Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings

by Kuzhali Manickavel

  The next day, Velu arrived with a noolpuzha honeybee. It was curled in the palm of his hand, like it was asleep.

  “Very small, no?” said Velu. “I thought it was a fly and hit it with a newspaper. He eats bees?”

  “Who?

  “Your fighter fish.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I came home and he wasn’t there. I mean he was dead.”

  “He probably jumped out of his tank.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sometimes they do that. Don’t worry, you lose something, you find something.”

  Alarmel watched Velu walk back to his table and thought:

  When I die, don’t bury me, just throw me in the sky and see if I can fly.

  She opened her notebook and made a strict note to herself not to write any of that down.

  •

  Against her better judgment, Alarmel took the honeybee home. She placed it in front of the bottle and thought:

  A poet is like a jar that has gone too far.

  Honeybees are full of fleas.

  She gently pulled the honeybee’s wings off and placed it on the end of her finger. For some reason it reminded her of a kitten.

  Smitten with stinging yellow kittens.

  No, no, Alarmel said to herself. Computer courses. Pray with furrowed brow and promise God that you will walk briskly and breathe with complete lung capacity. Above all, make it a point to make sense.

  The tiny bee seemed to be edging along her finger and Alarmel thought she heard a rustling coming from the jar. It seemed like all the wings and legs and abdomens were shuffling together while the bottle swelled like a transparent balloon. Alarmel closed her eyes and saw words slipping across the back of her eyelids:

  What is it about the sun that makes it burn for everyone?

  Beneath the yawning velvet bee the village smithy broke his knee.

  Crumbly is as crumbly does to forget about what crumbly was.

  Take computer courses with full lung capacity, Alarmel murmured to herself. Pray to everything that walks briskly and sensibly.

  Alarmel opened her eyes and saw that the bottle was neither rustling nor swelling. The bee however, had disappeared. Alarmel looked for it on the floor, inside her clothes and then inside the bottle in case she had dropped it in without thinking. After an hour, she was forced to come to the conclusion that she must have inadvertently eaten it.

  •

  The next day, Alarmel spoke to a colleague about computer classes, noting down course structures and module formats that cluttered up her notebook like a cloud of gnats. Whenever she found herself thinking of insects, she pulled out a piece of paper and did long division. Velu came at lunch and patted her table reassuringly.

  “You lose something, you find something, no?” he said.

  “I didn’t lose anything.”

  “Your fish died—isn’t that a loss?”

  “Oh yes. Yes it is.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper that looked like it had been washed.

  “And see what I found? I said Prabhu forget the pen, I can buy a new pen. But you better find that paper. I mean it wasn’t even mine—what if it was important? What if it was a will?”

  “It wasn’t a will.”

  “Anyway, it got washed but I could still read it. He said to say he was sorry.”

  Velu smoothed the paper out on the table and pulled up a chair.

  “So what is this exactly?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t think it was a story because there are no people. Unless this is a story without people. Is it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So it’s a poem.”

  “I don’t know. It’s words.”

  “Behold the long and short of it—sometimes jasmines smell like shit.”

  “I didn’t mean to say shit.”

  “That’s jaathimalli of course. Dirty bugger of a flower. I always thought it smelled like a toilet. What is this life if full of care we have nothing to eat or wear? I like that one a lot.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, it’s about poverty, isn’t it? Because if life is full of care and there is nothing to eat and wear then that must mean you’re poor of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Velu folded the paper up again and put it in his pocket.

  “I think it is important to discuss things like this,” he said. “Expands the mind. My father always made me read English newspapers when I was a child. And see? Now I’m able to discuss poetry with you. Tell me when you write something else.”

  Velu walked back to his table and sat down. Alarmel watched as he bent over a file, his back curving away from his chair. She thought of the honeybee he had brought her, how it had looked like it was sleeping in the palm of his hand.

  By Sunday evening, we were in trouble. We knew we were going to be in trouble for some time now. At one point, Kayalvizhi had even stood up and stamped her foot.

  “Machan, what are we doing, da?” she said. “We’re sitting here plucking pubic hairs1, that’s what we’re doing. We’re fucking useless.”

  I agreed because there was nothing else I could do. I pointed out that we were also taking up space, wasting time and going bad and Kayalvizhi nodded because it was all true. Now it was Sunday evening and here we were, sitting on the floor, so fucking useless. We had just eaten what was left of the food, which was cold rice and ketchup. Thankfully that was the last of it, so even though we were in trouble, at least we didn’t have to eat cold rice and ketchup anymore.

  “Look at us,” said Kayalvizhi, “Why are we just sitting here? We should do something!”

  “I know,” I said and felt a sob quiver at the back of my mouth. I put my head down and hoped I would be sick. I felt that everything would be alright if I got sick.

  “I mean we’re lucky we’re even here,” said Kayalvizhi. “Imagine if Asha hadn’t let us crash here when she left. Then where would we be?”

