Not Another Manic Monday

 

A large white surface? A large white surface morphing into a large rectangle… a large white rectangle taking its form up above me peppered with a 3-D dots resembling tear drops just about to fall – ah yes, my ceiling. This right about here is my cue to rub my eyes and sit upright in my bed after hitting the snooze button repeatedly on my cell phone. Yes, cell phone – in this day and age why bother to purchase an alarm clock? Convenient, mobile, and the upbeat tune reminiscent of a cheesy 80’s high school party beats a monotonous beep provided by conventional alarm clocks any day!

With one flick of my wrist, I fling my comforter to the right hand side – only far enough to uncover my upper body whilst I devour the warmth my legs feel nuzzled underneath the pale mint fabric. Sigh. It’s 2 f*****g p.m. My left leg plops onto the floor while I lay in an awkward position – fighting every temptation to doze off again for a good 2 hours. (Must remain in bed as long as possible). My eyes fixate on a spot on my wall chosen based on random selection to stabilize the droopiness of my heavy lids. I wonder how he is. Probably dissecting breast tissue as we speak, speaking of which I NEVER dissected a frog like we were promised in Saisr. Why was the one thing I was promised in my life deprivation? It was like a cruel joke when I reached 8^th grade only to discover as I stood in my tiny white lab coat and over-sized plastic goggles that we would be dissecting a chicken heart. A friggin chicken heart. I mean sure, I did almost pass out and had to leave the class room once confronted with what was literally the size of 2 dates mushed together, but I wanted to take pride in mutilating the frog - just like my older sisters did. As the youngest, wasn’t I supposed to carry the torch of dissection passed down with such pride… WHY oh why did I never complete any rite of passage? Another cruel joke played on me, just like the abundant baby hairs that decorated and softly shaded my upper lip.

I should have taken a hint when the picnics, vacations and family dinners came to a sudden halt post 1986. Yup, that’s the year I came into the world as the rosiest Jamil to date. Apparently Nadia was traumatized for months. She insisted mom return me to wherever I came from and demanded a brother as she was promised. There were three sisters before me : Shahnaz, Farahnaz, and Nadia. And with the emergence of my existence into the stream of life – I shattered Nadia’s dreams. It didn’t however, take too long for her to warm up to this random new wailing baby she didn’t know what to do with.

It’s funny how unconditional familial love can be. Though five years apart, we never fell short of being the best of friends. There were certainly times when we didn’t realize, progressing to being too ashamed of admitting it, only to accepting and embracing it with the occasional drought of emotional patience followed by the awkward vacuum of nothingness. As time goes by, love and patience can become so misread that you often find yourself at a dead end wondering why you didn’t just hold back that night from saying the extra volatile word or two. It’s funny how she’ll never know how much she means to me.

*ring ring*

Cell phone reads : +716-------

“Morning snugluffums!”

Now THIS is worth waking up to – every single f*****g day.

 

With that, I use the smile plastered on my face to invite my toothbrush in, thoroughly scrub, gargle and rinse.

 

Let the day begin.