Ta Voix

‘God damn it!’

I spin around in my chair and throw the laptop on the bed.

‘Yes, cave my skull in. It would go with the aesthetic I am trying to pull off these days.’

A voice murmurs from somewhere inside the giant pile of sheets spewed around on the tiny bed. The grey labyrinth on the cover buds out straight, grey locks of hair. Strand by strand they sprout out. The white sheets give rise to an even whiter set of limbs and a dainty waist. With some effort, she pushes herself up and leans back against the heap of pillows and sighs.

‘Shit. Sorry. Didn’t know you were here.’

‘As if,’ she pouts. ‘I am almost always here, and you know that.’ She leans forward, picks up the laptop and squints as she tries to look for the root of my frustration in the email flashing ominously on the screen. ‘Now, what has got you throwing your laptop across the room? Another assignment?’

‘I don’t think it can be classified as “across the room” if your room is smaller than a normal king-sized bed. There isn’t enough “room” for it to be considered a room.’ I rub my eyes and adjust my spectacles.

‘Not what I asked.’

‘Yes, another stupid assignment that I am too stupid to do.’

‘We both know that isn’t the complete reason. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.’

‘Well, it’s the professor.’

‘James?’

‘Obviously.’

‘What did he do this time?’

‘I emailed him my ideas for the creative and critical writing assignments and, not only did he completely shoot one of them down, he gave unbelievably vague suggestions regarding the other. I hate this philosophy of letting us “find our own way”. I mean, just give me a straightforward answer so that I don’t have to use my brain more than necessary. But no, you have to make your students work for it. It’s as if I asked him how to bake bread and he tells me why Pluto is no longer a planet.’

‘Pluto is back to being a planet. And that’s not even recent. When was the last time you picked up a newspaper? Or watched the news?’

‘I don’t care!’

‘Right, I see. What did he suggest you do instead?’

‘He says I should write something I am passionate about. Something that is riskier and has an edge to it. Something that matters to me.’ I roll my chair to the door and notch up the heater burning feebly in the corner.

She takes one pale leg out of the sheet, turns to her left and fixes her onyx eyes on me. ‘And what are you passionate about?’

‘I was passionate about the tragic story of star-crossed lovers, Chips and Ketchup, one of whom by the end realises the importance of loving and respecting oneself before anyone else. But unconventional love stories with a lesson in empowerment and self-realisation wasn’t something worth being “passionate” about, I guess.’

‘Okayyy…’ She tilts her head.

‘I mean why does passion have to be all dark and grey and painful and hidden and twisted? Why does it have to be a burning desire that’s set in your lungs so that every time you breathe, it burns a little stronger and suffocates you a little harder? Why can’t it be something that is freeing and liberating and funny, something that makes you feel a little lighter, laugh a little harder, live a little happier? Why can’t it just be… I don’t know… yellow?’

‘Then write that.’

‘Can’t.’ I sigh.

‘Why?’

‘I told you. James.’

‘Well, fuck him.’

‘Can’t, I need to score well. Going against your professor isn’t the way to do it.’

‘But, isn’t that exactly what you are doing right now?’

‘That isn’t the point. The crucial thing is that I have to come up with a new thing that I can be fake-passionate about so I have something worthwhile to submit.’

‘Okay. You said something about being yellow, right?’

I nod. She rises up and moves over to the giant window by the bed. Her long silver mane flows like a million trickles of water down her bare back. She turns and presses her back against the window. The white sheet with grey swirling patterns partially covers her thighs. She lifts one slim arm and drags her hair to one side and starts braiding them. Nimble fingers twisting and turning them in undefined knots. The weather outside seems confused, like it doesn’t know what to be;, clouds heavy with rain shelter bits of sunlight behind them. They move like tired travellers with golden babies on their backs. One of them comes over and rests as a backdrop against her head, placing a smoky crown around her ashen hair.

‘What did you mean by that?’

‘It’s just something people have said to me. That I remind them of sunflowers and sunshine. And I like it. I like making people happy. I like being this version of me. I like that to some people I am just yellow.’ I walk up to the bed and pick up the laptop where it lies face down and askew.

‘It’s funny how to some people you are yellow while to others you are grey.’ She halts for a second and looks at me, contemplating, ‘But isn’t sunshine that way too? It’s never completely golden. It’s a mixture of colours, of shades, of hues blended together. You just say it’s yellow because people have told you it’s yellow.’

I walk back to my desk and connect the laptop to its charging socket. ‘True, and we will be fine for as long as yellow is what the majority of the world sees.’

‘Sometimes that’s the only thing the world wants to see.’

‘Maybe it’s better that way. It has seen enough grey to last a lifetime.’

She lets out a giggle. ‘Oh honey, you can never have enough of grey. You can never have enough of me.’ She winks.

I laugh a little and press my cold palms to my face. I am exhausted. Exhausted to the point that just calling what I feel ‘exhaustion’ seems like an insult. No number of adverbs preceding ‘exhaustion’ can emphasise how deep my level of exhaustion is. But I have to stay awake, swallow mug after mug of coffee till my insides resemble acidic wastelands. No wonder half of the world is already depressed; melancholy sells for a reason.

I run my fingers through my hair and pull it as hard as I can, then grab the band from the edge of the wooden table and tie it in a tight knot on top of my head. I plant my spine to the back of my chair, stare intently at the computer screen and think. Really think.

Nothing. Nothing comes to my mind. Apart from the slight ringing in my ears and buzz in my head, it’s completely empty.

‘You are going to kill yourself,’ she says as she looks at me with amusement. ‘I can see the vein popping on the side of your forehead.’

‘Either be of some use or shut up.’ I clench my jaw.

‘Okay, damn. Calm down. Jeez, I was just trying to help.’