  “We’d be dead,” I said, trying not to bawl.

  “Worse. We’d be sitting in a ladies hostel in Guduvancherry.”

  “We’d be wearing nighties all day. We’d be drying our underwear on buckets hidden under our beds.”

  “We have to do something. Maybe we should do something with the computer.”

  I got up and made my way to the bathroom. By the time I reached the toilet I was sick; not halfway sick like spitting up bile and belching but real, throw-it-out-start-again sick. I flushed the toilet and put my head under the tap. I was sure that now, things could only get better.

  •

  Kayalvizhi mailed Asha to tell her we were in trouble, though she didn’t say what the trouble was. After all, it wasn’t anything specific—it was all sorts of trouble snarled up together. Asha mailed back the next morning, assuring us that we could do anything in the whole world because we could write in English. I recited the alphabet to see if it made me feel empowered but I got lost somewhere between L and R.

  “So apparently there’s this person looking for articles,” said Kayalvizhi.

  “Articles of what?” I asked.

  “India. Food articles. Temple articles. Sari articles. Asha said they’ll pay two hundred dollars. That’s about eight grand. Four for you, four for me.”

  “We could get… all sorts of stuff.”

  “Yes we could.”

  “That would take care of everything. No more trouble.”

  “Exactly. So I was thinking we could do temples.”

  “Oh definitely. There’s one on the corner, let’s do that one.”

  “Not big ones.”

  “This one isn’t big, it’s more like a shrine really. You can’t see it if a cow stands in front of it.”

  “I mean let’s do something like village temples. Something that’s got a lot of rice fields around it.”

  “Well, there’s this tem
ple down by Nagercoil that’s got two goddesses instead of one.”

  “Is it in a rice field?”

  “Probably. The thing is that the goddesses are sisters, one’s the bad goddess and the other one’s the good goddess. Or something.”

  “Or maybe we should do abandoned temples. Haunted temples.”

  “I think the younger one is bad. Or maybe it’s the other one. Maybe they’re both bad. Or no, they can’t be bad, can they? I don’t think goddesses can be bad.”

  “Haunted houses! Oh, let’s do haunted houses!”

  I looked down at my hands, thinking about the sister goddesses, one good and one bad. Maybe that’s how we were built intrinsically—one bad eye, one good eye. One bad elbow, one good elbow. And all those yinyang body parts worked together to make a complete person.

  “I just had an amazing thought,” I said but by the time I had Kayalvizhi’s attention I had forgotten what I wanted to say.

  •

  We decided to go with the sister goddesses because Kayalvizhi thought a bad goddess was almost like a haunted house. We Skyped Asha, to let her know what we were doing.

  “Oooh that’s nice,” said Asha. “I like that. Is it like a Dalit thing?”

  “A what?” said Kayalvizhi.

  “You know, lower caste goddess thing. You guys aren’t Dalits, are you? Because I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

  “No, I don’t think we are.”

  “Fabulous. Then you both should go down to Madurai—”

  “Nagercoil.”

  “Right, go to Nagercoil and check the place out.”

  “But we already know it’s there.”

  “Right, but you have to go there to get more information.”

  “Why? It’s a temple with two goddesses and they might be sisters, what more do we need to know?”

  “Interview a Tamil history professor or something, give it some brains. Talk to old people. Lots and lots of old people.”

  “Old people don’t like us.”

  “And try and get pics of the old women with the big ear holes, you know what I mean? The ones that have those huge piercings that you could fit your arm through? And send me a mail once you get to Madurai, okay?”

  Asha hung up and I thought I was going to be sick. I would much rather be in trouble than in a train or a bus, traveling with large-elbowed women who kept asking if I was married.

  “I can’t do it,” I whispered, putting my head down. “I give up.”

  “Wait, I know why she thought we should go there,” said Kayalvizhi. “I know why she said that. She doesn’t know that it’s fourteen bloody hours to Nagercoil. By bus. And we can’t travel in a bus for fourteen hours. You’d get sick, for one thing.”

  “I could get sick just thinking about it.”

  “So we’re going to ignore what she said on account of the reality of our circumstances. I mean she’s obviously out of touch with everything here, she’s been gone for like… a month?”

  “Three days.”

  “Anyway, I think we can do pretty well from here. Chennai is the city and the city is everywhere, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And we can take pictures of pictures. I think we can do that.”

  “Right. And we can do that from here too. We don’t have to go anywhere.”

  •

  Kayalvizhi found an abandoned notebook and we sat down to work seriously on the article. For the first few minutes we were stunned by how much we were going to achieve. We were on the brink. We were almost superstars.

  “So, sister goddesses,” said Kayalvizhi.

  “Right, so they’re sisters but I’m wondering if they’re goddesses. I mean what if they were just magic or something?”

  “Magic sisters.”

