Remy: A Short Story

Tuesday 15th October 1985

Wickie Wackie Beach, St Andrews, Jamaica

The Earth’s breath was a tender warmth over the night fallen skies. Though hot with weariness, the air was relieved with lightened sighs from the sea, the ripples a rush, an echo among the ambient extravaganza ensuing behind Kamala’s back. She stood in silence, watching the soft tides flowing with ease into the shore, the luminous full moon reflected in the darkened water. A band played at the bar, a member urging spectators to gather around the makeshift dance floor, where the saxophone and bongos began a salsa number. Kamala sat on the stool behind the bar, ordering a fine rum punch. She ought to ease the depletion within her, for her father reprimanded her for rejecting a proposal. Indeed, she tried to lighten the heaviness within, still reeling from the loss of her mother, who had passed away six months prior, leaving her and her father to be deserted. The very father who very so stubbornly maintained his Indian traditions from when he was uprooted from India to work on the plantations in Jamaica by a British colonel. He decidedly settled down on the Island once he encountered Kamala’s mother, Jhanvi. In utter delight, he was to have found another Indian amidst the African descendants with whom he was cordial. With promptness, he married her, and though he lived in Jamaica for many decades, Kamala’s father, Laksh, upheld the Indian traditions and values which were sent down to him from his parents. For him, it was his way of staying connected and grounded to his ancestral roots. It was true that marriage held significance within the Indian household; it was believed that it protected the family’s honour and dignity while continuing to plant more seeds to enrich the Indian culture and heritage with future generations. Kamala believed marriage was simply the Indian’s way to cast their children aside once they had grown into maturity, especially women. It was presumed so when in witness of how children caused friction with their parents when they were adults, thus creating a clash in the hierarchy. It was deemed shameful for women to live alone or move away from home unmarried; thus, marriage was perceived as the way to maintain a woman’s dignity and honour. Certainly, Laksh pondered that it was Kamala’s time to marry and embark on a life of her own. The burden fell arduously over him now that Jhanvi had left them. He felt it to be his duty to set his daughter up with a decent man from a good family, assured that he would be reprieved and at peace once he settled his only child down in life. This had dejected Kamala; in vehemence, she declined such a proposition, for she believed it was in her fate to fall in love. She surmised that the person she fell in love with was the one she would be tied to in matrimony. To hear her father speak so callously of her life compelled her to tears, moving her to depart the house in an instant, upon which she found sound relief near the waters. In the bar, she mulled over the scene with the drink tipping on the edge of her fingers, her shoulders sagging as her head roamed among the heads of dancers.

His eyes were a darkened brown. Upon catching her in the crowd, they became fixated. The room zoned out of focus with a tunnel vision on her. He thought her to be a beautiful woman. During the course of the set, Remy and Kamala locked eyes, and once they had concluded, he set the saxophone down gently near the leg of the stool and with a charismatic smile, he approached her. When the bartender shouted, whether he craved a drink. Very kindly so, Remy said, “no, thank you, Darren.” In brazen confidence, he settled on the stool beside Kamala and said, “you’re beautiful.”

Kamala chugged the rest of the drink and shot back with sass, “is that what you say to all women?”

“No, only you.”

“Is that so?”

“Very much so.” In a fore, his hand drew to her border. Kamala took a gander at the hand with mild caution to look back up at him. He patiently awaited her move until she put her hand on him, and when she did, he firmly held onto it, caressing the back of her hand, enticed by the softness. “I’m Remy. What’s your name?” His lips edged close to her ear. Such a brass move from him had her mouth part, her breath shortening in pants. His proximity to her provoked a swell to expand in her womb, and her fingers tingled from Remy’s tender touch.

“Kamala.” Her voice was breathless. “My name is Kamala.”

Remy beheld her gaze, keenly regarding her eyes to have darkened. His face a reflection before him on the twinkle of her brown eyes. “Care for a dance?” He said, his blood pulsing unevenly upon her response to him.

