Black-Striped Sugarcane Savannah

The keys jingled as NSime fetched them out of his pocket and picked the right one in the failing hallway light. The faux-gold key was the first thing he saw before opening his door for seven years going. The serif font declaring the lock and key as ‘Titan’ always made him want to chuckle at how his people had relegated a race of overtly immortal, war-god giants to mere gatekeepers of their worthless possessions. His chuckle came out unsteadily as another wave of shudders hit him. He soon realized it had been a bad idea to go into the neighborhood lake for a late-night dip. He had no regrets, however, even as he considered the terrible cold that would rack him the following day and render him useless. Thanking the Titans that it was a Friday night, he put the key in the keyhole and turned it.

Earlier that evening, he had planned on proposing to Yupsula; his girlfriend of five years. He had prepped and pruned; wearing his best black shirt and jacket, and propped the ring in his breast pocket. He had not planned on doing anything extra; just the two of them in a restaurant eating the best food they could get and at the end of it all he would simply ask her if she would marry him. He did not consider any public flamboyance, flowery words, or loud proclamations of undying love like what most people preferred. They were both simple people and thus he felt that this was what was best for both of them. They had been dating for so long that they were all but married in name. According to some of their mutual friends, they already behaved like a married couple though they stayed in different apartments. They spent most of their free time at NSime’s place and he was always with her at any social gathering either one of them attended. NSime valued the fact that they often consulted each other on important decisions, in their career and health, that sometimes it overwhelmed him when he realized that they were not yet married. They had even freckled an egg together- an act the Traditionalists would have frowned upon if they happened to catch wind of it. It irritated NSime how those people were so touchy about their self-touted principles and practices. They expected everyone to follow their rules and had an aversion to one thing or the other that their list of prohibitions had no end to it most times. Yupsula was of a similar mind as well. She had ranted to NSime, many afternoons in the comfort of his apartment, on how cringy they were to having an egg before marriage and how their propaganda on the news was slowly killing other more interesting shows. One afternoon had ended with both of them taking turns pretending to be Traditionalists and making scandalized faces for when they found out that he and Yupsula had an egg together. They had once gone into hysterical fits of laughter trying to imagine how the Traditionalist Vigilante would react when they found out that he and Yupsula did not only have an egg but had freckled it and would most probably hatch it before they got married.

From his perspective, things had changed around the time Tenmiri showed up; Yupsula had changed around that time. She started having uncharacteristic mood swings, and puncture marks on her arms. NSime started having fears that she was Using. Asking her about it was not something he would do because that was not how their relationship worked, and she did not deign to bring it up when he had hinted at her sudden weight loss and the bite-marks on her neck. True, they had not known where Tenmiri came from but soon as she appeared she had become a part of the family. He could only say with conviction that she had been around since just before the egg’s first freckles formed.

Tenmiri had sharp stripes on her orange and white fur as dark as Yupsula’s hair in the summer. She was as playful as the wind just before monsoon season and often slept below the egg-pedestal at night, running in her sleep. There were times when she would come to snuggle in bed with him when it was too cold to sleep on the floor. Nights like that usually left NSime frustrated the morning after. She would wake him up with mock-growls and nip at his toes after which he would feel the stinging pain on his back. When he checked himself in the mirror, he would track six sets of claw-marks crisscrossing their way down his back; claw marks that marked his skin in weird and random patterns and stung horribly as he dabbed them with spirit. He would shoot her a reproachful look as each dab of methylated spirit shot hands of pain into his brain while she hunkered up at the bathroom door and looked decidedly innocent. In her deep green eyes, there would be a twinkle that smelled strongly of amusement and mischief.

At first, Yupsula did not mind Tenmiri. They used to play with her often enough in the apartment that Tenmiri would perk up whenever Yupsula arrived at the landing of NSime’s building, waving her nimble tail in excitement before he even knew that his girlfriend was around. One time Yupsula had joked that she could never surprise him with Tenmiri around. Tenmiri had simply rolled over and given them both such an open, curious look that Yupsula could not help going into a peal of uncontrollable laughter that took the breath from her. She had ended up tickling Tenmiri as retribution till they both tired themselves out.

