Our Black Shadows

The crimplene of the rug feels warm underneath and soft on my bare feet. I waste two steps, both of my legs squandering one each, on the aaaasame position just to feel the calico of the fabric a little more. It is after two years and twenty six days that I have conceded with the thought of coming to wish Josh on his birthday. Rogan couldn’t have been any more sarcastic than he had been the whole way down the Skyline Bridge Avenue with me. “Ivy, how have you been? We haven’t seen you in a long time. I like your poncho. Who got you that?”, aunt Manorama speaks, seeking to instigate a conversation with me. In a moment, I am the cynosure at the corner of the living room. “I…I was just…Um… Nothing mu – ”, I try saying something that Rogan, my father, interrupts me as we all sit down on my aunt’s chesterfields. “She is somewhat gauche, not gregarious. Let alone bother the world outside, isn’t it Ivy?” comes Rogan’s yet another blows of sarcasm. I sit down next to Aklin, my step brother. He grabs a fanzine from the ottoman that stands across the sofa and dives into the section of rock bands. A jiffy passes us by before he pushes his finger into the left sleeve that my mom stitched into my bandeau. He tucks at my sleeve for a mention of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson’s reception of an accolade at a garish ceremony for having been the worst duo in Twilight.

He hides a grin of lampoonery. I reach for the page of the magazine that aunt Manorama comes at me again. I almost look elsewhere to evince my insipid participation in the dialogue that has appeared far from my fancy from the start. “Ivy, you didn’t tell me. Your poncho – who bought you that?” “My mother did.”, I respond, being totally strict with only what I am supposed to answer. “I see. It looks nice.”, she compliments, leaning against the door jamb of her dining hall that comes to the right of her living space. “Thank you so much.”, I say, sitting up straight and smiling vivaciously. “Yeah, I really like the fabric of your duffel coat. But there is a flaw in it. It is so damn visible that I cannot help but admit it. You see, the cerise shade of the coat matches the black of your trews, not the black of your skin.” I hold my body right where I sit, at the corner of her couch and attached to the corduroy of the upholstery of it. I do not flinch, but broaden my smile a little as I adjust myself crabwise. I cannot deny the propensity of a certain but not unacquainted kind that is incited in me. I have sensed it in all my consciousness to know it in no better way, and can thus, sense it just as well right now, the pain being nothing but a ditto. Aklin continues to flip the pages of the magazine. I look at him for recourse. There’s no way I cannot have put my agony on display by actually looking elsewhere this time.

Perhaps, she misreads it and comes up with yet another blow. “You could have put on something light you know, like baby pink or yellow…ah! don’t go with yellow. You will be such a contrast against the bright hue that yellow is. Pink will do. Surely it will. I am confident.” I closely whisper to Aklin, “What did you find? Any other piece of news?” He nods his head in negation and doesn’t look up. I inhale deeply and can feel the warm air seep inside from the cold ambience that encompasses me. I gaze around to find a few miniature toys, all carved in sylvan wood. I pick up a small tortoise whose tiny tail can move. It does not seem anywhere more exciting an entity, but I prefer the tastelessness to the indignation. “Ivy, will you get up from there and come sit here? Here chap, come on. I want to show you all something.”, she says, patting a solitary chair next to the door she now pulls away from. I do not move, but keep my smile on. “Just keep smiling. You will soon be leaving. It will be just fine. The Chevrolet is just a few minutes away when and where you can finally cry”, I tell myself inside my head. My fingers develop a smear of the golden brown tinge of the hue from the wooden work that I have started to rub with vigor and bereft of any cognizance for that action all that while. “Ivy! How dare you be so insolent! Didn’t you hear what your aunt just asked for? Obey right now. Get up and leave that place. Go sit next to her.”, clobbers the remnants of my strength the rebuke that Rogan hurls at me. Aklin raises his head and looks nowhere in particular.

I heed to a sudden desire of asking him to make up an excuse and take me out on a walk around the house. No wonder he doesn’t hear that because I do not say anything. “Come here dear.”, aunt Manorama iterates emphatically. I stand up and make my way from in between the cascade of calves of her ménage. I walk past all of them even when I am losing my sobriety. I recall my mother’s name as I tread forward, crushing my feet into the patina of her floor just to consume more time. But abruptly, Rogan is in no rush unlike like my system that is about to be rendered derelict in a stampede. But it will soon quiet down somewhere as soon as I let my tears fall in the legroom of his Chevrolet and lose them all right there, never to find them again. Eventually, I accede to my aunt’s demand as I take the seat. She doesn’t know that I have to jeopardize my heart to keep hers. She walks across me and puts on the switch of a plain bulb that is lit up right above my head. Her feet revert. They occupy a new position right in front of me.

“See, I told you. She is such a contrast in these colors. Dear you look too black. Take off your duffel coat. Oh, my fault! Let it be; the light won’t find any better place to shine on. God! You look repulsive now. You have grown so black Ivy. I can easily figure out that you have grown darker than the last time I saw you. You complement the sky tonight. Ivy, listen to me. That color doesn’t have to stay there. Wash your face regularly and use something to scrub your face with. Why don’t you switch to some skincare commodities? You know you can use some help. You were fairer the previous time. Why is that color still there?”, she asks, her head careening along the left of her posture. Every ounce of gravity falls short upfront my desire to look at her eyes right then. I stare straight into them, not with intrepidity, but my tacit answer that I have no knowledge of the reason why. I never knew it. And try as I might, I never found the reason why.