Pali follows a man through the market. His shoulder-length hair is dark, his eyes hooded and drawn. Her body feels fluid. She tries to remember why she is doing it. She has always liked someone who walks ahead of her, guide-like, parent-like, ever since she walked away from the mangroves with the women and left that life behind, left her father behind. She blinked the thought away, her father, bless his soul, buried by the tsunami. The village that drowned. Not a single survivor. The women, who were far away by then, listened to the news in silence. They observed a moment’s silence for their dead husbands, then got up to light the cooking fires. They did not talk about the men they left sleeping in their huts. Or how they took the children and walked west when they sensed it was coming. Wouldn’t want to wake the men, they whispered with red-stained lips. That was ten years back.

The air resonant with morning bells. Shawl over head, Pali slips into another life, an old life. Her clan do not cover their heads anymore. Nor do they chew betel nut but these memories are as fresh for her as new clothes. Where we come from must remain behind us, the women said, shedding their saris and wrapping black leather skirts around themselves. We must forget, they said, cutting up their nets and forging iron spears that sparkled black. Hers lurked in the corner of the closet. I don’t need it, the ugly thing. I don’t belong with them. Pali believes she will find a way out of the dreadful destiny her clan has carved for themselves. She cannot deny carving knives fascinate her as do daggers. Anything with a blade. She ignores this fascination most days.

Stolen story; please report.

The man’s face turns toward her and this time, she notices a scar above the eyebrow. She looks like a woman built for strife, hair cascading down her back, eyes like charcoal. There is something sad in them but it is so deeply buried, it may not exist.