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Tis the cured Writer's Block! I've recently come to finish a short story I had planned out last year but I never finished it cause I had NO idea how to finish
So then it came to me. BITTERSWEET!
And I have my muse, the one and only, JAKUN to thank!
Well at any rate, I'll post it up in parts then =D
And here's part 1 ...
The Veenai
by Ashvini Rajah
The crashing sounds continued. Sweat trickled off Jani’s forehead, splashing onto the floor, her arms working up a storm. The screams echoed through the night…
*
And suddenly, she was 12 again. The rapping sounds on her door woke her up. And if that didn’t, the slaps would.
“Get up, you lazy good-for-nothing idiot!”
And she would get up too. One might wince or yell back. But she never did. She would get up, take those slaps and head right on to the bathroom. She might have cowered a bit or flinched -- those slaps could get painful sometimes. Maybe they always were. But one tends to get a little numb over time.
She would comb her hair into a rigid ponytail. Messy hair was never allowed. With a dab of hair cream in her hand, she’d pat all those strands right into place. She’d put on her glasses, her thick, shell-rimmed glasses. On came those long sleeved tops. She hated them, they made her skin itch. And it was hot, too hot to wear them. Yet, she couldn’t afford to show skin.
“Hurry up Jani! Make it quick. No breakfast otherwise,”
Her skin itched.
And it tingled too. The slap still stayed on her skin today -- a red mark on her face that she’d have to make up a clever story about, for the kids at school to fall for.
She stared at the calendar. July 15th was today
She was 12 today.
*
The screams echoed on. She could hear distant noise in the background, the sounds of people stirring. Soon they all would come. But did it matter? Not right now. She was nearly done. She kept her strength going and lifted the instrument once more. She was the powerful one for once.
A howl followed.
And she couldn’t care less.
*
And now she was five and in kindergarten.
“Now who wants to go on a field trip to the zoo?” Miss Alice had said it with such enthusiasm, she couldn’t help but smile at the mere memory of it.
She had grabbed the permission form for the trip – a meaningless act. For when she got home…
“No,”
She should have known that the woman would have been firm. Yet, she had to try.
“But why??” whined Jani. It was the last time she ever did whine.
SMACK!
She fell to the floor, blinking bewilderedly at the tall and elegant woman in front of her.
“What did you get for your exam last week?”
Jani struggled to recall. All she remembered was colouring the number of apples that were indicated by the side of that question. She had used pink, but it didn’t really matter. As long as she got the number right.
“98,” Jani had said, softly.
The glare the woman shot at her pierced right into her.
“Out of…?” said the woman, slowly.
She blinked again.
“100,”
Silence ensued.
“Where did those 2 marks go to?” rasped the woman.
Jani couldn’t speak. All she knew was that she was the highest in the class. And after a few seconds of staring at the floor, she said so.
SMACK!
“It’s not a 100,” said the woman, pulling her roughly to her feet. “You didn’t get 100. You can’t go. If you’d had gotten 100%, I might have thought about it. So take this back and you get your 100%. We’ll think about it then,”
And because she believed that she had done wrong, she took the slip and went up to her room.
And she then tore that slip into pieces.
*
Someone was bound to come. Even the neighbours were beginning to stir. She stopped for a moment, still holding the instrument. Red, red was all she saw. Everything was red. As red as the kumkum by the altar. She stopped for a moment to stare at the portrait of
She smiled slowly.
A whimper distracted her.
Slowly, she lifted the instrument again and brought it back down with a crash.
*
She was 14.
“Your daughter is a remarkable student, Mrs Ganesh,” Mrs Pang had said. “Top of the class, every semester, every year, perfect marks. It’s almost impossible to be this perfect,” Mrs Pang had smiled generously at both Jani and that woman. Jani could only look down at her lap. She wasn’t deserving of such a smile.
“Yes, she is” Mrs Ganesh had smiled back, showing off her perfect white teeth while patting Jani’s head. They were all in place. Just like her hair, just like how her earrings matched her chain and how the accessories in turn matched her blouse. Her impressively good looks was further enhanced by a ravishing figure that stood out more in a trim pencil skirt and high-necked pinstriped white-collared shirt. Her heels clicked in rhythm as she had walked through the school gates and the older boys in higher forms who never did spare a glance at Jani would ogle and whistle at Mrs Ganesh. Almond-eyes, a milky complexion, she was just as everything on her was.
Perfect.
She was stroking Jani’s coarse hair now. It was a moment to remember, affection meant for the masses. She was a good proud mother. She loved her daughter. She loved all her daughter did.
It was perfect.
“Though there seems to be an anomaly right here…”
Mrs Ganesh’s words trailed off as Jani’s heart sank so low -- she swore she could hear a thud from when it hit the ground.
“Oh?” Mrs Pang reached out for her glasses and perched them on that flat bridge of a nose that held on to them pitifully. She stared intently at the report card in front of her. The A-grades stood out a dime a dozen; never had a student achieved such perfection. Jani was doing the school proud. The school never had produced excellent students, the general population of the students coming from the home nearby. Jani was a gem amongst the lot here.
Of course, Jani didn’t see all that. All she saw was the anomaly.
There was a B for PE.
Mrs Pang, unknowing, innocent, she saw perfection. But Jani was dreading that day the whole week already. Despite the A-grades, despite everything she had worked for…
She just couldn’t get an A in PE.
Jani looked at Mrs Ganesh quickly. Sure enough, Mrs Ganesh had spotted it and was examining it.
“Ah, don’t worry about that one lah,” Mrs Pang smiled again, brushing Mrs Ganesh off. “Everything else is ok, PE not so important. She’ll definitely get an award for top student. Her other capabilities are outshining her,”
Those words fell on deaf ears.
As they exited the school gates, with several schoolmates congratulating her on her success, Jani could only stare ahead and wish they were headed anywhere else but home…
There's another half I'll put up in a bit. Read, review and please please PLEASE comment! There's so much room for improvement but I can't see it yet, I need your objective third-eye views on it, grammar mistakes, punctuation, story flow etc.
COMMENT NOW!
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