She tightened her grip on his hand, her heart flogging her chest when her skin continued to sparkle from the touch of his. Indeed, she felt abnormal and feverish, for she hadn’t known such sensations to be. She pert her head in an indication of a yes, then he led the way into the dance floor, finding a small space in the middle. Though their set had finished, the members of the band played lastingly into the night. Remy had seen her before. She would sit near the waters, scarcely ever coming into the bar. Quite frankly, she intimidated Remy, which caused hesitation to sink into his bones in the manner of approaching her. He found her to be a wonder, her beauty to be a marvel. He knew how Indians perceived African descendants of the Island. Despite his many efforts to restrain himself and discard those feelings, he felt the gravitational pull towards her, and when her eyes caught his and sealed her gaze on him, he was assured that she felt something for him too. Such a sombre act was an indicator to him to go to her, and like tunnel vision indeed, he drew close.

With the brass and drums in play, the Caribbean night enlivened into gladdened elation. Remy pulled Kamala staunchly against his body; chest on chest, pelvic bone on pelvis, their breath a synthesis of a kiss with lips utterly inches away. With a hand on Kamala’s lower back, their hips began a rhythm in beat with the music. Kamala followed Remy’s lead; his feet shifted in a forward and backwards motion just as their hips moved to the music. With their fingers interlocked, Remy pushed Kamala down, her spine jolting in surprise, flutters swarming her stomach from his proximity to her. Their eyes fixed on one another. She felt his presence had enamoured her. Her heart rendered to a relentless throb pulsing in her chest while her teeth bit her bottom lip upon feeling the unsteady heartbeat of the man before her. Kamala leaned her head on his chest with her arms reaching over his shoulders to run her hands through his braids, binding her fingers behind his neck as they moved with the slow music. Remy’s face buried deeper into the curve of her neck, providing her reprieve from the heat of the night with his breath. He nipped her neck when she ground her arse on him. Soon after, she turned around, rather lethargically, bringing him closer. She was so close she saw the black irises of his dark brown eyes; her nose turned upwards for a brush of skin. She enjoyed the vision of his laughter, for he laughed with the entirety of his face, and such imagery warmed her heart. However, now the air was stiff between them with a mystification of thickened passion. She felt a delicious sensation twining around her bones when he tightened his grip on her body. An emotion so severe washed over her upon perceiving an expression of contemplation on his face.

“I’m going to make you my wife,” expressed Remy in severity, pressing his forehead to hers.

She thought such words would be revolting; however, a sense of serenity devoured her, and such a response to such frank words hadn’t scorned her to a scare. “Come to my home. Ask my Baba for my hand in marriage. Get with you trays of gifts; bridal clothes, jewels, and Indian sweets.” Kamala said in an airy voice, for she felt that she had entered another dimension with the one surely to be her one and only lover. 

by Kalina 

Lucky

Bogart was sure this was the Sherwood Crime Family. They were known for making these sorts of statements. Then again, the Sherwoods now had an honest thing going with their frozen yogurt stands, and nobody had attached a felony to them in over nine years. Ah, but old habits die hard. Bogart’s mother, Tibbity (may she rest in peace), always told him that a wronged skunk never forgets. A raccoon, maybe, because eventually they’d want to get back to their trash, but a skunk? Nah, you ticked off a skunk and you were going to smell that odor around every corner for the rest of your life knowing that one day--

“Mr. Poppson,” a doctor called, looking around the room, “Is there a Mr. Poppson, here?”

She was young--maybe three or four. All the doctors were young these days, and if you got a squirrel as a doctor, it was even worse. The squirrels sent their kids to med school as soon as their tails were bushy enough. The last time he was at this hospital, a squirrel young enough to be his daughter was looking after him. That was when he nicked his ear in an arranged fight with a badger that went off script. That was small potatoes. This? This was--

“You want to tell me who did this to you,” the doctor asked as soon as they were in the examining room. It had that smell of bad medicine and good advice. No matter how many times Bogart wound up in a place like this, he never got used to that smell. Somehow, he managed to prop himself up on the table as the doctor sat down in a chair across from him. Her name tag read “Dr. Elizabeth Twigs” and he wondered whether or not she could be related to Barnaby Twigs, the bookie that wound up floating facedown in the pond a few months back.