Yupsula changed of a sudden and started regarding Tenmiri with disgust. That was around the time NSime noted that she had started Using. She started holding herself aloof of him and Tenmiri and stopped playing games with them. On one occasion, she stopped seeing NSime for a while. He had called her to ask if everything was alright with her and they had decided to meet at a restaurant to talk. When he asked her about it she had told him that coming to his place was a little too stressful for her. She had said that she felt like she needed a break from constantly commuting from work to his apartment to hers on weekdays. He had offered to come to visit her instead. She had sat there smiling with a look of quiet consideration on her face as they made plans.

The following week, he had shown up at her place as decided, with Tenmiri in tow. Yupsula had gone livid on seeing her there that evening.

NSime sneezed as he turned the key and missed the faint double-click that indicated that the doors were unlocked. Cursing his clumsiness and the Titan double-lock mechanism, he removed the key and rammed it back into the keyhole. He had promised himself that he would not get angry. He tried not to think about his dinner with Yupsula or the glum look on her face when he had met her there. He had hoped that proposing to her would help them grow back together and remove the distance that had grown between them.

Earlier that evening when he had asked her to marry him, she had simply said no. It had been a quiet thing; a quiet answer to an equally soft-spoken question. They had sat there in their black evening-wear staring at each other over the steaming cheese soufflé they had ordered.

“No” she said again, looking him clear in the eye.

On some level, he had wanted to lie to himself and say that she was probably high and was not in full control of her senses. Yupsula could never say no to him; they loved each other too deeply for that kind of rejection. But a sinking feeling took hold of him as he realized she had the look of the old Yupsula about her; resolute and stubborn when she did not want to be pushed.

“Why?” he had asked in return.

“That tiger” she had replied.

“What about Tenmiri?”

“Nothing” she said.

“I don’t understand.”

“You love that tiger more than you love me” she whispered.

“I still don’t understand what you’re driving at, Yupsula.”

“You love that tiger more than me, NSime!”

“Of course not. I love you both equally.”

“Ah, I see. You love me and that damned tiger equally, eh?”

“That ‘damned tiger’?”

“Yes!”

“What?! Wait. Look” NSime had said floundering, “Yupsula, this is Tenmiri we’re talking about. The three of us have been a family ever since the egg freckled and I don’t see what she has to do with any of this. You love her just as much as I do, so please, nabela, tell me what this is all about. Do you not love me anymore?”

“I cannot have you if it means I have to share you.”

“You’re worrying me, nabela. Are you sure everything is all right…you know, with you?”

Her eyes had widened in indignation and she flinched from him as if he had hit her.

“How dare you?!” she had said.

“How dare me what?”

“Spin this on me when it’s you and that tiger’s fault”

“Could you please stop calling her ‘that tiger’?”

“Could you please stop talking about her like she was me?!”

“What?!”

“You know what? I can’t anymore. Honestly, I just can’t anymore.”

With this, Yupsula had stood, removed their commitment band, and left NSime open-mouthed and staring after her raven-black gown as she left the restaurant. He had sat there for another couple of minutes staring at the band before calling the waiter for the tab. The man looked askance at the untouched food and made to feign indignation. NSime had shot him a look that made the man’s eyebrows climb up to his hairline and promptly shut his mouth. He had tried to leave there as calmly and casually as he could manage. He was hurt and confused but overall that he was angry. He had not done anything wrong. He had not done anything to deserve this treatment. All that he did was for her and the good of their relationship. She was the one who was pushing him away and blaming it on Tenmiri. He gave them both as equal of his attention as he could. That could not be the problem, was it? No, it could not be; Yupsula used to love Tenmiri. What had gone wrong there, he could not say.

NSime kept to his thoughts until he realized where his feet were carrying him; the lake that was three blocks down from his apartment. It had been a while since he had gone there to clear his mind. Without much thought, he had removed his clothes and lost himself in staying afloat and staring at the stars.

NSime finally got the door to open and did it slowly; Tenmiri was usually behind the door and often struggled with it opening inwards to get to him that sometimes she made it difficult for either of them to come in or go out. That brought a smile to his face; Tenmiri and her simplemindedness. He paused in the act of going in because something was off. Normally, he would be wrestling with Tenmiri in all her excitement to get the door open there was no resistance when he pushed the door inward. He pushed it again and this time it swung free and opened wide, revealing the room behind it.

