Tamil Tigress

A hot arc of scarlet spouts from Ajith’s nose and stains the grimy front of her tiger-stripe uniform. The officer holds her head low on a plaited onyx leash so that her face is turned to the ground, at the height of his navel, and drags her slowly along our line. Dribbles of blood shadow their progression. To my right a whimper is rewarded with a sharp blow to the face. ‘The second time, we shoot you.’ My eyes smart when the butt of my AK-47 jolts into my cheek. I imagine him in place of the torn and dotted dummy fifty feet away while shamelessly marveling at my own budding blood-lust. Periodic slaps and squeals echo from down the line, when a newbie misses the target or fumbles with the cartridges for a split-second too long. His warm exhale tickles my nape and unsettles my aim. ‘I expect more effort from most, or the entire unit will be held back. Dismissed.’

We kneel low in the underbrush with cyanide capsules parked delicately between our front teeth, the broad banana leaves deflecting the mid-afternoon rays. There’s no honor in being caught alive. Sweat pools in the dents of my loose helmet and trickles tauntingly into my eyes, but I don’t dare do more than blink rapidly. Hours pass before a single pellet shatters the fickle calm. The panting of Tigers is punctuated by a muffled thump to my left; a bright red jewel blooms like a flower on Rayul’s forehead. A weed, of sort: it spreads too quickly for a flower. The vegetation shakes and the air thrums as people roll head-over-heels like shot rabbits. The white bite of landmines swallows some and spits out more half-chewed; they flail on the ground with bizarre vigor. I repress the urge to laugh. I fire again and again, hitting and missing and not caring either way. Imani’s elbow brushes mine and we share it, feel it. Papa often said that when an artist passes, Indra bids they paint the sunrise. Did he know then that soldiers were the real artists? This in-between aurora palette is more beautiful than any painting. Something whizzes by my temple and wet warmth soaks my trousers. I close my eyes, waiting for pain, only to glance down and watch the urine coursing down my leg. Gun forgotten, I hug my head with both arms just as the ground grins with rocky teeth.

‘Hashan, Hashan! Wake up, you must get up, go, go, crawl, Hashan, behind the tree!’  My ringing head brims with the landmines laughter. Somebody a thousand miles away is screaming in my ear, tugging at a body part; I don’t know which until pain sear my thigh and knocks the breath from my lungs. Somebody presses fast-forward from their thrown in the sky, laughing, and the world floods with sound and movement and color. Imani’s doe eyes peer from a rusted face, her chin an inch from the wet soil so as to avoid the cruel birds. We latch onto each other tightly. I want to ask her to stay and sleep; flecks of black and red flit at the corners of my vision. They’re inviting, and maybe, if I ask kindly, they’ll take Imani too. But then I’m being dragged, and we romp and crawl back into the green haven, splattered red. We crawl until the red brushstrokes of soldiers are less prominent, the canvas untouched. I hug the trunk of a tree and heave myself into a sitting position. The flap of my tattered right trouser leg reveals a fleshy mess of skin and embedded shrapnel. Imani clamps a firm hand across my mouth to stifle my squeal, finger to her lips. She reaches to stoke my curls, where a helmet sat moments before, and clumsily encircles my shoulders with an arm, whispering kind words I don’t hear. She’s crying, too.

The chatter of purple-faced langur serenades my progression along the moonlit footpath. A Loris crosses my path. I try not to glance back at the warehouse, try to avoid dwelling on Imani’s cot, where, even now as I walk to the beach, a slender brown foot sticks out from under the white sheet. I chase her dewy, sleeping limbs from my mind. Once I would not have left her, but once I hadn’t had to peel bits of warm gut from my face. With an angry, stubborn swallow I shun the knot in my throat and hold my chin high. The path melts into a sandy expanse, pale and papery as bare bone in the crystal moonlight. Wavelets lap at the peeling stern of a boat bobbing in the warm shallows. My legs ache from walking, especially my right. A veiled man looks me up and down, nods, and beckons me close. My wrinkled, withered angel cups my face with a calloused hand, face hard and unsmiling, before melting back into the moonlight. I don’t utter so much as a thank you. Strong arms haul me up through the shallows and into the dense mass of bodies. The thud of an anchor, a path carved through a viscous mirror. My smile dies; Imani will wake tomorrow to my absence.