Suti
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Suti
Her hands smelled of lemon scented detergent,with traces of lunch between her fingers.She held it to her nose,and with her right thumb she kept rubbing the the palm,as if by doing so the smell would go away.The skin on her finger tips cracked,not because of all the guitar playing she ever had before she came over to Singapore,but the years spent cleaning dishes,washing clothes and other household chores.The pain was excruciating initially,but with the years of toil under her dead skin,she was then immuned to it,almost numbed.
She sat by the side of the master bed,naked.Her body felt the soft breeze brushing against her bare skin,as she touched herself carefully,as if to check for more damage other than her already ruined hands.The afternoon sun poured in through the drawn curtain,and the room smelled of stale bread and cigarettes,as she took a deep breath and collapsed next to her Indian lover.
Who is this man,she thought to herself.Who is this person lying next to me,with dishevelled hair and unshaven facial hair.He was snoring away,and she could barely remember his name.He was a friend of a friend,somebody she met at the club only last night.She recalled his cologne,and the touch of his fingers as it grasped her breasts,the way his moustache tickled her sides,as he kissed her shoulders and down her back.It was all blurry,the memory of yesterday night's escapade.All she remembered,was the urgent call from her girlfriends,after knowing that the family she was attached to will be out of town for a full week.She remembered the tequilla and the whiskey,the beer and the shots.She remembered the cigarette smoke that rose like wisps of mists,like gathering clouds in a storm,like the life she led as the night wore on with herself drowned in alcohol.
The man turned in his bed,revealing his bare buttocks.She remembered loving this man,and being loved in return.She needed love then,she thought.It was justified,all her actions were justified.They were the mere result of "Moral Flexibility",another one of those impulsive actions,for she loved him then didnt she?Did she not take comfort in the warmth of his chest,the strength in his arms,and the whispers through her ears as they made love to each other over the night?She desired those,as much as she loathed them.Was it him that she hated,or herself that she dreaded?She couldnt tell,amidst the mess scattered around the room.Their clothes were strewn all around the floor,with the lamp shade on the floor and pieces of glass scattered everywhere.A soft music was playing on the radio,though she didnt know the title of it.It was a sad instrumental piece,with frantic piano notes backed by waves of deep masculine cello.She got up from the edge of the bed,leaving the stranger alone in the bedroom.
Though naked,she didnt feel like putting on anything,for it wouldnt matter anymore.She found her pack of cigarette in her purse,which was then under the dining table in the hall,for reasons she couldnt remember.She lid the tip of it,and blew smoke circles up into the air,which floated and dissipated against the flowery wallpaper.Leaning on the edge of the dining table,she fumbled through her purse looking for clues of the previous night.Her wallet was still there,with her blood red lipstick still neatly packed with her other make-up things in a small pouch.Nothing was missing,she thought,though something foreign she found gave her a rather unpleasent surprise.It was an empty box,with "Trojan" written before it.What a slut,she thought of herself.What a fucking slut.
She could no longer hold back her tears,as she went back into the bedroom where she woke up from.It still smelled of cigarettes,but for some reason there was something new in the air as well.Guilt,and most of all,shame,lingered between the blades of sunlight,the dust floating into air now like sparkling stars,or asteroid crashing into each other.Crashing,crashing like her life then,as she thought about her husband and her children,her parents and grandparents,who so violently objected to her occupation in Singapore.She had so much ahead of her,so much under her feet that all she needed was to take a step forward.She did of course,but on a different path.On the wrong path,she then realised.
In the back pocket of her jeans,which was then tangled up with her tube top,was a letter she kept her wherever she went.It was a pink envelope,with her name written in a childish font across the front.The stamp hung loosely from the top right hand corner,dating three years from then,as she stood in the middle of the room reading the letter for the millionth time.With the letter was a photograph,and she traced the silhouette of herself in the photograph,when she was still innocent and naive.When she was still clean and beautiful,not a whore standing in the middle of her employer's bedroom,naked with an unknown man in her bed,who just had sex with her the previous night.She kept scratching herself then,as if to make herself clean again.Her fingertips throbbed with piercing pain again,but she didnt care.She scratched and scratched,till the surface of her skin turned red,then purple altogether.
She wanted to leave the room right then,she wanted to leave the house with the mess.Leave the country,and let her employers deal with everything else she left behind.It didnt matter if she is going to be fired or not,it didnt matter if she needs to cook anymore dinners for them or not.It didnt matter of she had to put the children to sleep or not,and it certainly didnt matter if her parents are going to find out about her unemployment.She teared,and the patches of skin she was then scratching started to bleed.