The first thing he saw was the blood. It was everywhere. There was blood on the white walls and the floor; there was blood on the covers and the curtains. There was blood on one of the bulbs and the ceiling was an explosion of sharp dark crimson lines. The room had the sickeningly sweet smell of iron, flesh, and bile. All available surfaces were splattered with some amount or the other of black blood. Everything, all of it white, made a sharp contrast that continuously forced him to see the blood, even the littlest of it. Yupsula had once complained that having an all-white room and furniture was a bad idea because stains would be easier to see. He had said it made the room look much bigger than it was. The blood covering everything made the room look like some bizarre painting. He stood stock-still and leaned on the door for support as he tried to orient himself. That was when he saw the egg and Tenmiri lying beneath it.

NSime let out an incoherent roar as he bounded to the egg-pedestal and fell to his knees. The pedestal stood in the middle of the chaos untouched by the blood like it was the eye of the storm. The egg was broken, more than half of the shell still sat on the cushioned pedestal, the rest was scattered in bits and pieces around Tenmiri. She lay at the foot of the pedestal unmoving with congealed blood trailing from her to the kitchen. When NSime touched her, she was cold as the lake he had been swimming in.

Quietly, he struggled to raise her head and cradle it on his knees. He could only assume that she had died trying to protect the egg. He stared forlornly at the many stab wounds that covered her fur and picked out pieces of the shell that were stuck in her side. The shell was light ivory with traces of brown freckling on the outside and a gold that caught the light well on the inside; it would have been a girl. The rest of the egg that would have hatched into a girl sat there gaping and empty. He wondered what had happened to the child inside and where it was.

“You didn’t have to go this far” he said to the room as he huddled over Tenmiri’s corpse.

There was a movement to NSime’s left as Yupsula emerged from a corner of the room clutching a bloodied knife. She was still wearing the dress she had worn earlier that evening. It was shredded in different places. Her hair was a mess and parts of her exposed skin had claw marks swirling about in strange patterns.

“Did you ever wonder why I started Using, NSime?” she asked softly.

“You did not have to break the egg” he said.

“Did I, though? You haven’t answered my question, NSime.”

“Why did you kill her, Yupsula?” he asked, laying Tenmiri down gently and turning to look her full on. For a very small moment, he had a violent impulse. There was a smug look in Yupsula’s eyes and it irritated him to no end. Tenmiri was dead and their egg was broken but she looked smug. It irritated him and he wanted to take it out on her, to confront her and attack her. It was not until the keys in his hand jabbed him in the palm that he came to himself and realized that he had clenched his fist. He looked at the blood welling in his palm mixing with the crust of Tenmiri’s blood. The Titans were supposed to be the gatekeepers to his worthless possessions. They had only failed because he had been stupid enough to entrust two of his not-so-worthless possessions to them and Yupsula, the third of his not-so-worthless possessions. It was all his fault in the end.

“One chilly night I was stranded on the Boreco” Yupsula began, “on my way back from work. It was very late and the traffic did not look like it had any plans on letting up. So I paid the cab driver and hopped out on 47th. I figured since it was a thirty-minute walk from there to here, why not brave that than the hour and a half to my apartment? I remember how excited I was to see the look of surprise on your sleepy face when I showed up late at night. It was a perfect time since you’d be asleep and you wouldn’t see Tenmiri waving her tail like she does when I’m around. I was so happy. You don’t know how much I obsessed over you and surprises when Tenmiri showed up. It’s funny how I took her as she came just as you did, loved her as a companion just as you did; adored her even. She was so simple, so cute; so free.”

Yupsula had come to kneel before NSime and Tenmiri’s corpse as she spoke favoring her left side. She stopped speaking and stroked Tenmiri’s fur with her free hand. It was an affection that NSime had not seen her show Tenmiri in a long time. NSime noticed then that she had a wicked-looking gash on her abdomen. She looked up at him and smiled sadly.

