The demon kicked her away and all of his heads laughed at her, but Amma dragged herself back onto the bed. She unbuttoned her blouse with shaking hands and took off her bra. Dhara looked at the erratic rise and fall of her mother’s chest. The demon was looking at something else. He walked towards the bed and Amma lay down, silently. Dhara pushed herself deeper into the corner.

She closed her eyes but she could still see the demon as he walked back into the cold, dark room.

•

Alphabetically: amoebic dysentery, chickenpox, dengue, diphtheria, filariasis, helminths, leprosy, leptospirosis, malaria, measles, scabies, Smallpox and whooping cough.

In and out, in and out.

Now backwards: whooping cough, Smallpox, scabies, measles …

In and out, in and out. Out, please, out, she prayed silently to the relentless demon; god had been defeated. Her eyes squeezed tight like raisins, drying in the sun.

•

She could smell the salt from the ocean. That was how she knew she was alive, that she was no longer in the room. She lay on the road where she had been dumped, the morning sun settling on her like a soft blanket. Her eyelids were swollen, almost shut. She could see outlines moving towards her.

Faces bent down, strangers calling to other strangers for help. Someone placed a sheet over her naked, battered body. Someone picked her up slowly, easily, as though she were a child.

She unclenched her fingers slowly and stiffly. She held one hand inside the other, feeling the segments and joints of each, making sure they were intact. Someone’s life in your hands.

She rested her head on the stranger’s chest, and inhaled the starched shirt and old sweat, burying her face so no one could see her cry.

DISPERSION

Extracted and summarised from the Ramayana, 11th Century BC Hindu epic by the Sage Valmiki

As Hanuman, the monkey warrior, jumped from house to house, his tail of fire followed him, lighting up the rooftops of the small island. He had escaped the Demon King of Lanka, Ravana, whose ten heads cried out in anger.

On the mainland, the armies of Lord Rama heard the cry, watching from the beach. Hanuman’s brothers saw the fire snake through the city, knowing that only Hanuman could cause such destruction. They waited for him to bring Lord Rama’s queen, Sita, back from Lanka.

He returned to the lord, bearing not Sita but her jewelled ring and her message. Sita would not be rescued by her husband’s soldier. She would wait for Lord Rama to come himself and fight Ravana for her honour. The monkey warrior’s tail was burned beyond healing and his mission a failure.