‘Then do that. Help me. Cause if I go down, I am taking you with me.’

She snorts at that. ‘As if I don’t know that. We are a package deal. It’s kind of implied already. Okay, moving on. If your passion does not work for him, how about his passion?’

I turn to look at her. ‘What?’

‘You know, maybe write something he is passionate about? Suck up to him. What is he passionate about?’

‘I am not sure. All I know is he talks a lot about climate change.’ The sunlight filtering into the room creates a rainbow on her bare shoulder. ‘What other things do men generally like? Weed and erotica?’

‘Firstly, climate change is a lost battle. It is bound to get progressively worse because the only people who give a shit about it are poor and powerless. The rich, in their glass mansions made of blood money, don’t care if a thousand others are dying due to a heatwave or a drought. As long as their tummies are fed and pockets are full, climate change might as well just be some looney’s imagination. What’s the point of being passionate about a dead cause?’

‘But that doesn’t mean we stop fighting. That’s outrageous. Someone has to stand up fo-’

She snaps her fingers. ‘Shut it. I wasn’t done talking.’

‘Oh, okay. Sorry, continue,’ I say, trying my best not to be sulky about it.

‘Yeah, I already know what you are going to say. Climate change blah blah activism blah blah world peace blah blah human responsibility blah blah-’

‘Okay! I get it. Move on! Also, I wasn’t going to say anything about world peace.’

‘That is nothing to be smug about, weirdo.’ My smile drops. ‘Anyway, as for weed and erotica, do it. Smoke weed and write eroticas. I approve.’

‘What am I? An eighteenth-century closeted gay with the soul of a tortured artist?’ My neck feels sore and rigid. I wonder if it would stop hurting if I broke it.

She sighs and lays her head down on the pillow, her braided tresses hanging down from the edge of the bed.

‘I am not sure about the gay part but all the rest still applies.’

‘I do not have a tortured soul. Nor am I an artist.’

‘Then what are you?’

I walk up to the window and look outside. The weather has changed. The top half of the sky is scattered with an array of white clouds, like an upside-down cotton field. The field thins down in the centre and merges in with the turquoise blue sky. The sun rises from behind the whites and shuns the grey into hiding. An agitated tree seems to be in dialogue with the wind as it blows its branches. Below the trees, a brick house with stained windows and a slanted roof
sits solemnly with a pair of chimneys poking through, silent and smokeless, as if pondering the purpose of their creation. A flock of birds fly atop the house, a quick pause their flight, contemplating whether the sleepy roof would tolerate uninvited guests. The greenish-yellow leaves observe the silent debacle, laying their head gently on the rooftop as the wind dies down. The branches, now caressing the withered tiles on top and kissing the lonely bricks, murmur their worries to the wind, which takes them to the birds as they slowly hover around before settling down near the edge.

I wonder if anyone else saw this. If anyone else has the time to care for such useless things like I do. People look for beauty in different things. As if it’s something that needs to be found. As if we don’t walk by, or see or breathe beauty every day, every second. I don’t think the universe forgives those who miss out on its beauty.

‘I don’t know what I am or what I want and that is what scares me the most. The always-empty feeling in my gut that in a world where everyone is something or someone, I am nothing. And the scariest part is I am okay with being nothing. But I am not okay with not knowing what I want. Because the world isn’t kind to those who don’t. It loves labelling us and at the end of the day, if I am going to get labelled, I might as well be the one who has control over that.’

‘I know.’

‘Every morning, I dig deep into my pocket of personalities and find how I would rather be labelled that day. The dumb goofy idiot,
or the nasty plastic bitch, or maybe a safe one like the passive observer, the one who sees everything, feels everything, but acts oblivious. Some days when I feel a little bubble of courage rise in my chest or am just tired from being beaten down, I walk out into the world with no label stuck on my head. So, it finds a new one for me and then I have a new persona to add to my basket.’

‘I know.’

‘It’s often said that whatever we know about ourselves is what others have told us. “Others” have told me I am a lot of stuff. So, what am I? A pretentious pseudo-intellectual? Or a genuine person who carries her heart on her sleeve? Or am I both of them? Or maybe I am none of them? But how can that be? I have to be someone, right? I can’t just be nothing. Even if I want to, the world won’t let me be nothing.’

‘I know.’

‘So I have to choose because, if I don’t, they will do it for me. I have to choose how I wish to be slandered today, or tomorrow, or for the rest of my life. That is inevitable; I am going to be poked, scratched and kicked but I get the choice of the weapon. Again, if I don’t choose that, they will do it too. So I keep my mouth shut and smile, while carrying the heavy, moral weight of existence.’

‘I know.’

‘Then they have the audacity to ask me what I think, what I feel, if I am okay, to consider them an ally. An ally as long as it’s convenient, an ally as long as I do what is asked of me, an ally till the time I stay ignorant to my wants as they stay ignorant to my needs, an ally till the time I can wilfully trade my life for their propriety. Stab a person, twist the knife and ask why they scream.’

‘I know.’

‘I am so tired, you know? I try to fight but I don’t even know what I am fighting for. Who is ‘them’? Society? Or my own mind? I don’t know. I just want to be…’ I sigh.

‘Yellow.’

I look down and see her smiling up at me. Her hair has started to slowly un-braid itself as it merges back with the grey patterns of the cover. Mesmerised by it, I forget my worry for a second. And then it hits me like a truck.

‘Wait, you’re leaving already?’

‘Yup, my job is done for the day. Or at least I hope so. Cut yourself some slack and don’t call me again. Also, don’t forget to turn down the heater since you won’t be needing it anymore.’

I panic and try to grab her hand as she sinks down deeper into the cover. ‘Wait! Before you go, tell me: what should I write my assignment on?’

‘Climate change.’