Dragonflies

Dragonflies

by Smitha Peter

In spring, dragonflies fill the sky. They have wings dusted in gold and their bodies shimmer in the sun. They dance in the dusk, making circles beneath the orange sky. The girl likes to watch them. She spends her evenings on the terrace of her parents’ house wondering how long they can stay in the air. The terrace is a spacious square. The coconut palm trees spread their leaves above it. The girl thinks the coconut palms look like giant green umbrellas. At times, dragonflies come down to take rest on the palm leaves. But not for long. They will be up in the air dancing before the next breeze flutters on the palm tops.

The dragonflies are having fun with friends, the girl thought. She used to play tag with her brother and his friends in the evening. Her little brother, shorter, exuberant, ran like a mouse from one end of the courtyard to the other chasing her. Often, she slowed down to let him tag her, to see the toothy grin he flashed. With his friends, she was not that generous. They had to run as fast as they could to reach anywhere near her. They play around the courtyard laughing and shouting till it became dark. But lately, her father gives her chores whenever she tries to join them. She does not mind the work but doing it while others play makes her sad. So, she retreats to the terrace in the evenings. That seems to make her father happy. He has stopped giving her chores and smiles at her often.

She sketches during some of the evenings she spends on the terrace. On the first page of her notepad, she has sketched a monster. It is the monster from one of her storybooks. He lives in a big cave inside a deep forest. If animals go near the cave, the monster will come out to gobble them. He has long fangs and sharp claws, and he has never missed his prey. Eventually, the forest becomes silent. The animals, terrified, rarely move around. Her brother came looking for her one evening. Bright eyes, big smile, sweaty curls: she wanted to throw her notepad at him. He looked a bit lost when she asked him to leave her alone. From the day he began to crawl, he used to follow her around the house. It was she who taught him to climb on the guava tree and to catch grasshoppers. He told her that he was playing hide and seek. He discovered a spot behind the jackfruit tree near their woodshed. Nobody could find him. While listening to him, she tore a page from the notepad and began to make a paper boat. His eyes followed the way her fingers moved. Next morning, she went to the jackfruit tree. There was a small gap between the tree trunk and the outer wall of the woodshed where one can barely squeeze in. It, indeed, was a good hiding spot. She had never thought about this possibility before. That evening, she painted the paper boat red, named it Captain and left it on her brother’s bed.

The sun has not gone down yet. Dragonflies are buzzing around. From her corner of the terrace, the girl can hear the laughter from the courtyard. She wants to turn her arms into wings and fly away but she knows only fairies can do that. Still, she spreads her arms and moves them like wings, looking at the dragonflies in the sky. The dragonflies seem to change colour with the evening sun. The sunrays filtering through the palm leaves form vivid spots on the terrace floor. The girl leans in. Now she is a big dragonfly with golden spots on her ‘arm-wings’. The dragonflies disappear when the sky turns black. The girl is not sure where they go. But she must go downstairs and be in her study for the rest of the evening.

*

In summer, the sky is quiet. There is no buzz of dragonflies in the air. The girl still spots one or two on the coconut palm leaves. She wonders why their friends left them behind. There is no laughter from the courtyard. Her brother is going to the cricket ground to play. It is at her parents’ suggestion. Boys can go out and play. Girls don’t need that distraction. Her brother spends the weekends out with his friends exploring the town. Yesterday, after the game, he went to a café near the river side. The café owner had three black cats – Big Tom, Little Tom and Baby Tom. They sat in a row at the entrance blinking at the customers. He liked the snacks they served and brought an onion pakora for her. It was tasty. His friends told him about this new place. He is making many new friends. She cannot remember all their names. The girl is also friends with other girls from her school. She is allowed to spend time with them but usually at one of their houses. If she runs a little late coming home, her mother clecks on her, which she finds embarrassing. So she keeps an eye on the clock while they play. The girl has stopped considering dragonflies as her playmates. Her arms are just arms. Even dragonflies wouldn’t believe they are wings.

 Her parents say the girl has become a young woman. Young women like her should be sensible. When she failed to notice the blood stain on the back of her skirt, her mother called her disgusting. The stain was small and easy to wash off. But her mother’s words linger on.  She thinks spiders are disgusting. If they are sitting on a web way up a tree, she can tolerate their sight. Their crystalline dewy webs even can be counted pretty at times. But spiders, at times, come in through her bedroom window and crawl on the pale green walls. They remind her of the fingers crawling on her body. She feels disgusted, so disgusted that she finds it hard to put it in words. Besides, it would be inappropriate to talk about. The girl wonders why dragonflies on the palm leaves sit still most evenings. Are they tired? Do they feel the weight of their wings? Are their wings as numb as her arms strung from her shoulders?

*

In monsoon, the sky rumbles. The girl wakes up and looks through her bedroom window. The lightning slices through the darkness, making raindrops shine like molten silver. She feels the shiver running through her body. It is time for her next tablet. The fever is not subsiding, though she spent the past three days on the bed. Her doctor says there is nothing to worry about. It is a viral infection that takes at least a week for the patient to recover from. She switches on the bed lamp. The gecko living inside her bookshelf is now sitting on the ceiling eyeing a firefly. She has chased him away numerous times, but he always reappears in the bookshelf. Thus, he earns the name Goblin. In the last few days, the creature irritated her with his chirping and clucking while her head was splitting in pain. Her brother too comes to her room every evening to blabber about his day. He begins and ends their conversations by saying she will be alright. She knows it is not going to happen anytime soon. Her brother’s worried glances make her think he is also aware of it. She finds that irritating and often asks him to leave, saying she does not want him to catch her fever. But like the gecko, he always comes back. Goblin has started moving stealthily on the ceiling. There is a glimmer in his little black eyes. One swift leap. The firefly writhes in his mouth. The rascal will be disappearing to the bookshelf soon to have a quiet dinner.

