strangedaze

Parvati’s eyes, unlike my own, are wide like saucers, taking in everything and nothing at once, bearing a striking similarity to the eyes of the western girls visiting from abroad, the ones that often bring their husbands around our block, looking for fresh fruit, vegetables, or authentic Thai souvenirs. From time to time I notice tiny scars, no thicker than the edge of a fingernail, stretching across her eyelids, especially when she blushes. Though her eyes are reminiscent of ‘back home’, her chocolate-brown body and ink-black hair possess an air of exoticism that, when combined with ample breasts that have always seemed excessive for her still-girlish body of fourteen years, consistently prove irresistible to the foreign men who venture out into the night, looking to pay for pleasure and eager to see with Thai girls live up to their reputation.

My sister’s beauty has always been our mother’s chief concern and source of income; it is not out of the ordinary for the two of them to spend entire afternoons readying my sister for a night’s work, while I earn enough spare change for dinner by polishing shoes and running small errands for the grocer. With no father to contribute to the family income, all of us must do our part to make rent, an exorbitant sum given the quality of our ramshack hut – four concrete walls separated into three rooms by wooden planks.

Mother had been in the business of sex herself for years and years, until varicose veins and hairy moles rendered her unappealing to visiting American men. She dictates prices to my sister while I swat flies. One night, five dollars American, with condom. One night, seven dollars American, no condom. Most choose the latter, preferring the authenticity of gruff sexual encounters to the gamut of health concerns that accompany unprotected sex. Sometimes I fall asleep listening to my sister moaning in the back of our hut, the only room in the place furnished with a boxspring bed.

Months and months ago, Parvati, tears crawling like ticks down her cheeks, shows mother her belly, who pokes and prods with nimble fingers, soft as gravel. My dear sister is pregnant.

“S’okay, these things happen,” mother tells her, rubbing her fuzzy chin. “Come come,” she pulls me by the hand from my spot in the corner. “Come help your sister.”

Helping my sister consists of holding her arms and legs down while mother stands on her belly, hoping to kill the baby growing inside. Then she kicks. Then stomps. Parvati groans, struggles, then goes limp when it is over. Mother wipes sweat from her brow and turns to me. “Now go ask the grocer if you can run errands for him today. Go go, we have to eat, you know.”

Parvati continued making money for weeks until one day, when mother was out, she began to feel the contents of her stomach churning.

“Brother,” she cries out and at once I am at her side. “It’s coming!”

Though I am only seven at the time, I assist in my brother’s birth, easing him out of my sister as she bites down upon the dirty rag that she instructed me to wrap around her face to muffle her cries. First a head, the size of a fist, then a neck, four limp appendages and the umbilical cord, which must be cut with a stone. The mess spills into my hands. Relief explodes inside as it takes its first weak, but still wonderfully hope-instilling breath.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” she gasps, spitting out a mouthful of cloth.

I use my thumbs to spread its tiny legs. “A boy,” I say, smiling. “A beautiful baby boy.”

She’s laughing now, softly with whatever breath is left in her body, and I pass her newborn son into her arms. She brings him tightly into the sweaty crevice between her swollen breasts, cooing, “baby-ji, baby-ji,” into his little ears.

She instructs me to make ready the washing chest, jammed full of tattered cotton, and I do so, digging a small cloth hole with my hands for the baby. Too exhausted to stand, she hands him to me, and I in turn transfer him to the chest just as the footsteps of our mother are heard stomping into the hut. I gently shut the washing chest’s lid, leaving a small space for air to get through. The baby, evidently sensing the impending danger, remains quiet.

“New dress,” mother says, bursting through the door with a lime green length of linen draped over her arm. “Still sick? Has it come?” She notices the sticky dampness of the expelled placenta on the bed sheets and mistakes it for the aborted baby. The heavy lines of her face crease like cured leather, dried lips forming into a smile as she nonchalantly pulls the sheets off of the bed in one strong motion, nearly pulling my sister off with them, and bundles them together. “Good good, back to supporting your family soon,” mother exclaims, tossing the soiled-sheet bundle absently into the washing-chest, not bothering to look down. “Ramdeep,” she turns to me, “run to the grocers and buy some mango and chutney for your sister. She’ll need energy these next few days. After that, busy busy.”

Wrinkled red paper is stuffed into my hand and I leave hesitantly, glancing back at my sister, who despite it all is smiling, thin lips stretching from western eye to western eye. When I return mother is gone out on business and Parvati is holding her child and rocking it back and forth, its bald brown head tucked under her chin and smile-dimpled cheeks. She wears the same expression as before, one of bright-eyed hope.

“When I hold him in my hands, brother, nothing matters, nothing at all.”

The words carry the weight of a thousand paper cuts, shredding first my ears then the lining of my stomach, but I return her smile and gently touch her thigh, noting, but afraid to tell her, that her child hasn’t moved since I entered the room.

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His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

eggo

Hey SD,

A beautifully ugly story. Hope pervades this story. I, as a reader looked for it in each corner for it as I read and it was elusive. Brutallly real, while still a bit dreamlike.

You would flash a little hope in front of us, before snatching it away. You use your craft to taunt the reader and I liked that, a little cold water on that warm comfy spot.

one note,

This would be his nephew, not his brother. I would chalk it up to the boy's ignorance, but he sounds anything but.