She got out of the room,and unknowingly she got into the livingroom.There were no curtains there,just a high window stretching from the top of the ceiling down to the floor.She had the letter and photograph in her hands still,and at the back of the photograph she read the words aloud."Don't forget her..." it wrote,in the handwriting of her dear mother,now as far away as the neon lights blinking in the distance.The sun was setting,with an orange and yellow hue drenching the city,with colours melting into each other,forming a melancholic mood to everything,including herself.
Her tears fell upon her chest,and felt the water droplet slowly flowing down the contours of her body.Her fist clenched,and the photograph was crushed under the pressure.She took one last look at the house,with the sound of the indian man still coming down the hallway from the bedroom.She took in her tears,and smiled afterwards.Her arm was bleeding badly then,and with the blood she wrote on the crushed letter that was on the floor.She wrote with her index finger,and as she wrote her last note she heard somebody stirring in the bedroom.The man was awake,and she could hear the sheets rustling.Her hand quickened,afraid that he might see her there.Afraid that if she sees the man,he would dirty her all over again.
She tossed the crumpled letter under the sofa,and as the shadow of the man emerged from the doorway of the bedroom,she took a dash towards one of the windows.The lock to one of them was loose,and she knew well.She knew well,because everyone was too lazy to fix it,and because she cleaned those windows with her own hands only too many times.
She crashed out of the window,with the glass bursting through.There was a loud bang,and for a moment the indian man stood at the end of the corridor,dazed.He had a towel wrapped around his waist,and hurriedly he rushed into the livingroom.The afternoon breeze poured into the livingroom through the broken window,with the light from the setting sun casting a length of light on the sofa.Under the sofa it was revealed,a ball of paper with bloody stains all over.He looked over the edge,then back at the ball under the sofa.He took it out,with delicate hands he opened the letter with care.
He called the police afterwards,and they arrived swiftly.His name was Raj,and identified himself as a friend of hers.He didnt know why she leaped out of the window,nor the meaning of the bloody words on the letter.The poloce questioned the man and he was detained.The owner of the house was informed,and was asked if the words meant anything to them.They were horrified,but couldnt help the police in any further investigation.The letter ended up in a Ziploc bag,sent back to the station as evidence.
It was said later,that the girl wrote whatever she wrote because she was high on drugs,that she was still having a hangover.Some said that she was crazy,mentally unstable because she was away from her homeland for so long.For nobody knew the truth behind what she wrote,or understood the irony of her actions.Clearly,to everybody who gossiped over the suicide,"Because I loved life..." was not the suitable last words of one's life.Or was it?
Her hands smelled of lemon scented detergent,with traces of lunch between her fingers.She held it to her nose,and with her right thumb she kept rubbing the the palm,as if by doing so the smell would go away.The skin on her finger tips cracked,not because of all the guitar playing she ever had before she came over to Singapore,but the years spent cleaning dishes,washing clothes and other household chores.The pain was excruciating initially,but with the years of toil under her dead skin,she was then immuned to it,almost numbed.
She sat by the side of the master bed,naked.Her body felt the soft breeze brushing against her bare skin,as she touched herself carefully,as if to check for more damage other than her already ruined hands.The afternoon sun poured in through the drawn curtain,and the room smelled of stale bread and cigarettes,as she took a deep breath and collapsed next to her Indian lover.
Who is this man,she thought to herself.Who is this person lying next to me,with dishevelled hair and unshaven facial hair.He was snoring away,and she could barely remember his name.He was a friend of a friend,somebody she met at the club only last night.She recalled his cologne,and the touch of his fingers as it grasped her breasts,the way his moustache tickled her sides,as he kissed her shoulders and down her back.It was all blurry,the memory of yesterday night's escapade.All she remembered,was the urgent call from her girlfriends,after knowing that the family she was attached to will be out of town for a full week.She remembered the tequilla and the whiskey,the beer and the shots.She remembered the cigarette smoke that rose like wisps of mists,like gathering clouds in a storm,like the life she led as the night wore on with herself drowned in alcohol.
The man turned in his bed,revealing his bare buttocks.She remembered loving this man,and being loved in return.She needed love then,she thought.It was justified,all her actions were justified.They were the mere result of "Moral Flexibility",another one of those impulsive actions,for she loved him then didnt she?Did she not take comfort in the warmth of his chest,the strength in his arms,and the whispers through her ears as they made love to each other over the night?She desired those,as much as she loathed them.Was it him that she hated,or herself that she dreaded?She couldnt tell,amidst the mess scattered around the room.Their clothes were strewn all around the floor,with the lamp shade on the floor and pieces of glass scattered everywhere.A soft music was playing on the radio,though she didnt know the title of it.It was a sad instrumental piece,with frantic piano notes backed by waves of deep masculine cello.She got up from the edge of the bed,leaving the stranger alone in the bedroom.
