Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings (8 page)

“YOU STUPID SCUMMY FUCK,” she shrieked. “Is that what you do? Is that what you say when someone is about to jump off a fucking balcony?

“Stop that!” yelled Kalai.

“You bloodybastardbitch! What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“You’re hitting my ear!”

“You stand there and tell me to jump? Is that what you do? You scummy dumbfuck!”

Kalai tried to cover her head with her hands but she couldn’t feel them anymore. They’ve finally exploded she thought. It’s finally going to rain.

•

Kalai was floating above twisty canals filled with vodka and ships. Her hands had become so huge that her fingernails were falling off, crashing into the canals and creating small tidal waves. The sailors whistled at her from below and said
hey baby, hey girliegirlie
.

“Thank you, you are too kind,” Kalai called out. “Do any of you gentlemen know if it will rain soon?”

“Blow us a kiss and we’ll tell you.”

“Oh I couldn’t possibly.”

“Throw down your panties then.”

“I can’t get them off, my hands don’t work.”

“You’re a waste of time,” said the sailors, spitting into the canal. “We hope you get struck by lightning.”

Kalai watched the ships disappear into tiny pink and orange sunsets. She thought it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to be struck by lightning, to drown in twisty canals filled with vodka.

•

Kalai woke up on the floor with a pillow under her head. Shivani was sitting beside her, reading a magazine.

“Sleeping beauty!” said Shivani.

“She hit me in the ear, da,” groaned Kalai, clutching her head.

“Hey guess what! I got four extra buckets of water today! You could even have a bath if you want! I mean, as long as you don’t wash your hair. And not a long bath also.”

“I can’t hear anything, it’s all ringy.”

“Want to see a doctor? There’s one just down the road, his name is Dr. Elvis Siluvairajan, does some kind of Muslim herb medicine or something. Which is strange I guess, considering his name is Elvis Siluvairajan.”

“Where are my earrings?”

“I think they flew off when she hit you. Some were on the floor but I think you’re missing a few.”

“They’re probably inside my ear. She kept hitting my ear.”

“They’re probably in your hair.”

Kalai closed her eyes and tried to think of proactive things but she could only remember the sailors and how they spat into the canals.

“Did you write this down?” asked Kalai.

“Did I write what down?”

“That she kept hitting me in the ear like a crazy person? I think you should write that down.”

“I can’t remember where I put that paper, did you see it anywhere?”

Shivani picked up a magazine, shook it out and frowned.

“Oh well,” she said.

Kalai took a safety pin from her necklace, opened it and stabbed her thumb, feeling a wave of relief as the blood ballooned out like a tiny ruby.

The Entomologist’s smile is a tiny half moon, weak and incapable of casting any light.

“They will reconsider?” he asks.

“No, there’s nothing they can do,” says Malar. “You have to leave.” Her mouth is sticky and sour from the heat but the Entomologist has only one bottle of water in his room. She wonders what will happen if she dehydrates and dies here.

“You told them who I was?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“And what did they say?”

“They said there’s nothing they can do. You have till Friday.”

“Perhaps I should write them another letter.”

“That won’t help.”

The Entomologist runs his fingers along the wall as if he is trying to find a secret door.

“Uncle, Friday means Friday. Okay?”

Malar watches as his hands crumple like dying spiders.

“Say okay.”

The Entomologist nods but doesn’t say anything.

•

Malar knows how to make killing jars. She has chronicled the life and death of the coconut beetle and arranged local butterflies in alphabetical order. She has paid the Entomologist’s electric bills, swept his floor and made arrangements for his drinking water because she is a good person.

In the night she dreams that his room is carpeted with a thick green meadow. The sun glows in the corner, stabbing the grass in broad, fierce lines. Two large butterflies skirt the walls and the Entomologist chases them with a net and bottle.

“Don’t clap your hands!” he says as he disappears under the sink. Malar looks down and sees millions of tiny butterflies burrowing into her palm, trying to fly from the tips of her fingers. She clenches her fists and feels the floor liquefy between her toes.

•

The next day Malar finds the Entomologist sitting on the floor with a pen and paper.

“I’m writing another letter,” he says. “I don’t think the other ones were strong enough.”

Malar takes down his butterfly collection and arranges the boxes on the table.

“Why don’t you wait?” says the Entomologist. “I think they might reconsider. This is a very strong letter.”

Under his bed she finds newspapers bundled and stacked like building blocks. The Entomologist once said that words were sacred and should never be touched with the feet. Malar drags the bundles out to the head of the stairs. Then she kicks them down, one by one.

•

Malar is sitting on the grass in the Entomologist’s room. She can hear the newspapers at the bottom of the stairs, wailing and cursing her with constipation and perennial bad breath. A large butterfly with shoe brushes on its feet hovers next to her, waiting for an explanation.

