Sideways
by
Anita Goveas
When it comes towards her, it’s definitely a cat/rabbit hybrid, with a triangular face and round ears. Even as she thinks about it, tries to pin it down into recognisable shapes, she knows this can’t be true. This holiday was his idea, to ‘get back to her roots’, though her roots are more ‘tiny wooden house in Sri Lankan village’ than ‘expensive air-con room twice as big stuck half-way up a fake tree in Kerala’. Now she’s marooned on the gigantic balcony, escaping the desiccating air inside, watching a mythical creature. It’s moving faster now, the pouncing lope of something cat-like more than the reassuring hops of something fluffy. She needs to get the details right, he notices the missing details.
It turns sideways, stalks along a thick branch, focused ahead. Its dark-brown sleek coat is broken by a soft cream underbelly, that stripes its impossibly thick bushy tail. A squirrel, a giant squirrel. She never seen or heard of one before but no-one can doubt the evidence of their own eyes. She’s halfway through excitedly describing it before he explains to her that jet-lag, heat and the thinner air have caused her to hallucinate an ordinary squirrel into a fabrication. Everyone knows giant squirrels aren’t real. Maybe for the actual honeymoon, they should go somewhere cold.
They’re queuing for the safari boat, and he’s listing the authentic animals they might see from the guidebook when she spots the sign. ‘State animal of Kerala- the giant squirrel’, next to a mahogany animal with an impossibly thick bushy tail. He’s nudging her, to remind her that real is what he’s defining, to trust him over her senses. She can raise her hand right now, but the boat is so close and his voice is smooth and firm as steel.
It turns sideways, stalks along a thick branch, focused ahead. Its dark-brown sleek coat is broken by a soft cream underbelly, that stripes its impossibly thick bushy tail. A squirrel, a giant squirrel. She never seen or heard of one before but no-one can doubt the evidence of their own eyes. She’s halfway through excitedly describing it before he explains to her that jet-lag, heat and the thinner air have caused her to hallucinate an ordinary squirrel into a fabrication. Everyone knows giant squirrels aren’t real. Maybe for the actual honeymoon, they should go somewhere cold.
They’re queuing for the safari boat, and he’s listing the authentic animals they might see from the guidebook when she spots the sign. ‘State animal of Kerala- the giant squirrel’, next to a mahogany animal with an impossibly thick bushy tail. He’s nudging her, to remind her that real is what he’s defining, to trust him over her senses. She can raise her hand right now, but the boat is so close and his voice is smooth and firm as steel.
NUNUM
Blending Flash Fiction & Art