Bizarre that I would read hope here, but I am ever the optimist. I always check the gutter for coins.

Thanks for the read

Graff

That was wonderfully written strangedaze. Not only was the story realistic, the characters and emotions were as well.

I read it twice, and the second time, you almost got me to cry! I prevailed, but wouldn't risk reading it a third time.

I thought the story was beautiful, and I can think of nothing bad about it. Great stuff, keep it up!

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"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." -- William Strunk Jr.

gohn67

Hey Strangedaze,
I could go on and on about how good this story is. This was very good. Like usual your description and similes are very exact and detailed, and also originally written.

I think this is the best piece that I have read from you. Blew me away. You got me from the first sentence.

I'm not sure I read hope in this story though. The baby's dead. And she's back to being a prositute, but I guess at least they can get their income started again.

Awesome Story.

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Haruka

Very raw, in the good sense of the word.

I normally don't like angst or drama or any of those 'sad' oriented stories because writers tend to put to much emphasis on that emotion only, but you've managed to do it in a subtle way that comes natural to the reader, am I making any sense?

Anyway, I loved this story. I hope to see more ^^

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BookLover

The story was very moving, strangedaze. Well written. As gohn pointed out, the similies are original.

Good work. Hope to see more from you.

-S

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strangedaze

Wow,

You guys rock!

Eggo, I think that there is a sort of hope in this, in a Hubert Selby sort of way. Even though he wrote incredibly disturbing stories about insanity and drug addiction, he maintained that his pieces were about hope at their very core. I was actually toying a bit with being a bit less surreal than I usually am, more subtle in a magic-realism kind of way. Glad it worked for you Sorry I've been missing your pieces, friend, I'll check them out as soon as I can

Graff, high praise! When something said and, dare I say, angsty comes out of the woodwork, beauty is tough to do, and if you say that I've done it, then I'm absolutely content

Gohn, yeah, I suppose hope sort of dies, but I guess she can keep living he fantasy with the dead baby, right? Sort of a Rose for Emily thing, if you've ever read it. You've read a lot of my stuff and I've always maintained that you're only as good as the last thing you've written, so I'm elated that you think that this is my best. Thanks for the compliments!

Haruka, oh, tell me about it. Angst and emotion have to be some subtley or not done at all. I know I teetered on that and I'm glad it met your approval. Thank you for your support and for reading!

Sanyuja, originality is something I always strive for, in everything I write, so you just handed me the biggest compliment ever!


Everyone, thanks again for taking the time to read and comment! I'll try my very best to look at your pieces and leave comments of my own.

Cheers!

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His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

Xonia

This story was beautiful. Simply, yet amazingly beautiful.

I can say just one thing: keep writing please...

Chris Miller

Hey strangedaze,

Just wanted to get my 2 cents in and say I thought this was a little different for you. The style was more generic but still very stong. There was no humour in it, as none was appropriate. I really enjoyed it.

I found the broken "you-me-baby-jig-jig-right-now sort of broken English" an odd choice, since I assume the mother is speaking to her kids in Thai. I have to place the source/translation of it on the narrator. Just an observastion. It works to develop the mother's shallow wicked selfish character though. It just made me wonder...

This sentence doesn't make sense, although it is obvious what you intended. I would write:
"Most choose the latter, the authenticity of gruff sexual encounters trumping respect for the gamut of health concerns accompanying unprotected sex."

Anyway, great work, powerful read.


PS.

Good eye on the "brother" / "nephew" thing eggo. I'd have missed that.

What happened to stopping sniffing glue strangedaze? Have you taken it up again?

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Wyndstar

This was a bit of a hard read for me; I've been there and seen this sort of thing happen all too often. A lot of times, the young mother dies from this sort of 'removal'. Its an awful situation but there's very little that can be done to stop it. Its authenticity was what made it hard. Congratulations for being able to convey that, especially if you haven't physically been there.

As to the mixed language Chris mentioned, that is actually very common. You can hear them in the streets speaking broken english and Thai all the time from contact with so many foreigners. Its habit.

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Old enough to know better, young enough to think I can still get away with it.

strangedaze

Xonia, many thanks.

Chris, as usual, great to hear from you. Eggo has a sharp eye, definately, and reading through this the beginning could use some touch ups. I reread that sentence you pointed out and, of course, your suggestion makes perfect sense. I will implement it in future drafts. As for glue, I'm still off it; I just thought I'd tip my hat to Douglas Coupland for awhile.

Wyndstar, I've never been but I've seen some pretty graphic movies. Our world can be a very sick place indeed. Thank you for your comments.

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His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

selina kyle

Oh wow...that was just, astonishing. Painfully beautiful.

Loki

Beautiful as always.

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strangedaze

Wow - thank you all for the tremendous compliments!

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His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

ms. vodka

excellent.

absolutely excellent and gut wrenching. i was actually grimacing as i read it... and i couldn't stop reading... wondering if the baby was going to be okay. oh boy. i still feel sort of sick.

one thing:

is 'with' in this sentence supposed to be if?

and this:

i think the entire thing would read a bit more smoothly if you were consistant with the past tense you begin with in the first sentence.

but it's truly brilliant, drew.

your writing skill continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and i'm continuously astounded by your imagination, and slightly jealous.

your,
v.