Salt-water stories of the monsoon,
That sometimes break off and sometimes trail away leaving dark, reddish-brown smudges of wet earth like half-moons of soft skin, almost-falling beneath the irises.
And cork screw snails. With painted lips and curly eye lashes. That we drew on the mailbox.
Earth worm families, earthworm baba, and earth worm mama, and earth worm you and earthworm me. Happily unaware of our earthworm-y existance. In a red mailbox.
Nana abu used to call us in after a while, and when we didn't comply, he would complain to mama about us later. I liked running in after some thirty minutes in the rain and eating wet kish-mish off the palm of his hand. He would wash it for us, carefully and meticulously. I loved going into the kitchen, all wet and dripping from the rain, my kiddie shorts and Tom-n-Jerry T-shirt making cartoon-shaped wet patches on the floor.
I liked watching myself in the water.
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The woman with her hand in the bag of salt, squeezes her fist tightly, clenching and unclenching the tiny thoughts whizzing in her head. Thin, precisely-cut ribbons of sunlight slice through the pale green blinds on her window, and leftover coffee dries in a cup on a white table.
She's been standing and looking at the other woman for a long time now. This other woman sometimes laughs, sometimes mocks and sometimes does nothing. The woman-with-her-fist-in-salt, sometimes has an irritatingly manic desire to
be this other woman.
To be a face alone.
The wind chime suddenely picks up the sound of moving air, and she hears the front door open.
Five minutes.
She carefully removes her hand from the bag of salt. She considers licking off the last few pesky
bits of salt from her fingers but decided against it in favour of non-stick touching qualities. Touching and non-sticking. They all like to be touched. No sticking, though.
She takes one last, hesitant look at the other woman, uncertain and a little lost. And distracted.
The other woman blinks at her. And suddenely smiles.
She turns the mirror over.
Old habits dies hard. Mirrors. Cartoon-shaped patches of water. Mirrors. Water. Mirrors. Water.
And smoke. Lots of it.