“Barnaby was my uncle,” she said, reading his mind or catching his field of vision, “We hadn’t talked in awhile. The Twigs are not what you’d call a, uh, close family. Partly because I refuse to associate with known criminals.”

She scooted her little seat on its wheels so that she was only a few inches away from him and his soiled bandages. “And what about you, Mr. Poppson? Do you associate with known criminals?”

“What makes you so sure I’m not one?”

“Because according to your chart,” she gave it a quick scan even though it was clear she didn’t need to, “You’ve been in here over a dozen times in the past year. The criminals come in once and we never see them again. Either because they’re dead or because they took care of the person who put them here. What’s your story?”

“Do you need to know my story to help me?”

“No, but I’d like to--”

“I’d like you to stitch me up, Doc, so I can go find out who did this to me.”

She took a deep breath and rolled away from him. Blood was starting to pool at the tips of his bandages again. She pulled a few rolls from a drawer near her desk. Q-Tips and lollipops lined the top of the desk even though he’d never been given either.

“You new here,” he asked her, “I’ve never seen you until today.”

Dr. Twigs rolled back over to him and began undoing one of the bandages. He’d done his best, but he didn’t have much first aid at his apartment, so when he woke up in his bathtub covered in his own plasma, he’d had to make the best of a gory situation. That meant pulling himself out of the tub, slithering along the floor like a cobra until he could get to the hamper in his bedroom, pulling out a few already tattered garments ripping them up (rest in peace signed Eddie Bunny t-shirt), and cinching himself up as best he could.

As for the pain, well, he was used to pain. You’d think having somebody sneak into your place in the middle of the night, knock you out, and cut off your four feet would create an excruciating experience for any small mammal, but Bogart had seen and done things that made him virtually immune to feeling. Nowadays he cried at sad songs and enjoyed the taste of a well-done carrot cake, but other than that? Bupkis.

“Did they have to take all four,” Dr. Twigs asked, probably breaching some protocol of medical ethics, “Did they really hate you that much?”

Bogart shakes his head.

“This wasn’t hate, Doc,” he says, “This was opportunity. You know how much a rabbit’s foot goes for these days? I’m a walking target.”

Dr. Twigs removes the first bandage. Whoever cut off his back left paw did a bad job of it. Bogart is guessing they didn’t bring their own equipment. Chances are, when he gets back to his sad little apartment over near the babbling brook, he’ll find one of his kitchen knives lying around covered in his own fluids. That’ll be a nice little Easter Egg hunt for later.

“I hate seeing what’s happening to this forest,” Dr. Twigs says as she applies some new gauze to his wounds, “This used to be a nice place to live. A nice place to raise a family. The other day a duck came in here quacking up a storm, because her duckling got into some bad bread that somebody threw down by the clearing. The kid ended up being okay, but it was touch and go for awhile there. Why would somebody do something like that? Bad bread? That takes a sick mind. Don’t you think?”

She was more honest than most doctors. A lot of them acted like they were members of some kind of jury. Blank faces and unreadable demeanors as they prescribed you pills or ran a little string through you to hold you together. Pretty soon, he’d be so beaten up, there’d be no point. You couldn’t suggest that somebody off themselves, but a rabbit with no feet wasn’t getting very far in the world anyway.

“I think the forest has always been this way,” he said, his phantom limb starting to throb now that it was being tended to, “It just gets worse until the past seems better. If you talked to my mother, she would tell you that it was all sunshine and rainbows when she was growing up, and then it all went downriver. Me? I never thought my childhood was that bad, but now it feels like each day is worse than the last. I bet if you ask that duckling, he won’t say it’s too bad, but then again, I never chowed down on any rotten Wonder bread.”

