short story (jus cos i never got over my first one!)

THE SOUND OF MEMORY

I remember lying against my mother – in her arms, on her stomach. Her heart beats very regularly, comfortably; sometimes I can hear the fluid moving through her body, down her stomach. I was amused, wondering.

Funny how some impressions stay etched on your mind, intact, vivid, fresh. It may not be the significant ones. But little things that just seem to catch your mind momentarily. One experiences life through these odd, inconsequential moments, I think. Like the sound of a fan, the clinging of a wet pen tip to the paper, words in the air, the feeling of a smile... Words in the air…

I remember growing up. It was a certain point in time, a moment when I realized that I was growing up. That something new was beginning. We were playing out on the sand in school at lunchtime. It was a very warm day, not unusually, and the sand was warm too, and dry. It left a layer of dust on our hands. Fine dust that was not easily wiped away. The play became more energetic and as we ran after each other we were getting more sweaty and, no doubt, grimy as well although we couldn’t have seen it. We were absorbed in the game. It had taken us a little distance from where we started. We had come near the hostel and there was a tap fixed on the wall not too far off. It was a beautiful place, this. Clustering pink bougainvilleas hung all over the cracked wall. It was not a very high wall but thick and ancient.

It did not take long for the hosepipe that was attached to the spout to attract our wandering attention, spoiling as we were for something to do. It lay white and coiled on the grey cement and the sun made it gleam with added fervour. It was a natural instinct we obeyed then when some friends and I picked it up and turned on the water full force. We shrieked as we sprayed water on each other; playing with the jets of water, making them dance between the dodging girls, directing the briny water straight at laughing faces – playing, yelling, laughing high and loud.

At twelve and thirteen, some of us were big girls. I was big too but fast thinning. “Angular, awkward” – that is what they call most girls of that age in books. I may have been angular. I do not know. But certainly none of us were really awkward. It was not precisely “grace” we had either but “ease”. That bounding, thoughtless, active ease of children. Children. Many of us were still in our childhood. And as we monkeyed around, I don’t see how people could have thought otherwise.

The riot did not last for much over two minutes. We had just enough time to close the tap and partly put the hosepipe back before the approaching teacher had covered the playground and stood within a few feet of the bunch of dishevelled, giggling girls. Stern-faced. Strait-laced. Unbending, she seemed. She led us to the classroom. We could scarcely keep up with her angry pace, despite the energy simmering in us. Unsure, we walked to our desks without a syllable. But I think we said a great deal more in the furious glances we telegraphed in all directions in that large classroom.

Apparently – we had not even noticed – a few boys on the street had peeked over the low wall. We were not soaked. A few of us were hardly wet. I had little water on me except on my forearms for it had taken me some time to renounce my early monopoly of the hosepipe. It was the potential danger we had been blind to that worried her, she said. But that was not the worst of our faux-pas, that afternoon. We had forayed into protected territory, and had been inconsiderate in the bargain. We had left more water on the ground than on ourselves. And this at a time when there was a scarcity in the city and the girls in the hostel were trying to conserve the precious little they had. It had been a delightful sensation – flopping around in water on the warm cement. But she was right. And the knowledge of it killed the excitement of breaking rules. Words and phrases washed around me – “Ashamed of yourselves. More responsibility. Disappointed. Grow up” She punctuated her speech with emphatic bangs of her wooden ruler on the table. I was not truly listening, although I was a little ashamed. I stared determinedly at the pot-holed wood of my desk.

I looked up when another teacher entered. She had something to tell us as well. “This one” – as her nickname seems to have been, judging from the whispers I hear from decades ago – “she is nice, kind”. I remember she scolded less, and twinkled more. She looked amused. She told us we had to be more careful. Think more. “You must learn to look further than now. Learn not to live only to enjoy the present moment.” But oh! I wish she had not said that. I wish instead she had told that wide-eyed group of thirty girls or more “Car pe Diem”. It would have made sense now. For at times it almost seems like things have fallen obediently into the pattern of her counsel.

Then she said something else. Something that did not impact me then as it did later. Either I had heard the words and they had stunned my comprehension, or they had not yet completely penetrated my consciousness – quite probably my reaction was exaggerated, much like the whole situation, but I know I did not hear anything else after that for a long while. I remember the blue out the wide and sturdy black windows turning to grey. My neighbour spills a bit of ink on herself. The bell rings for longer than usual. A final clatter of ‘byes and packing books. The last thing I observe before I leave is the colourfully decorated quote at the head of the blackboard. “Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” I have worked out its meaning before, but just now I am not sure. I know I will understand; but I cannot try at this moment. I am too full – of what, I do not know.

I remember I was relatively silent for the latter part of the day. I was sadder too. I did my homework, ate my dinner. Then at night, as I lay against my mother’s side – and this, this is the most vivid, real part of that day – the sound of the teacher’s words suddenly hit my thoughts. “You have the rest of your life before you.” And I lay grappling with the sense of them. It appeared as if they had been suspended in the heavy atmosphere of the evening waiting to cut through my dimness with startling keenness. “The rest.” So a part was gone? Over? The sadness threatened to choke me – and then, as unexpectedly as it came, it left. Displaced by other words. Words that I picked from the air. Words I remembered reading. Displaced by vague hope. “Humble yourselves like this child...” and “… put away childish things.” Inexplicably, I was as quiet inside as I had been outwardly through the day – and I fell asleep to the sound of my mother’s regular breathing.