Fiction: Shamila’s World
A short story.
The eyes are unmistakable, the lips thinner, a little drawn, harder. Her face is still exquisite, with her high cheekbones and narrow nose, the lines of time barely noticeable. Her once short, almost boyish auburn hair now lightly streaked with threads of gray and coiled on her head in a tight bun. Her figure is still lithe, athletic, after a span of thirty years. She has her left arm draped across the sofa’s headrest, a delicately muscled shoulder traveling tautly down towards a pointy elbow, a sleek forearm and the fingers of a pianist, nails cut short. Across the lobby bar of the Makati Peninsular, Shamila lifts her face from the magazine on her lap, sweeps the scene with a perfunctory gaze, and returns to her reading. Not even a flicker of recognition. Why should she? The sweat begins to gather in micro-beads just below my hairline. Sitting there jowly faced, my gut hanging over my waist belt, I am in perfect disguise — natural consequences of age, exercised gluttony and gin. I had the moment all planned out. Now I begin to feel the sweat under my arms. I clumsily put the glass of gin down with a clunk, reach for my handkerchief and begin mopping the sweat from my brow. My heart pounds louder and faster, my breathing gasping and desperate. I fumble for the bottle of nitro pills in my jacket pocket and slip one under my tongue. “Damn! I can’t do it tonight, not in this…