The rain is slowing down outside. The girl remembers the dream she had. A dragonfly falling from the sky. From where did it come? The girl has stopped looking for dragonflies long back. The last time she noticed one was in the courtyard, bouncing on the stone bench. Pacing the floor, she had narrated the fingers that touched her, haunted her and disgusted her. From where they were seated on the bench, her parents listened like stone gods on a pedestal. When she finished, she stood in front of them. Waiting. There was no sound except the buzz of the dragonfly hovering over her head. Then it flew past, brushing its wings on her cheek. She wiped her face, wondering whether her tears had made it wet.

As the days passed, her parents hovered over her. They were around when she talked to friends over phone. She was asked to wear the clothes they chose. Her evening walks in the park got cancelled. Her rage earned her stiff blows. They do not want her to attract more shame. On the evening she got sick, there were guests in the living room when she came back from school. The faces were familiar, but she did not greet them. Her eyes were on a pair of hands holding the teacup. She knew those fingers well. Her parents were discussing politics. She walked to her room. A dragonfly was buzzing inside her head.

A thunderbolt on the horizon. The girl can see the silver lines spreading on the black sky. She pulls the blanket up to her chin. Is that dragonfly trapped in the clouds? Has the lightning burned its wings? While falling, has it remembered the orange dusks it danced away in joy?

The sky is clear except for a few grey clouds scattered around. The river below is deep blue with mangrove trees forming green borders along its edges. It is almost spring and soon bottle brush trees on the riverbank will be covered in white blooms. The woman likes to spend her Sunday mornings taking a walk along the riverside. The place she stays, an old house next to the Romanian church, is a few blocks away. Every Sunday, she takes the narrow lane leading to the riverbank before the church bell rings, announcing early morning mass. From the wooden bench under the bottle brush trees, she can closely watch water birds squabbling on the mangrove trees. Great egrets, spoon bills, pelicans: she is still getting familiarised with them.

The land and its creatures remain foreign though she has been living in this country for a year. People are kind to her. Women at the asylum seeker centre help her with legal documents. The elderly priest at the church smiles though she never attends the mass. The children at the kindergarten she works at often come to her for a hug. Last week, she taught them how to make puppets. Curious eyes, agile fingers and smiling faces. They sat around her under the huge bay fig tree cutting cardboard, painting body parts and gluing them together. Then a kookaburra laughed from the canopy above. The children, jovial, looked up and laughed as well. A few clapped. Too much noise for the little bird. It flew away. Kookaburra is calling the rain, her colleague said. In a village I know, dragonflies fill the sky after the rains, she told the children. They wanted to hear more. It was time for their afternoon nap. She made up stories about dragonflies while they listened to her lying on their little mats, eyes droopy with sleep.

She has not spotted dragonflies today. Usually there would be a few flying above the reeds, basking in the morning sun. Just a few, not a swarm. Swarms must be there, in a far-off sky, dancing. In spring, they eat, mate, lay eggs and prepare to leave. Dragonflies must leave. Or the monsoon will wipe them out. They fly to the southern cape when winds are in favour, cross an ocean and, if lucky, reach a shore where flowers are blooming. Were they dancing in the evening to say adieu to the skies? The woman had not said goodbyes when she decided to move out. She was not sure whether she could make the journey. She is still not sure where she will end up.

The house she stays in smells of sour paint. She shares it with seven others. When it rains, water leaks to the hallway, forming damp circles on the carpet. She regularly cleans rat droppings from the kitchen corner. The building belongs to the church. The priest told her that they don’t have enough funds for renovation. That keeps the rent low. Besides, she likes her bedroom upstairs. It has large gothic windows facing east. In the mornings, sunrays spread golden shades on the faded walls. The breeze flows in, carrying in the mild fragrance of lemon myrtles from the sidewalk below. She has spent many evenings sitting beside the study table facing the window. People passing by the sidewalk, vendors at the weekend market, her housemate’s tabby napping on the fence – she copies views from the window to her sketchbook.

Sometimes, she sketches dragonflies. They have large eyes, large glassy eyes containing thousands of lenses. Can they remember the views? Do they think about the beautiful moments of the past? The woman often talks to her brother. His face, bright and beaming, looks at her from the phone screen. His smile still has a streak of innocence. The woman wonders how he preserves it. He has gotten promoted. His pay is better now. Everybody at home is doing well.  At times, she traces random shapes among the clouds above while listening to his voice. Is that a flower, a face, a home? The woman gives him bits and pieces of her life. The bits she thinks he can take. She is attending an artists’ workshop. There is a chance for further collaborations. His smile becomes brighter. You will ace it, he says. He is going to adopt a kitten. A tiny black one he saw at a shelter. He has met a girl at a party. She reminds him of an old friend. Eventually he runs out of topics and winds up. But the woman will be calling him again soon. She wants to know more about the kitten and the girl.

The air is getting warm. The woman gets up to walk back to her house. There is a shimmer on the shrub behind the bench. A dragonfly perched on a flower bud. It has reached a shore. Now the wait is for buds to bloom. When the spring dusk falls, it will dance in the orange skies. And with the onset of clouds, it will fly to a distant spring.

By

Smitha Peter