Vague memories of a distant home
The street is alive with horns and heat, the wind restless with shouts. Short-tempered drivers and tourists with mopeds fashion a chorus of urgency. My father, ever unperturbed, sees a street vendor selling mangoes and pulls over. He buys a whole crate. I watch, eyes wide as he takes a bite from the most yellow-looking one, his teeth piercing the waxy skin. Golden juice glistens down his hand, his fingers covered in the fruit’s flesh. A smile washes over his face.
“This is the only way to eat a mango,” he says, in between bites. I grin.
Breathless, I climb. The marble steps rise endlessly before us, I sigh with each footfall. A flash of fur catches me off guard. I scream. Demons. No, worse. Monkeys. I run down the steps and hide behind my mothers legs. She laughs, her voice steadier than the stone, “it was their home before ours.” My fear softens, though I feel the gaze of the monkeys linger, “we must learn to live together, not apart,” she says.
The smell of incense floods my senses as I enter the temple and suddenly all is fleeting. I carry a handful of white jasmine flowers from our garden, my small hands like oysters, protecting the petals as if they were pearls. I place the flowers gently in a porcelain bowl filled with water. I watch them swim in small currents, a tiny pool of stars floating before my palms. It is almost divine, I think, though I have not learned that word yet. Only the sense of something vast, something infinite, seeping into my bones.
I grip my mothers hand tightly, not wanting to let go. We watch the other children from a distance, laughing in an unfamiliar language. I have no hat today, so the sun is forbidden. That rule seems strange to me. At home, I would play until my already brown skin deepened beneath the heat. My mother gives me a supportive nudge. But I hesitate. When I try to speak, my tongue feels sliced in two. One half desperate, reaching but still slips. The other half lingers, content to remain in its oblivion, because at least it was its own.
Cross-legged on a cushion, I listen. The chant rises and falls, words I once knew drifting past, leaving behind only rhythm. Low. Dissonant. The sound carries me. Outside, I see no monkeys. But white birds with curved beaks and yellow crowns gather. They seem to understand. Head-bowed, a small white string is tied around my wrist. Soon, it will decay.
The trolley rattles as I push it beneath the white tepid lights of the supermarket. Memories, like waves, sometimes pull me under. Other times I wade, waist-high, unsure if I am dreaming or if I am remembering. I reach the fruit aisle. There is an employee, his green fitted shirt half tucked in, restocking the mangoes. He notices me and smiles with crooked teeth, “would you like some? They are in season. Only $3.90 each!”
Designed by Ege Yurdakul