Paw by paw she worked. When she was finished, she arranged for him to have some crutches, but she tried to talk him out of the painkillers. His tolerance meant he didn’t really need them, but she didn’t have to know that. Those would be worth more in the forest than his feet. He wasn’t going to turn down a few free meals provided by the good physician.

The expression on her face as she wrote out the script told him all he needed to know regarding how much she bought into the idea that he was going to use the two-week supply on himself. When she ripped it out of her pad and tucked it in his pocket, she commented that he should be dead already based on how much blood he lost.

“You’re lucky,” she said, her mind probably already coasting over to the next patient.

“Nah, Doc,” he said, “Not anymore.”

by Kevin B

“Willing to Wait”

Grace was late. Again.

Today, she left her house at 4:30am in order to guarantee clocking in before her shift started at 8am. Previously, she left at 5am, but after several tardiness violations affecting her pay, she finally accepted that three hours was no longer sufficient time for her to brave Manila’s horrendous morning commute.

First, she had to walk one kilometer from her house to the main highway to catch a jeepney that dropped her off at the nearest train station.

Once at the station, she patiently fell in line and waited for her turn to board — a line so long that it zigged and zagged and spilled over to the outside of the train station, with commuters squeezing themselves in narrow sidewalks, vulnerable to reckless drivers, the heat of the sun, and torrential rains. Staying in line, in this case, easily stole at least an hour from her day.

When Grace finally alighted, the train ride took another hour — that is, if she and other passengers were lucky enough to board a functioning train. Occasionally, a train line would malfunction, forcing commuters to hop off, dangerously walking the tracks to the nearest train station, and wait for another train to pass by or find an alternate mode of transportation altogether.

When she reached her destination station, she needed to hop on one final mode of transit — a shuttle that dropped her off near her company’s office building.

This was Grace’s daily plight, venturing the roads of Manila for hours on end just to get to work and earn a living. Unfortunately, leaving 30 minutes earlier this time around still was not enough to get herself to work on time.

At her company, Grace was a collections agent, spending most of her days in front of a computer and calling up customers one by one to remind them of their outstanding debt. It was a thankless job, being berated often for contacting people about their financial obligations. Rarely did she encounter customers that had been gracious and apologetic. Oftentimes though, Grace simply waited and listened to the phone ringing until the person on the other line picked up. Most of the time, they left her hanging.

During her lunch break, Grace received a message from the agency that had been processing her paperwork to move to Dubai as an Overseas Filipino Worker.

“Grace, we’ve had attrition in the agency, so we are understaffed at the moment. We have a lot of applications coming in and are unable to process all paperwork at this time. Your application is delayed indefinitely,” Grace read the text on her phone.

She would be a domestic helper, if all goes smoothly, and the pay would be thrice what she has been making at her current job. It would afford her a better opportunity to provide for her husband and three young children, even if it meant being far from them — a small sacrifice in the grander scheme of things.

Grace shook her head and put her phone down, disappointed by the news. But she had no additional funds to pay the agency for fast-tracking the process, so there was nothing else for her to do but to get back to her current job and wait once again.

When her shift ended at 5pm, Grace exited the building and was welcomed by heavy downpour. She took out her portable umbrella, then got ready for another pilgrimage back home. Under these rainy conditions, the rush hour traffic certainly had gotten worse. She’d be lucky if she made it home by 8pm. She already knew she wouldn’t have time to prepare dinner, so she made a note to herself to pass by a fast food chain and order food to go for the entire family before heading home.

It was ten past eight when Grace, soaking wet, entered the fast food chain, lined up, and placed her order. Two one-piece chicken rice meals, three spaghetti meals, no fries, no drinks. All for takeout.

“Ma’am, the next batch of chicken meals won’t be ready for another 10 minutes. Willing to wait?” The cashier asked.

Grace stared at the cashier and exhaled in resignation. “Willing to wait.”

by Nicola de Vera