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Reflections

Reflections

These moments, they flash back.
•••

April 22, 1988.

With arms looped for a pillow, I lay face up catching my breath, it was the first time I'd done that in three months. A bone snapped as I shifted for a comfortable position, my frame was unaccustomed to my quarter an inch of mattress. We, as I'd come to learn, weren't built for comfort, we were the resilience of steel, bound to be molded by the furnace heat they smoldered us in.

I was however worn to my bone today, after my evening wash I'd wrung my green camo trousers and aligned the edges of my dry shirt readying for the morn. I shut my eyes, trying to think less about the throbbing on my left foot, a piece of hot coal had skipped a swing from my old iron press dhobi. I was badly scorched but knew better than to ask any corporal for help. Only wimps did that and I'm no sissy, papa said I bear his immutable genes and by god I did!

I shifted once again. An awful smell tingled my nostrils, nausea rising up my gut, I squirmed covering my mouth. My roommate had broken wind amidst her heavy snoring and even if she were awake, she would never admit to it. But then again, those left over boiled eggs and damned beans were such an awful dinner combo.

"Hey, hey Dinah, are you asleep?"
"I'm trying to Laura," I groggily mumbled back.
"I swear Amina is out to kill us with her fart bombs. Don't you think?" She grumbled facing me.
"I know." She sighed.
"Sometimes I fear for her siblings namaz with her. Can you imagine them prostrating behind her butt? And then boom! An explosion, my, my..."

"That'd be tragic," I said as Amina rolled on to her stomach, scratching her back. "Bismillah," she lazily mumbled, her dreamy grunts noisier than usual.

"Tsk, tsk, I never once thought pretty girls with silky hair were capable of such cataclysmic flatus." Laura huffed. The distasteful smell assailed our cubicle.

"What are you doing? You'll get us in trouble Lau, go back to bed." I warned deafened ears.

"I'm sorry dear, today we have to sleep with the window open or so help us god we'll wake at two with tight tummies from all the bloating." She was right, I refrained from arguing despite the little window being adjacent to my upper bunk.

"Ouch! You could've just asked me to."
"I barely touched you," Laura refuted, she'd troubled my foot and it tingled with excruciating pain.

"Well, I got burnt during laundry Lau, that should count."

"Oh my, I'm sorry Eddy, is it swollen? Oh god, how on earth will you get it into your clunky boot tomorrow?" I tried not to roll my eyes over her remarks, they were everything but reassuring.

"I can hear feet shuffling about from Bristol barracks. You best get back!" I reiterated. She hastily climbed onto her bed breathing heavily, this was always her struggle for the oversized midget my friend claimed to be. "Darn it!  I swear this hellhole will be the death of us!" She cussed in not more than a whisper when the sound of Trina's jingling keys faded down the hallway.

I heaved. If she was caught, our entire cubicle would be subjected to some sort of gruesome punishment. I wasn't going to have any of it, not with my throbbing foot! My teeth chattered from the frigidity encircling my environ, I rubbed off the cold from my left earlobe and quickly covered beneath the light bedding. I couldn't sleep, not with all the ache or the snoring and the buzzing mosquitoes. Laura quietly drifted into slumberland, she didn't do well with cop confrontations. I stirred, rustling my sheets, squeaking the bedsprings beneath my weight, wavering, wondering about my day, about the morrow and suddenly, a wave of realization hit me.

It was the twenty second day of the fourth month, the day mama always painted as both terrible and Godsped. She could have had me on the road to hospital for all I know, she'd been forced to leave my elder siblings and papa was out of town working. "Tough, tough were the days in '69 my Chia, we had little to nothing, and well, I was procreating. Papa wanted that." Mama would mutter lowly, a cynic undertone traced from her wordings.

When I turned seven, I caught her frown after those very words, she waved her hand dismally and gave me some additional chores, none that I minded, I was her devoted child. That very day my elder brothers were ploughing the fields, they didn't remember, nobody ever did, not with how crowded our homestead was. Except, I knew all of theirs, extended gestures, I was delicate like that, lived to have them happy, love them, see them glad, blooming, thriving. I was a good sibling.

Since then, I had made peace with how mundane my 'special day' was, not that we had enough to celebrate with anyway. I sighed, I terribly missed my charismatic small sister not so much my brother Walt who's infamous smack to the nape of my neck brought headaches. Ziah would grin, acclaiming his proficiency and Dorian would always insist I get over my melodrama, mama after all didn't like it when we fussed. I'd come to believe not all children were blessings, some were a curse. Maybe, I was Mama's. Perhaps all that was for the prison of today, the seasons I long forgot, the reason I'm forlorn, here, in this dump.

Laura's left leg poked from the side of her bedding, she wasn't one to sleep calmly, if I didn't know better I'd have shrieked. I feared for her, the mosquitoes would feast on the red of her warm blood tonight. I faced the breezing window, chasing stars, cars, night dreaming while wide awake. I'd turned nineteen three hours ago, and felt no different. Time was a social construct, some measure, I suppose. Mayhap if Everleigh were here, she'd have reminded me about today, her memory was ever pristine. It had only been two days since her departure home and her absence hurt, dearly. I worried she'd never return and my heart clenched at the thought of us never rekindling. She had the kindest of souls, I was convinced I didn't deserve her comradery. Some days, I felt more in tune with her than I did my brethren.

That telegram. Those tragic news. She didn't deserve it. A tear rolled onto the pillow I now cuddled, despite the intricate feelings I held for my family, I could never picture life without them. It was hard enough to hear mama bemoan the loss of her second born, Aurthur, the brother I never met.  The one who's birth I replaced a decade later. So, what was it like for Eve¿ She'd become orphaned overnight and I could see her, her inconsolable self fainting besides Euna, our superintendent who wasn't as remorseful. "An enlistee doesn't shed tears, Cruti! Life happens." Berlinda's words swirled in her ears. As if she was to grin through her pain, ignore reality.

I panted from the heaviness of my thoughts, they were a dark cloud of unhappiness lingering, raining sorrow over the mirth that's often found on days like this. I could feel myself drifting to the past, through a vortex, before my time on earth began, before crossing over into the matrix. I was suspended in reverie and had hardly shut my eyes whence I found myself on the floor, alert, wincing at the jabbing pain from my swollen left foot.

"At ease!" A whistle blew and we were all lined up next to our bunks, postures straight. I took a glance and saw Amina still chewing on air.

"Sh-t!" Laura cussed, I imagined her rolling her big eyes as Trina banged her black bat against the metallic frame of their bed.

"Astaghfirullah!" Amina yelped and jumped headfirst onto her praying mat for her swalah.

•••
Thanks a lot for reading!
Your thoughts/feedback would be great.

Kindest regards :)