“Well it’s not like I could carry them down by myself,” Malar says. “It’s not like he was going to help me.”

Another butterfly with cobweb wings flutters above her head. The newspapers hope that Malar will get vaginal warts and grow a beard.

“Things are so much easier with a killing jar. It’s quieter, you know,” says the Cobweb Butterfly. “Have you ever been inside a killing jar?”

Malar rolls her eyes.

“I can’t fit inside a killing jar, silly.”

“Nobody can,” says the butterfly.

•

The next day Malar brings a borrowed suitcase. The Entomologist has barricaded himself into a corner behind his butterfly collection.

“I’m not leaving,” he says.

“Yes you are.”

“What can they do? Will they throw me out in the street?”

“Yes.”

“They can’t do that. I’m an academician. I’ve been here for twenty years.”

Malar begins piling his clothes into the suitcase. The scent of naphthalene settles on her tongue and she realizes that the Entomologist has always smelled like insect repellent.

“What about the butterflies?” she asks.

“I’m not going anywhere,” says the Entomologist.

“You can take them in your hand or I can put them in the suitcase, there’s still room.”

“You’re not listening to me.”

“Or we can pack them tomorrow,” she says. “I have to see the landlord about your key now anyway.”

The landlord thinks that Malar is a saint and a blessing. Sometimes he makes his wife bring her ginger tea.

“Did you try speaking to the new owners?” asks the landlord.

“They said there’s nothing they can do.”

“That’s a shame. It’s a blessing you’re here to help him at least. Else imagine! Where would he go?”

Malar thinks the Entomologist would probably sit in the street surrounded by his butterfly collection. He would sit there until someone ran him over.

“I’m not doing anything great,” says Malar and the landlord shakes his head vigorously.

“No, no. You’re a blessing. You’re really a blessing. Have you managed to pack everything?”

“Everything except him,” she says and they laugh. Malar feels her teeth flash like pieces of broken glass.

•

It is raining in the Entomologist’s room and the clouds are bumping against Malar’s forehead like bundles of wet cloth. The butterflies are under the sink, shaking the water from their wings.

“It’s almost done you know,” says Malar. “All I have to do is get him out of the room.”

“You’ll never do it without a killing jar,” says the Cobweb Butterfly.

“I don’t need a killing jar. Besides, he won’t fit.”

“It’s not that hard,” says the Shoe Brush Butterfly. “Everything in this world can fold, you know.”

Malar doesn’t think she will be able to fold the Entomologist that far. Even if she does she has a feeling he will break the bottle.

“I really don’t think he will fit,” she says.

“Nobody
fits
into a killing jar,” says the Cobweb Butterfly. “They have to be
put
.”

The rain begins to pound into Malar’s skull like a shower of gravel. She wonders if she will catch a cold.

“Well good luck,” says the Shoe Brush Butterfly. “Good luck from both of us.”

The butterflies dip and soar into the thunderstorm like tiny slips of paper.

•

The Entomologist cuts a wobbly diagonal with his toes—sometimes an arc, sometimes a line. Sometimes he doesn’t seem to be moving at all. Malar looks at his bloodied eyes and marvels that the ceiling fan didn’t break.

Before hanging himself the Entomologist smashed every single one of his butterfly specimen boxes. Malar thinks he probably threw them on the floor, one by one. Or maybe he put his foot through them. She is not sure if he crushed the butterflies himself or whether they simply fell apart once the glass was broken. She finds a few specimen tags; Gossamer-Winged Butterfly, Brush-Footed Butterfly, Skipper Butterfly. She irons them out with her hand and places them on the table in alphabetical order.

Malar watches the Entomologist swing back and forth and tells herself that some people are like accidents. They are like sprained ankles and stains—they just happen.

“I am a saint and a blessing,” Malar says and the words squirm inside her mouth like dying fish.

Every morning I have breakfast with Annie. Annie doesn’t like me but she insists we have our meals together because there is no one else here. All the normal people have gone home for the study holidays. The only ones left are the slackers and the poor students.

“Why are you still here?” I asked her one evening at tea. “You don’t look poor to me.”

“Why are
you
still here? Don’t tell me you’re planning on studying.” She collapsed into a string of laughter that sounded like it was being hacked to pieces.

“Why would I do that?” I asked.

“That’s what I meant. That’s what I was trying to say.”

Annie’s laughter suddenly fell away and she sat staring at the table, her mouth angled awkwardly on her face.

This morning we’re having bread—large, sticky loaves of sweet bakery bread with watery jam and silver cubes of butter. Above the food counter is a picture of Jesus Christ which is in a perennial state of almost falling over.

“Won’t you get in trouble if you fail?” says Annie.

“Why are you so sure I’m going to fail?”

“Because you’re not studying.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Annie frowned and tapped the table thoughtfully.

“You should memorize quotes on success,” she says. “They will keep you focused on your goals. Like this one:
They can because they think they can.
”

“They can what? Who are you talking about?”

