Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings (9 page)

Muhil was born during a legendary thunderstorm that uprooted every banana tree in the village and sent a legion of white crabs to die on the highway. She was wrinkled, ordinary and unremarkable save for the fact that she had a spongy knob on each shoulder and she didn’t cry. Her father Ilango peered at her and had a premonition of dark, heavy things.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.

“Some babies don’t cry,” said the doctor.

“What’s that on her shoulders?”

“They’ll probably fall off.”

When she was awake, Muhil seemed to be measuring the ceiling with her eyes, ticking off invisible numbers with her tiny fists and feet. When she slept, she reminded Ilango of a stone at the bottom of a river. She never made a sound. On the rare occasions that she cried, she shut her eyes and opened her mouth so wide that Ilango thought her jaw might snap.

When she could sit upright, Muhil started to rub her back against anything she could get next to—the wall, the side of the well, her mother’s arm. Soon the skin on her back hung in saggy, red bags beneath her tiny shoulder blades.

“Do you know what happens to girls who rub their backs raw like that? Their backs fall off, that’s what,” said Ilango.

He took her to a doctor who peered at the folds of skin and tapped the knobs on her shoulder with a ballpoint pen.

“What’s wrong with her?” asked Ilango.

“Nothing,” said the doctor.

•

Soon people began to accost Ilango and his wife on the road and tell them stories of children that drank water from puddles and barked like wild dogs. These children had gone on to become doctors or lawyers in foreign countries. Surely Muhil would do the same. But a few months later, Muhil began to clamber onto small stools and throw herself to the ground. When stools were placed out of reach, Muhil began throwing herself off people’s laps.

“Why are you doing this to me?” said Ilango. “No other child does this. I never did this to my father.”

Muhil did not seem concerned. She kept tipping herself over any ledge she could find and Ilango stopped going out, because nobody could find anything heartening to say about children who seemed hell-bent on suicide so early in life.

•

A few nights later Ilango dreamed he was lying on the roof of his house, watching the afternoon sky. Even though the sun was out he could see clutches of green and orange stars blinking above him. He stretched out his hand and something circled down and landed on his palm. It was Muhil. Two tiny wings had sprouted from the knobs on her shoulders. They looked like dried leaves.

“So it’s you!” said Ilango. “Those are very pretty wings you have.”

Muhil looked up at him and bared her teeth; they were round and white.

“Why won’t you talk to me,” he asked. “Why won’t you say anything?”

She stood up and began to walk across his palm, her wings rustling behind her like paper.

“Everyone thinks I’m a terrible father, because you keep trying to break your head open. I wish you would stop doing that.”

Muhil teetered forward, the edges of her wings stabbing awkwardly at the sky. They reminded him of a dead tree.

“You will be the world’s first flying doctor,” mused Ilango. “Or flying lawyer. Or maybe you could do both. What do you think?”

Ilango watched as she tipped over the edge of his hand and spun out into the sky like a dying moth.

“That’s all right,” he said. “You can tell me later.”

•

By the age of four, Muhil was crooked, stunted and more wrinkled than she was at birth. When she wasn’t skinning her back against something she was tipping herself off anything she could climb. Her very existence had become uncomfortable to anyone who saw her. Well-meaning neighbors and friends began bringing pamphlets and newspaper clippings of places that kept children who couldn’t be kept.

One evening Ilango sat with her on the back porch. Muhil kept pedaling against his arm, her breath coming in tiny, silent puffs as she tried to throw herself over the edge.

“Why?” said Ilango. “Why are you doing this? Look at your face. You know what people will think? They’ll think I’m beating you up.”

Muhil kept pedaling against his arm, her head lurching to the side as she tried to break free.

“Fine,” said Ilango. “Go on. Break your head open.”

He loosened his grip and Muhil pitched forward. Her tiny back curled and something shifted beneath her shoulders. Instead of falling, Muhil hovered in mid-air like a tiny hummingbird. Ilango saw the entire world swing from her shoulders as green and orange stars dripped from the sky. Then she crashed to the ground and split her lip open.

•

Ilango reeled under an overwhelming sense of understanding and purpose. Everything suddenly made sense and fit perfectly. He wondered how he hadn’t seen it before. He arranged pillows around the wooden cot and held Muhil at the very edge.

“Try that again, what you did on the porch.”

Muhil tipped over and landed face down in the pillows.

“Again,” said Ilango. “Roll your shoulders, curl your back.”

