He narrowed his eyes, focusing on the girl in front of him despite the sunlight. She had skin the colour of sand, wavy dark hair that went past her waist. He felt like he was in an illusion. Was his mind playing tricks with him? He was certain he was seeing things, things that weren’t really there. Sun rays filtered past the trees, encouraging a headache. Was he dreaming? How had he escaped? He noticed the absence of AK-47s thudding and the silence was disrupting. Where were the boom of the bombs? He had gotten used to the noise, the terror, the screams of panic and the absence of it all frightened him. He was expecting a loud noise any second now. The anticipation was alarming. He looked up at the lights, trying to make sense of where he was. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten here. He remembered a blast and fire. If he had survived it all, where was the aftermath? He was certain he’d died and was now in a sort of afterlife. His eyes opened in a flutter. He gleaned his surroundings, slowly coming to the present. He saw the girl looking at him with concern.
“Who are you?” he asked in his native tongue, Tamil. “Where am I?” he added, weakly.
The girl curiously stared at him, wide-eyed. She observed his wounds, glancing at his forehead to his arms, to the scar on his left shin.
“Who are you?” he tried again, this time in Sinhala, the country’s dominant language.
She narrowed her eyes and asked him, in Tamil, “Who are you?” A part of her assumed he was Sinhalese yet she stood straight and tall, undaunted by this strange, bleeding boy in front of her. Should she be scared of him? She didn’t know but she didn’t care. He was leaning against a tree, wounded by one of the two parties. He clutched at his shoulder now, screaming in pain.
She felt this pain within her and in that moment she put her fears away, knowing she would care for him despite the risks. As he screamed, something deep inside of her gnawed at her, asking to be healed. She hadn’t felt someone else’s pain like this before, a certain sense of love and care pulling from the roots inside of her. She felt him belonging in her heart, enclosing around her own hurt in a warm way. She helped him up, wrapped his arm in a tourniquet using a strip of cloth she had torn from the end of her night gown. Limping, he let her guide him to a nearby emergency clinic which was mainly a makeshift tent left behind by the Red Cross, now run by local doctors.
“My name is Niromi,” she managed to say as he was taken into care.
He watched her as she stood there, looking at him from a distance. He let the doctor treat his arm and check for other wounds but the entire time, he was looking at Niromi who wouldn’t move from her spot, wouldn’t shift her eyes away from him. She watched him as he winced in pain, clenched his teeth as the doctor moved his arm. As the doctor left, giving him instructions to keep his arm still, Niromi approached him.
“What’s your name?” she asked him in Tamil.
He tried to position himself upright but failed to do so. She held his arm to prevent him from moving, knowing that he was hurting.
He looked at her and watched as she took her hand away. “Arun.”
“My entire family is dead,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes shut tight, remembering his own. “Mine too.” The tears were there but he willed them away, trying to be strong.
She took his hand in hers. “I’ll take care of you,” she said, a firm statement. She didn’t hesitate, warmly smiled and gently held his hand.
He started to refuse, unable to understand why she wanted to take care of him. He hadn’t asked for it. He stopped himself short when he saw her eyes, glistening with tears and compassion.
“Where did you lose them?” he asked, referring to her family. He hoped this question wouldn’t make her cry, bring back memories of the tragedy, but he had to know. He shifted over in the makeshift bed to give space for her to sit next to him.
She looked at him, putting up a strong front. “October,” she whispered. “The bombing took all of them. My mother, my father, my two younger sisters.” She teared up and wiped at her eyes, ashamed of her grief and emotions.
He took her hand and gently held it, watching her as she quickly wiped away her sorrow. He told her that he had lost his family months ago, somewhere further away from here. He had escaped from the bombing, ran far away from his home. His family’s deaths was his fault and he hadn’t gotten past the guilt. He didn’t know if he ever could. They took each other’s hand and embraced each other with their individual pain. Mutually, they made a pact to never let go, to love beyond the blood, and tears. His head on her shoulder, he told her they would leave the teardrop island for a better life, begin anew somewhere without war.
a little cup of tea 