“If you had a good quote, maybe you would take your studies a little more seriously.”

“How about
Jam That Bread of Life
?”

“What?”

“It’s on the bottom of that Jesus picture. See?”

“That says
I Am That Bread of Life.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yes it does.”

I pick apart the bread until I have a small, sticky mountain of crumbs. I think of giving this to the birds but there are no birds here. There are abnormally large red beetles that keep dying in the sun but no birds.

•

After breakfast, I start writing my Letter of Explanation to T.S. Eliot. I have already written one to Philip Larkin and I have made a paper tree for Samuel Beckett because I feel he would appreciate the tree more than the explanation. I have also written a note on the power of positive thinking for Sylvia Plath. I pull out a piece of yellow paper and a black fountain pen.

Dear Mr. Eliot,

I am writing to tell you that I am going to fail my paper on 20th century literature because I plan on answering all questions concerning
The Waste Land
in a made-up language that will only consist of the letters y and p. I want you to know that it’s not you, it’s me. I’m sure you were a nice man, even though you worked in a bank. If I had known you, I promise I would have loved you.

Annie doesn’t call me for lunch and I forget about it completely until it is too late for lunch and too early for tea. I walk to Annie’s room and open the door without knocking. She is sitting at her table, stabbing a pen into her desk as she mutters softly to herself. On the wall beside her is a poster that says
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail
.

“I think we missed lunch,” I say.

“I had my lunch.”

“Where was I?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t call me. Why didn’t you call me?”

“I did call you. I mean I didn’t know where you were.”

The textbooks on Annie’s study table are stacked in two piles. Between them lie a pen, a pencil and a bundle of scrap paper for Annie to practice writing out her answers. On her bed is a thin book called
Quotes for a Successful Life
.

“How’s the studying going?” I ask.

She shakes her head, punctuating each shake with a stab to the table.

“But you’ve studied, right? You studied today?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been studying every day, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So what’s the problem? I don’t understand.”

She shrugs and continues to shake her head. Her stabbing has gouged a small hole in the table.

“You won’t fail,” I say. “How can you study like this and fail? I mean imagine studying as much as you have and then failing anyway. Just imagine that.”

Annie stops shaking her head. After a few seconds, she stops stabbing the table.

•

I decide to make Annie a motivational poster. It will be on glossy black paper with bright orange handwriting and a picture of a German castle on a rock. Since I don’t have a picture of a German castle on a rock, I make the poster using the back of an old receipt and a pencil.

“Knock!” says Annie when I enter her room. “Knock, knock, knock!”

“What?”

“Why can’t you knock before you come in?”

“Here,” I say thrusting the paper under her nose.

“What is this?” she says.

“It’s to make sure you don’t fail.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Stick it on your wall somewhere. Put it where you can see it.”

“Jam That Bread of Lif,”
she says.

“What?”

“That’s what you’ve written here,
Jam That Bread of Lif.
”

“Well, it will stop you from failing.”

“Don’t say that! Why do you keep saying that?” says Annie as I leave.

•

After tea, Annie starts throwing up. She keeps throwing up and has to be taken to the hospital. The warden says she will have to be put on drips because she has thrown up absolutely everything. There is nothing left inside her.

I have dinner alone and after that, I write a special Letter of Motivation and Explanation for Annie. I use white paper this time and a blue ballpoint pen. I bite the end of the pen and think. Then I walk to the window and think. I look at the moths slowly killing themselves against the porch light and I think. Then I sit down.

Dear Annie,

I hope that by the time you get this you will no longer be throwing up. My grandfather always said that throwing up was a good thing, along with diarrhea. It meant that the body was taking an active interest in clearing out things it didn’t need. Tomorrow morning is your first exam and considering that you are probably on drips right now, you might be thinking that you won’t be able to write your paper and you will fail and everyone will point fingers at you and you will kill yourself. This simply isn’t true. I remember when I was in 9th standard there was a girl whose name was Thenmozhi and during our quarterly exams she had a bad case of dysentery which actually made her cry a little before the paper started. But she still wrote her exam and she still got the most marks. Now she has two kids and she is very fat.

The point is that you did not plan to fail. So even if you do, it’s not really your fault.

Jam that bread of life. Always.

I fold the note into four and go to her room. I realize that like the other rooms in this corridor, Annie’s room is empty but it’s the only one that isn’t locked. In fact, the door is slightly ajar, like the room is catching its breath. The white porch light has made everything look pale—the study table, the bed, the book of quotes. It’s very still, except for a cricket that sounds like it’s stuck somewhere under the bed. By tomorrow morning it will be dead and lying on its side. There must be something drastic, some life and death difference between the inside and outside that makes insects die like that.

I place Annie’s letter inside her book of quotes, right between “Death” and “Dreams”.