Though naked,she didnt feel like putting on anything,for it wouldnt matter anymore.She found her pack of cigarette in her purse,which was then under the dining table in the hall,for reasons she couldnt remember.She lid the tip of it,and blew smoke circles up into the air,which floated and dissipated against the flowery wallpaper.Leaning on the edge of the dining table,she fumbled through her purse looking for clues of the previous night.Her wallet was still there,with her blood red lipstick still neatly packed with her other make-up things in a small pouch.Nothing was missing,she thought,though something foreign she found gave her a rather unpleasent surprise.It was an empty box,with "Trojan" written before it.What a slut,she thought of herself.What a fucking slut.
She could no longer hold back her tears,as she went back into the bedroom where she woke up from.It still smelled of cigarettes,but for some reason there was something new in the air as well.Guilt,and most of all,shame,lingered between the blades of sunlight,the dust floating into air now like sparkling stars,or asteroid crashing into each other.Crashing,crashing like her life then,as she thought about her husband and her children,her parents and grandparents,who so violently objected to her occupation in Singapore.She had so much ahead of her,so much under her feet that all she needed was to take a step forward.She did of course,but on a different path.On the wrong path,she then realised.
In the back pocket of her jeans,which was then tangled up with her tube top,was a letter she kept her wherever she went.It was a pink envelope,with her name written in a childish font across the front.The stamp hung loosely from the top right hand corner,dating three years from then,as she stood in the middle of the room reading the letter for the millionth time.With the letter was a photograph,and she traced the silhouette of herself in the photograph,when she was still innocent and naive.When she was still clean and beautiful,not a whore standing in the middle of her employer's bedroom,naked with an unknown man in her bed,who just had sex with her the previous night.She kept scratching herself then,as if to make herself clean again.Her fingertips throbbed with piercing pain again,but she didnt care.She scratched and scratched,till the surface of her skin turned red,then purple altogether.
She wanted to leave the room right then,she wanted to leave the house with the mess.Leave the country,and let her employers deal with everything else she left behind.It didnt matter if she is going to be fired or not,it didnt matter if she needs to cook anymore dinners for them or not.It didnt matter of she had to put the children to sleep or not,and it certainly didnt matter if her parents are going to find out about her unemployment.She teared,and the patches of skin she was then scratching started to bleed.
She got out of the room,and unknowingly she got into the livingroom.There were no curtains there,just a high window stretching from the top of the ceiling down to the floor.She had the letter and photograph in her hands still,and at the back of the photograph she read the words aloud."Don't forget her..." it wrote,in the handwriting of her dear mother,now as far away as the neon lights blinking in the distance.The sun was setting,with an orange and yellow hue drenching the city,with colours melting into each other,forming a melancholic mood to everything,including herself.
Her tears fell upon her chest,and felt the water droplet slowly flowing down the contours of her body.Her fist clenched,and the photograph was crushed under the pressure.She took one last look at the house,with the sound of the indian man still coming down the hallway from the bedroom.She took in her tears,and smiled afterwards.Her arm was bleeding badly then,and with the blood she wrote on the crushed letter that was on the floor.She wrote with her index finger,and as she wrote her last note she heard somebody stirring in the bedroom.The man was awake,and she could hear the sheets rustling.Her hand quickened,afraid that he might see her there.Afraid that if she sees the man,he would dirty her all over again.
She tossed the crumpled letter under the sofa,and as the shadow of the man emerged from the doorway of the bedroom,she took a dash towards one of the windows.The lock to one of them was loose,and she knew well.She knew well,because everyone was too lazy to fix it,and because she cleaned those windows with her own hands only too many times.
She crashed out of the window,with the glass bursting through.There was a loud bang,and for a moment the indian man stood at the end of the corridor,dazed.He had a towel wrapped around his waist,and hurriedly he rushed into the livingroom.The afternoon breeze poured into the livingroom through the broken window,with the light from the setting sun casting a length of light on the sofa.Under the sofa it was revealed,a ball of paper with bloody stains all over.He looked over the edge,then back at the ball under the sofa.He took it out,with delicate hands he opened the letter with care.
He called the police afterwards,and they arrived swiftly.His name was Raj,and identified himself as a friend of hers.He didnt know why she leaped out of the window,nor the meaning of the bloody words on the letter.The poloce questioned the man and he was detained.The owner of the house was informed,and was asked if the words meant anything to them.They were horrified,but couldnt help the police in any further investigation.The letter ended up in a Ziploc bag,sent back to the station as evidence.
It was said later,that the girl wrote whatever she wrote because she was high on drugs,that she was still having a hangover.Some said that she was crazy,mentally unstable because she was away from her homeland for so long.For nobody knew the truth behind what she wrote,or understood the irony of her actions.Clearly,to everybody who gossiped over the suicide,"Because I loved life..." was not the suitable last words of one's life.Or was it?
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on Sunday, July 09, 2006 at 7:48 PM.
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