started spitting back at her and Kalai wished she had winked at them instead.

  •

  Kalai decided to join Shivani on her visit because she had nothing better to do. Aparna’s house was simmering under the stress of impending nuptials. The small town relatives were seated in the kitchen cutting vegetables while the American relatives were sleeping with their socks on in an air-conditioned room. Aparna’s room was dark and forgotten, covered with posters of babies emerging from cabbages or peeping out of watering cans. All of the faces had been plastered over with pictures of leafy green vegetables and light bulbs.

  “I feel like dying,” sobbed Aparna.

  “You’re what?” said Kalai.

  For some reason Aparna was whispering and Kalai couldn’t follow a word she was saying.

 
“Isn’t this the guy you were going out with?” said Shivani.

  “So? What difference does that make?” whispered Aparna.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Shivani. “That’s what I wrote down.”

  “I feel like if I go through with this I will die and nobody will know about it. My body will keep moving but I’ll be dead and nobody will know. Maybe it won’t matter. Maybe that’s the whole point.”

  “Why are we whispering,” said Kalai. “Is it because the lights are off?”

  “I was thinking of Damayanthi,” whispered Aparna, furiously cracking her knuckles. “We spent the entire study holidays in final year together, the whole month. I don’t understand how you can spend an entire month with someone and then that’s it. Explain to me how that happens.”

  “Who’s Damayanthi?” said Kalai.

  “That American girl, she kept saying her name was Damn-My-Aunty, remember?” said Shivani. “She was from Idaho. Iowa. Something with ‘I’.”

  Aparna opened her mouth in a silent sob; for a second she seemed suspended in time. Then Shivani tapped her on the shoulder.

  “You have a pen I could borrow? Or a pencil?”

  “What for?” said Aparna.

  “I have to write this down.”

  “You’re writing this down?”

  “Or maybe you have a red colouring pencil? Or crayon?” said Shivani unfolding her chart.

  “You’re writing this down?” Aparna said again. She seemed to have said it louder this time and Kalai wondered if something was going to happen. She didn’t feel prepared for anything violent and suddenly wished she hadn’t come.

  “How about a red felt pen?” said Aparna. “I have one that smells like cherries.”

  “Oh Damn-My-Aunty!” said Kalai, nodding her head. “Big, square girl. Looked like a box. Yes, I remember her now.”