BECOMING SUPRA

Chapter 6.1

ÆSH

Don't look back, just keep going, one foot after the other, right, left, right left. When I was out of campus, I broke into a jog down a narrow slope and found myself on a path hugging the lake. Light was beginning to wane. I had an hour before curfew, before dorm parents would come checking to see if we were all back in our rooms. If not, school authorities would be alerted and search parties sent out. Four such incidents of tardiness and a letter would be sent to our parents and disciplinary action would follow.

I started running faster, I did a full round of the lake and took a steep up-hill road to wherever it led.

I caught a passer-by staring at me for an uncomfortably long time and realized I was shirtless. My shirt had been torn apart and thrown to the ground. But he wasn't just staring at me, he was staring at my scars.

My scars! I have many. Some extend like mountainous lines of a map, some small and neat like a dash. I touched my left wrist and the wrist-band wrapped around it. I pulled down on the soft cloth exposing the one scar I wanted to keep a secret. The one that was the angriest and the deepest.

As darkness descended I felt at ease. Nobody to observe my mutilations, nobody to scrutinize me. Daylight can be so exacting, so unforgiving, often even humiliating. There are days I wish the sun never rose. There are days I wish I could compress back into a chrysalis and be cocooned in darkness.

A sign pointed towards the Observatory. I turned right on a lane and saw two white-domed towers standing up to the night. There was a guard at the gate, I leaned in and saw a ticket collector sitting inside a warm patch of light emanating from the building. They wouldn't let me in, not without a shirt on, besides I didn't have any money on me right now.

A banked towards the rear and jumped over a crumbling cleft in the wall. It was unusually quiet, no footsteps or voices of visitors, probably because it was almost closing time.

Behind the structure, a flight of stairs led up to the flat of the roof. There on the white-washed top I lay down, taking in the twilight dotted with bright with stars.

Astronomers say the Sun is eventually going to splutter and die. And the Moon, it's moving away from earth at 3.78 centimetres per annum - the same speed at which our fingernails grow each year. Celestial bodies are forsaking us. With the Moon fleeing and the Sun's fire petering out – all that will survive are rogue planets. Planets that have no light. Planets that exist in perpetual darkness. Some astronomers say rogue planets are kicked out of their star system and banished to a solitary existence. Some say rogue planets desert their stars on purpose, striking out on their own to carve a new path through the milky way. Untethered, they wander the galaxy alone.

Suddenly, the loud ring of my phone shocks me out of my contemplation. My phone finally caught a signal. I shuffle in my pocket and take it out. On the screen was flashing my Grandma's name.

"Grandma," I say, without giving it a second thought, "I wish I was a rogue planet."

"Rogue what?"

"A rogue planet. They exist in complete darkness and are extremely difficult to detect ... in effect impossible to incite ... impossible to provoke. Impossible to vanquish."

"Æsh? What's going on? I thought you had it under control. Hang in there, Æsh. I'm taking the next flight in." And she hung up.

What? What was that? That was not the response I was expecting. I should think before speaking. Now she's going to take three connecting flights then a long road trip to reach this jungle oasis. I always have her worried. I know the knit in her brows are of my doing. She shouldn't be made to go through this, not at her age. I feel guilty, already. But I know I will not be able to talk her out of it, not until she meets me in person and I absolutely assure her I am doing fine, more than fine.

A cold wind hits me in the chest. It feels like the temperature has dropped a few rungs. I look at the time and immediately sit up. I have exactly twelve minutes before the doors close on me. I run down the stairs, then sprint my way back to my dorm.

Panting, I enter the main door seconds before the clock strikes 7. While my dorm-parent is engaged with a student, I quietly manage to slip in.

Walking towards my room, I catch a reflection of myself on the corridor mirror. I see the crooked edges of my scars – they are remnants of fights I've had over the years. Enough fights to give a parent heartburn. But today, I am proud to say, I efficiently dodged one. It could have turned violent, I was being provoked, my blood-pressure was pumped, I was readying myself to throw a punch. Thankfully better sense prevailed.

New school, new beginnings. I need to shed that old skin.

One day at a time, Æsh. Take one day at a time.