He tried the cot, the porch and the lower branches of the mango tree but nothing happened. He tried to catch her off guard, pushing her off the bed when she was napping but she still landed face down on the floor. He finally decided to take Muhil to the roof and his wife decided it was time to summon the police and all the neighbors. By the time Ilango was ready, a crowd of familiar heads and pointing fingers surged around his house.

“Ilango, put the girl down,” called out his neighbor Pandian.

“Not yet.”

“You’re scaring her, Ilango, put her down.”

“No.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Not now, I need to try something.”

Someone came from behind and grabbed Muhil from him. Ilango turned and saw her lurch against a tangle of arms, trying to throw herself over the edge.

•

Ilango spent the night in jail, staring at the floor. He held his hand out and thought,
this is how she floated. Roll your shoulders. Curl your back. This is how it’s done.

The next morning he came home to a house that was silent and empty. Pandian appeared at the door with a tumbler of coffee.

“Are they with you?” asked Ilango.

“They’re fine,” said Pandian. “What will you do for food? Shall I bring you something?”

“She isn’t coming back?”

“Not right now.”

Ilango watched the shadows spill across the walls and ceiling. He listened for the sound of a small body hitting the floor somewhere or the rustle of wings but he couldn’t hear anything.

“We’ll try again, that’s all,” said Ilango. “We’ll just try again.”

•

A week later Muhil and his wife were back home. Pandian came over in the evenings to make sure everything was all right. He also made half-hearted attempts at inspirational speeches.

“We’ve all made mistakes in the past,” he said. “Important to look forward. Don’t worry.”

“Why should I be worried?” said Ilango.

“You need to be a good husband and father now. You need to remember that Muhil is sick.”

“She’s not sick. What makes you think she’s sick?”

“You have to be responsible.”

“Fine.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

After supper Ilango would watch as Muhil clambered onto the cot and tipped herself onto a pile of pillows below. He felt a rustling in his brain telling him of flying doctors or flying lawyers or maybe both. Whichever she liked.

“We’ll try again,” said Ilango.

•

A few nights later Ilango took Muhil to an abandoned bridge at the outskirts of the village.

“Roll your shoulders, curl your back,” he chanted as he carried her. “Say it with me, roll your shoulders, curl your back.”

He turned her chin to the sky and made her look at the stars and the tops of the trees.

“You can go up there if you like. You can see nests and birds sleeping. Maybe you can see our house.”

When they reached the bridge he held her on the edge of the railing and looked down. It was darker than he had thought it would be.

“Don’t go far,” he said as he slowly loosened his grip. “And come back quickly, do you understand?”

Muhil teetered for a second on the railing. Then she tipped sideways into the darkness like a bundle of old clothes.

Ilango stretched his hand into the darkness and waited.

There are devastations inside Annamika’s mouth, fluttering against her teeth like black butterflies. She tries to crush them with a jawbreaker.

“We’re going to JasperAndBanff,” says Andrea. “My Uncle Arby’s got a cabin on Lake Louise. What’s in Drumheller?”

“Dinosaurs,” says Annamika. She doesn’t like the word
hoodoos
so she doesn’t mention them.

“I didn’t know you were into dinosaurs.”

“I’m not.”

The jawbreaker rolls over Annamika’s bottom lip and falls to the ground. Andrea doesn’t give her another one.

•

The motel room has orange curtains that make it look like they are trapped inside a giant pumpkin. When the pizza comes, the delivery man smiles at her father and says “Salaam Aleikum.”

“Why did he say that to you?” Annamika asks.

“Probably thought I was Muslim.”

“Why would he think that?”

“The beard.”

That night Annamika dreams of butterflies with beards. They line up outside the motel and demand to see the hoodoos. Her father brings them inside and points at the orange curtains. He points to Annamika and waves. The butterflies shake their wings and ask for their money back.

•

The hoodoos look like old men waiting for the bus. Annamika’s father is wearing aviator sunglasses she has never seen before. He is suddenly unrecognizable.

“When are we going home?” she asks.

“We just got here. Don’t you want to see the dinosaurs?”

“No.”

“I thought you were into dinosaurs.”

“I’m not.”

Annamika watches her father point at the hoodoos. A hundred black butterflies beat against her teeth and step on her tongue. If she opens her mouth they will deflate the hoodoos like sandy balloons. They will cover the sky with their angry wings and her father will have nothing to point at.