  “That used to happen, you know. People turning magic and moving statues with their minds and stuff. Walking on water. Maybe it was like that.”

  “Did they build temples for magic people back then?”

  “I’m pretty sure they did.”

  Kayalvizhi put her book down and frowned at the floor.

  “I think that happens to me sometimes,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Well I don’t think I should talk about it directly because it might lose its power. But I get what you’re saying about magic people.”

  “What am I saying?”

  “How people can do magic. I’m not saying that about me though, because it might lose its power.”

  “You’re telling me you’re magic.”

  “Not directly. Directly I’m not saying anything.”

  “Do something then. Make your hand disappear.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “How does it work then?”

  “It’s very quiet. It’s like… knowing… only in a very quiet way.”

  “Knowing what?”

  “I don’t think you’d get it if I told you.”

  “Fine. I feel pukey anyway.”

  “Ok. We’ll do this later.”

  Kayalvizhi spent the rest of the day in the next room and all I could see of her was her foot, dangling over the edge of a chair. Sometimes it moved like it was happy and dancing for a very special reason. Sometimes it just hung there and I wondered if she had died.

  •

  The next day we barely spoke, not even when we noticed a small rat scuttling across the floor of the kitchen. I found a packet of Tang and poured half of it into a bowl, leaving the other half for her on the counter. In the afternoon I fell asleep and dreamed that I was chasing Kayalvizhi down a deserted street, asking her to make her hand disappear. She ran to an intersection and suddenly split in two, one half running to the right, one half to the left. I stood at the junction, unsure of which one to follow. When I woke up, I found that I had spilled Tang all over my arm and onto my bed. Kayalvizhi was sitting on the ground, sorting through old newspapers.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Looking for old Sudoku games. You like Sudoku? I love Sudoku.”

  “Did you write anything yet?”

  “No, did you?”

  I shook my head and began dusting the Tang off my arm.

  “You know what it is?” said Kayalvizhi. “We’re just sad and tired. That’s what’s wrong with us.”

  “And sick.”

  “I think we need some inspiration. We should tell Asha’s landlady that we have the flu.”

  “Tell her we’re getting viral fever.”

  “Right. We have the flu and viral fever and if we don’t do something about it soon, we’ll…we’ll what?”

  “We’ll melt.”

  “Right, something like that.”

  Kayalvizhi quickly changed her clothes, washed her face and tied her hair up.

  “Shouldn’t you comb it?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

  “Of what?”

  “I’m afraid there’s something living in my hair and it will fall out if I comb it. I haven’t combed my hair all week.”

  “You mean like lice?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Something far worse.”

  I watched her leave and wondered what could be living in her hair. Whatever it was, I had a feeling it was living in my hair too.

  •

  Kayalvizhi was gone long enough for the sky to turn dark and the mosquitoes to emerge from the gutter to start their symphony. I hummed along with them, harmonizing from the other side of the window. Kayalvizhi returned with a wire basket filled with food.

  “She wanted us to come over for dinner but I said you were too sick,” said Kayalvizhi. “We can come for breakfast tomorrow if we’re up to it.”

  “And?”

  Kayalvizhi pulled out two strips of tablets from her pocket.

  “Paracetamol,” she said. “Better than nothing I thought.”

  We put the wire basket in the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of water, one each. We held our strips of paracet
amol up to the light, then tapped them on the side—Kayalvizhi said this made the dust settle but I did it for good luck. Then Kayalvizhi stretched out on a mat on the floor while I lay down on the sofa.

  “Remember to be inspired,” she said. “Think sister goddesses. Think Nagercoil. Think haunted houses.”

  “Not haunted houses. We’re doing temples.”

  “Ok so think temples. Temples temples temples.”

  It was a long wait. I watched lights blink on in the apartments outside and wondered what the people up there were doing, what they were eating, if they ever looked out the window and wondered about us. I turned and looked at Kayalvizhi, who was frowning at her fingernails.

  “Kayal,” I hissed.

  “Hmm?”

  “Do some magic.”

  “No.”

  “Come on, pull your head off or something.”

  “Temples, machan. TemplesTemplesTemples.”

  “Right.”

  I closed my eyes and found myself thinking about bones instead of temples. It occurred to me that if approached in the correct manner, the world could be peeled and on the inside there would be plastic bags and hair but mostly bones. TemplesTemplesTemples, I thought but all I could see were clean, white bones, overlapping and knocking together like dead branches. I opened my eyes and glared at the ceiling, frustrated with my brain, frustrated with the paracetamol. I turned to look at Kayalvizhi. She was sitting up and yawning. Two sets of arms were gently opening like wings from her back.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry about it, we don’t have to go anywhere. We’re the goddesses,” said Kayalvizhi. She sat straight and smiled as her six arms opened out like lotus petals. As an afterthought, she raised one hand in blessing.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Can you do the tongue thing?” I asked.