Once

In response to

Bedtime Story for Dasi’s Son, by Karthika Nair

I have waited long to see you, Child, waited, day after day after day,

with little to offer you but this one story, a tale without a distant

once upon a time to gird it, to keep us safe. Once happens, again

and again, and will, again. I need you to know how that once

happens, each moment and each step, so clearly, so intimately, that

you become the one within the recursive once. They will say you

are not old enough to hear these things. But I was not old enough

to live them either, and you will not stay young for long, Child. It

is better I lead you out of childhood with my own hands, with my

words before the world does. And so, I wait, Child, I wait to tell

you how once happened to me, how it happened to my kind. To say

When the king decides to (say it, say it, say the word, I tell myself.

But I cannot, I find, not yet, at least. I shall begin with periphrases

and work my way towards the word. I must begin again.)

I sense the pain of a mother trying to explain to her child the circumstances of her conception, a moment once too difficult to talk about.

Then she recalls the trauma of the cherished once, the birth of her child.

Since then, time has passed but now, the telling of each momentous once, looms as a painful necessity.

The need to seek shelter from horrific circumstances is alluded to, as is older women’s counselling of the mother to delay recounting the past, at least until the child is able to deal with the emotional implications. But the mother……

One happens. Once happens. It does not happen only once. It happens again and again. You fall, you get up. You fall again, you get up, each time bent into a slightly different shape, knees grazed, bleeding elbows, a black eye. But standing. Bent, tall, straight. Still standing.

They will say you are not old enough to hear how parents can dislike their children, how addiction can be stronger than parental bonds, but I was not old enough to live through it either, yet here I am, still standing, with scars on my knees and my elbows, and my heart.

When the king decides to silence his people, he walks into his rooms and silences them with a stick, a belt, a buckle, his bare hands.

When the king decides to give up, he hides behind his own anger, because showing anger is better than showing fear.

When the king decides to leave, he leaves his incoherent story behind, scattered scars and regrets.