Day Dada walked outwithout saying Yetan, which meansI’ll be back not I’m leaving. Day he leftwithout a sound or hint, Mama pulled meclose, unlike, when he was around.I should’ve guessed then but Ken was on TV.My biggest worry- How would I find Ken whenI looked nothing like Barbie? Mama switched offthe TV; Ken slipped away from the screenwhen Barbie wasn’t looking.Mama pressed her mouth to my right ear,Ken entered through my left and sat thereknowing Barbie would never even thinkof looking in a brown girl’s ear.Mama said Story time without any excitement.I worried about thick wax collected in my earthat she neglected. Seed- title of the story.‘You were only a seed in my stomach andthen you grew and grew…’‘Then you vomited,’ I added and giggled.More at the thought of Ken than the ideaof being her puke. ‘Exactly, see, there was a girljust like you who swallowed a watermelon seedby mistake. It didn’t leave her in her kaka. Stayed.Lots of water. It grew and grew until leaves came outof her mouth, beautiful no? Don’t you want that too?’‘Yes mama!’ I said. ‘But sunlight, mama?’‘Sunlight for plants growing outside rajanot inside, inside, you need total darkness.’‘My teacher didn’t tell me this.’‘Your teacher won’t. Only I know this story,Mai told me, I’m telling you. You, Don’t tell anyone.’‘Pinky promise mama, cross my heart and hope to die.’Mama brought a watermelon, its size, like her stomachwhen I was in it. The idea of the girl sprouting leavesfrom her mouth, tempting yet terrifying. I bit into itspale flesh-a hybrid. Its many black eyes staring at me,remembering how Dad gouged them with a fork.Mama’s like, ‘Swallow, remember?’ I swalloweda few and threw a few, when she wasn’t looking.In my kaka, there were three. Mama looked at methe way Jesus must’ve looked at Peter. As days passed,she couldn’t afford watermelon. Ken narrated storiesof the doctor who’d make me look exactly like Barbie:Blue eyes, blonde hair, boobs and all.Mama knew I’d forgotten, ‘Forget the watermelon, anythingwill do. A tablet missed its target, on the floor, behind thesofa, a disobedient button, a marble…Ken scooped her wordsand threw them out of my left ear.Mama’s hair started falling. We didn’t have Baconand eggs anymore. The way they had on TV. ‘Only waterfrom now on.’ Mama said. When she wasn’t lookingI lifted the clumps and stuffed them into my mouth.If only her hair was blonde. Its blackness would keepthe darkness intact atleast. A seed might’ve stayed andwould grow eventually from all the water I was drinking.Mama saw me shrink when I should’ve grown taller.Finally met the doctor, puzzled, he asked, ‘How didso much hair land in her stomach? It has been stoppingthe waste from getting out.’ The girl who swallowed the seedand failed to pass it in her kaka is my role model- I wantedto say. Fear of light and death shut me up. Yet I whispered,‘Can you make me look like Barbie?’ He laughed for a longtime, ‘My dear, those doctors charge a very high feeand I treat patients for free.’In the hospital room, with nothing better to do,Mama took out the bobpin, ‘What will they say,doesn’t even clean her daughter’s ears.’ When no onewas looking, she aimed for my left ear. Ken finallyreturned to Barbie, to whom he always belonged.
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About the writer
Michelle D'Costa. Michelle's poems have appeared in Antiserious, Cafe Dissensus, The Sunflower Collective, 40 under 40 - anthology of post-globalisation poetry and others. Her poem 'Fish-eye' is forthcoming in The Bombay Literary Magazine. Her fiction has appeared in Coldnoon and The Madras Mag among others. She previously edited fiction at Jaggery Literary Magazine. She now runs 'Kaani' an online magazine for short fiction. Kaani means 'story' in Konkani.
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