“I opened the door and quickly snuck in, hoping the draft wouldn’t wake you up. Here’s your key, by the way” she said and fished the bunch from her bundle and threw it at his feet, “Do you know what I saw when I turned around with a stupid smile on my face? I first saw the egg and how the freckles were starting to spread out evenly. You know you were worried that the aviary said the freckles must spread and cover the egg before the end of the second trimester…”

NSime sneezed and cut her short. She seemed to have been caught off guard by something as mundane as sneezing.

“Bless you” she offered haltingly.

“Thanks” he replied.

She gave him a considering look and hesitated.

“You know, it’s ironic; how we’re dressed for a funeral” she said.

“We’re always dressed for a funeral” he said offhandedly.

“It’s not my fault you’re also a goth-wannabe”

“It was my favorite color before I even met you. You’re just a copycat”

“Copycat this” she said, smacking her rump and wincing in pain.

“Sorry” he said.

They both shared a look, astonished by the casualness of their rapport, and burst out laughing. It was all absurd, wearing funeral clothes and arguing about colors over Tenmiri’s corpse. Remembering Tenmiri, however, quickly soured NSime’s humor and killed his laughter. Noticing the change, Yupsula stopped laughing as well.

“I miss this” she said, wiping at a tear that had formed when they were laughing and gestured at both of them.

“Then why?”

“You fucked her.”

“I what?!”

“That night I walked in on you having sex with Tenmiri. Both of you were going at it like mad horny teenagers. The last thing I remember before I rushed out of the room was the sight of her clawing at your back and making purring noises.”

NSime was dumbfounded. Yupsula had to be lying. She had to be. He wanted to deny it with all his might but the one detail kept nagging at him. He had never told her about the claw marks on his back.

“No, I don’t…I didn’t. I couldn’t do something so abominable. I couldn’t…”

“I kept expecting you to bring it up the next time we saw, I figured I banged the door loud enough in my flight, but you acted normal. Every day after that I was hoping, anticipating that you would come to me begging for me to forgive you for trying to deceive me. That was what the NSime I knew would have done; you have such a bad guilty conscience, but you remained right as rain. And I…”

She paused and regarded the knife in her hand. Tears started welling in her eyes as she stifled a sob. She struggled to regain some of her composure and continued speaking.

“And I thought to myself one day; what about our egg? Would it also bear this corruption? How was I sure that it was OUR egg and not some abomination between you and that tiger? How was I sure that she did not freckle the egg before I did? I kept waiting for you to confess to me but you didn’t and so I started Using. I thought to myself ‘this should get his attention; he’ll ask about it this time’. But it didn’t get as much of your attention as I had hoped. You kept trying to take a roundabout method of coaxing the truth out of me that wouldn’t have me yelling at you that it was all your fault. When you did ask, you were so distracted that you did not even notice that I had not answered you. Then I stopped coming and you came calling. I thought maybe finally you were tired of pretending but you brought this stupid tiger and I lost it” she said, kicking the corpse in front of her and wincing again.

She rose with some difficulty and furiously threw the knife at her feet. The blade rebounded off the floor and bounced onto Tenmiri where it snagged in her fur.

“Why did you have to propose to me? Of all the things you could have done, why would you threaten me like that, NSime?”

“I did not threaten you.”

“Oh, you didn’t? ‘Come live with me and the tiger or be gone’. Is that not what it was?”

“How did you even get to that conclusion? A threat? What meaning does a perceived threat have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with everything! You liar, you!”

NSime was incredulous at the accusations she was leveling at him.

“Is that when you decided to kill her?” he asked.

She looked at him disbelievingly.

“You still don’t get it, do you?!” she yelled at him.

“Get what?!” he shouted back, “get that you murdered a tiger out of spite? That you seek justification for your drug abuse from some abomination that you claim I committed? Tell, me Yupsula, what am I missing here?”

She picked up the remnant of the eggshell from the pedestal and threw it at him. She had aimed for his head and the impact shattered the shell into many little pieces.

