Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings by Kuzhali Manickavel
Authors: Kuzhali Manickavel
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table, watching as her eyes frost over like icy stones.
“ Just the margins,” I say. “And I’ll only use pencil. Promise.”
Luckily her intense dislike for me comes with an equally strong need to be polite and accommodating. She slowly extracts her ruler from her box and places it on the neutral area of the bench we share. I already know the rules.
Do not call it a ruler—it is a scale.
Do not put it in your mouth.
Do not use it to scratch yourself.
Do not use it to cut pieces of mango pickle.
When you’re finished, give it back. Immediately.
I halfheartedly draw my first margin and turn to her.
“Did you know that your scale is called Dimple?”
I point to the name stamped boldly across the center of the ruler.
“It’s an odd name for a rul—I mean a scale. More like a name for…”
I can’t think of anything that could convincingly carry off the name Dimple. Out of the corner of my eye I notice that her fists are perched on the table like tiny anxious birds. We have shared this bench for the past six months and I have never touched her hands, not even by accident.
I flip my notebook around, ready to draw the final margin. I can feel her eyes boring into the side of my face—her knuckles have whitened from the strain of waiting. I sigh, place the ruler back on the neutral part of the bench and watch as it disappears behind her thin brown fingers.
I think of the coconut beetles that fly and fall into our house every night like wayward pebbles. I always corner them, hoping they will do something singular and memorable. But they just lie there, the glint of the tubelight ricocheting weakly off their backs.
Every day at 4 p.m. we drink coffee at the railway station. We burn our fingers and tongues while the Chennai-Mayavaram Express stretches along the tracks like a dead snake.
“That fraud banana woman asked thirty rupees for a bunch today,” says Selva.
“What did you say?”
“I said ‘fuck off’. She sells to everyone else for ten.”
Selva and I are cursed. We have silhouettes that don’t fit anywhere, even though we go to the temple every Friday and have a leaky roof.
“You smell nice,” he says.
“It’s this medicated soap. I got contact dermatitis.”
“You still smell nice.”
•
For some reason our house attracts ravens. They settle on the railing like monsoon clouds and don’t do anything when we wave our arms and say ‘Shoo!’ They have stolen five spoons and thrown one of Selva’s sandals into the gutter. One day they took our guppies. We point to the empty fishbowl when we tell people about it but nobody believes us.
•
Some nights Selva gets entangled in my hair, his eyes darting back and forth as we listen to the moths swarming at our window. They whisper behind their wings about our white tongues, how coarse and dry our hair is. How we keep blaming the ravens for everything.
“Why are we here?” I ask.
Selva covers my eyes with his hands.
“We’re not,” he says.
Character 1 keeps his ties and a light bulb on the dashboard of his car. The ties are there because he keeps forgetting to take them inside. The light bulb is there because he can’t remember where it’s supposed to go. He has a feeling it has been there for a long time.
Character 2 likes to collect imaginary diseases and key chains. Her past is littered with dead pets which include fish, squirrels, cats and a fresh-water shrimp called Caesar that was accidentally boiled to death when she put the fish bowl in the sun.
Character 1 buys a black and white fish because it doesn’t look real. He thinks it looks spirited and pixelated and the man in the shop says that’s because of its spots. Character 1 believes it would be perfect for the empty fishbowl in Character 2’s room.
Character 2 comes home and finds that her lucky bamboo has died. It has rotted into a brown mush and attracted a steady line of red ants. She thinks of all
“ Just the margins,” I say. “And I’ll only use pencil. Promise.”
Luckily her intense dislike for me comes with an equally strong need to be polite and accommodating. She slowly extracts her ruler from her box and places it on the neutral area of the bench we share. I already know the rules.
Do not call it a ruler—it is a scale.
Do not put it in your mouth.
Do not use it to scratch yourself.
Do not use it to cut pieces of mango pickle.
When you’re finished, give it back. Immediately.
I halfheartedly draw my first margin and turn to her.
“Did you know that your scale is called Dimple?”
I point to the name stamped boldly across the center of the ruler.
“It’s an odd name for a rul—I mean a scale. More like a name for…”
I can’t think of anything that could convincingly carry off the name Dimple. Out of the corner of my eye I notice that her fists are perched on the table like tiny anxious birds. We have shared this bench for the past six months and I have never touched her hands, not even by accident.
I flip my notebook around, ready to draw the final margin. I can feel her eyes boring into the side of my face—her knuckles have whitened from the strain of waiting. I sigh, place the ruler back on the neutral part of the bench and watch as it disappears behind her thin brown fingers.
I think of the coconut beetles that fly and fall into our house every night like wayward pebbles. I always corner them, hoping they will do something singular and memorable. But they just lie there, the glint of the tubelight ricocheting weakly off their backs.
Every day at 4 p.m. we drink coffee at the railway station. We burn our fingers and tongues while the Chennai-Mayavaram Express stretches along the tracks like a dead snake.
“That fraud banana woman asked thirty rupees for a bunch today,” says Selva.
“What did you say?”
“I said ‘fuck off’. She sells to everyone else for ten.”
Selva and I are cursed. We have silhouettes that don’t fit anywhere, even though we go to the temple every Friday and have a leaky roof.
“You smell nice,” he says.
“It’s this medicated soap. I got contact dermatitis.”
“You still smell nice.”
•
For some reason our house attracts ravens. They settle on the railing like monsoon clouds and don’t do anything when we wave our arms and say ‘Shoo!’ They have stolen five spoons and thrown one of Selva’s sandals into the gutter. One day they took our guppies. We point to the empty fishbowl when we tell people about it but nobody believes us.
•
Some nights Selva gets entangled in my hair, his eyes darting back and forth as we listen to the moths swarming at our window. They whisper behind their wings about our white tongues, how coarse and dry our hair is. How we keep blaming the ravens for everything.
“Why are we here?” I ask.
Selva covers my eyes with his hands.
“We’re not,” he says.
Character 1 keeps his ties and a light bulb on the dashboard of his car. The ties are there because he keeps forgetting to take them inside. The light bulb is there because he can’t remember where it’s supposed to go. He has a feeling it has been there for a long time.
Character 2 likes to collect imaginary diseases and key chains. Her past is littered with dead pets which include fish, squirrels, cats and a fresh-water shrimp called Caesar that was accidentally boiled to death when she put the fish bowl in the sun.
Character 1 buys a black and white fish because it doesn’t look real. He thinks it looks spirited and pixelated and the man in the shop says that’s because of its spots. Character 1 believes it would be perfect for the empty fishbowl in Character 2’s room.
Character 2 comes home and finds that her lucky bamboo has died. It has rotted into a brown mush and attracted a steady line of red ants. She thinks of all
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