“The egg, you idiot! It was all about the egg! I had to know! I had to see it with my eyes if she was ours or yours and the tiger! She would have been a girl, you know? Look at the golden insides. Our child would have been a girl but I had not known at the time. I did not even care about the gender, I just had to know if the egg was ours. If I broke it I would know whether you had fathered an abomination or not. If she did not have stripes and markings, I would know that you were mine and I would come to find you. I would accept your wedding ring and scream my ‘yes’ from the top of my lungs until you grew tired of hearing it.”

“YOU WOULD HAVE KILLED IT! ARE YOU SO BLIND TO NOT SEE THAT?!” NSime bellowed, shaking loose some of the eggshells that were stuck in his hair.

She recoiled from his outburst. Her breathing became noticeably labored and she backed away from him deeper into the room until she hit his bed. With a plump, she fell into the once-white mass of bloodstained fabric, unconscious of the blood soaking through her clothes.

“Are you so conceited that you would kill our child to prove a point? Are you prepared for that kind of weight on your mind?” he continued.

“Yes” she said.

NSime looked at her in horror as she stared back at him defiantly. He did not recognize this beast that had taken Yupsula’s image. There was an eerie air about her as she sat in the ruins of his bed.

“And you think I would take you in after murdering our child? Look at you! I don’t even recognize you anymore” he said.

“And look at you who recognizes himself. You’re more worried about the tiger than the egg. And you call yourself the father, the layer of this egg? Recognize me, indeed” she replied, hissing.

“You have no proof! For all these things you’re saying; you have no proof! Am I supposed to take your word that I fucked a tiger that mysteriously appeared in our lives?” he said.

NSime prayed that she was not right, that she would not have anything to say to that. He knew that his defense had only one weak spot but it could not be connected in that way. He could not have had sex with Tenmiri, he was certain. All of his certainty crumbled, however, when Yupsula said the exact words he did not want to hear.

“Show me your back then. Show me that I am wrong, that I am a jealous delusional woman who is crazy enough to kill a tiger for no good reason, and raise your shirt. Show me your back. Show me!” she demanded.

The challenge in her words was unmistakable. She knew she had him where he did not want to be.

“Those were from when she…the marks came from…” he stuttered.

“And you did not think to wonder why she’d scratch your back in your sleep and you wouldn’t wake up?”

“How would I…? I did not sleep with Tenmiri…They were not…” he faltered, struggling with his memory.

“Then where did the scratches come from? Don’t fucking lie to me! You lie and lie and lie; it sickens me! You sicken me. You still don’t want to admit that you’re just one sick twisted being. But you are, you are a lying disgusting sack of flesh and bones!” she said, flinging those last words at him like projectiles.

“I never wanted to kill your bloody tiger. All I wanted was the egg but she wouldn’t let me have it. She kept obstructing and pushing and snarling and crouching. It was when she arched her back and started hissing at me that I knew she would have to go. And guess what, hmm? Guess what, NSime” she said hysterically, “when she was in her death throes, when I finally got the knife and rammed it through her belly over and over and over again, do you know what happened, hmm?”

Yupsula stood from the bed and stalked towards NSime. She stepped over Tenmiri’s corpse and stood so close that NSime could feel her breath on his chin. He could feel the venom dripping from her as she made her revelation.

“Do you know what happened?” she taunted. “The egg exploded all over the room. It exploded all over the room with the last of that tiger’s breath”

“No!” he cried in disbelief.

“Yes!” she spat back and looked him in the eye, “yes! How’s that for proof? And what was inside it; the egg? What was inside the object of our affection, the object that would prove to me that you were loyal to me and not some twisted psycho? It was empty, a husk, just like you are; just like we were when that bloody tiger showed up. Is that enough proof for you, NSime? Is that enough for you, you sick fucking liar? Is that enough?”

Yupsula had started advancing on him as she spoke. She pushed him back with each step of hers and beat him on the chest with her fists. NSime retreated from her until his back hit the wall beside the door. They stood there for a while with Yupsula’s head in his chest and her fist frozen on his chest as she leaned against him. He was petrified beyond words wondering what was next.

“Tell me one thing, NSime” she whispered, “where did that tiger come from?”

“Honestly, I…I don’t know” he said.

With a sigh, she patted him on the shoulder and reached for the door.

“I think the Traditionalists were right” she said as she limped out of his room. “Goodbye, NSime.”