Watching the End of the World – Maha’s story
Jenna was sitting on the roof, the darkness outside her mirroring the darkness inside her, when she heard someone coming up the ladder. ���Who���s there?��� she called.
���Maha.���
Jenna felt something she couldn���t name wash over her. She stood up, then found herself unable to move. Maha came closer. Jenna was lost. No matter which way she turned, nothing looked familiar. She realized she was biting her lip. Maha stood there looking at her in the dark, less than an arm���s length away.
���You���re not okay,��� he said.
���I am now,��� she replied. Her control broke then and she closed the space between them, wrapping him in a fierce hug.
Maha did not reply. At first he didn���t respond. Then, slowly, his arms rose and he hugged her back. All at once Jenna let go of something she���d been clinging fiercely to and the sobs poured from her. She was tired of being strong. All her life she���d been strong, first to show no weakness before her father, then to support her mother after he finally left them. It was too much. She was too small, too frightened.
Maha stroked her hair and let her cry. He didn���t tell her it would be okay. He didn���t tell her to stop crying. He just let her cry and she loved him for that. His embrace was like nothing she had ever experienced. It was open and welcoming in a way she���d never imagined. He held nothing back of himself, shared himself, and let her do the same. He was no taller than she and slightly built, but at that moment she felt safer in his arms than she���d ever felt before.
At length she let him go and stepped back, wiping at her eyes. ���Thank you.��� He touched her arm. His fingers felt very hot on her skin. ���I was���I thought Santiago was going to shoot that man.��� Her throat closed on her words. She took his hands and gripped them tightly. What she said next was very difficult for her. ���And I was going to let him. He was going to shoot that man and I wasn���t going to try and stop him. I wanted���I wanted him to.��� Shame and guilt burned in her. ���I wanted him to. e was My god, what am I turning into?��� She stared at his face, wishing she could see what was there. What did he think of her now? She needed to know. It was more important than anything right then.
���This changes nothing. You are still Jenna, the same woman you were.���
She laughed bitterly. ���I know you are trying to comfort me.��� Was he, really? ���But that doesn���t really help.���
���You are a strong, caring woman. This you were yesterday, you are now, and you will be tomorrow. That has not changed because you gave into anger and fear briefly.���
That rocked her. ���I wish I could believe you.���
���You do. It is only buried, a truth you have forgotten.���
���Who are you? You���re like no one I���ve ever met.��� She cursed the darkness. She wanted to see what went on behind his eyes. The eyes never lied. If she had enough light she could look deep enough, see if the truth of him was what she hoped or whether it was only another lie.
���There is no difference between us,��� he said, ���except that I have stared into the darkness in my own heart before this. I have faced what you did tonight, and like you I did not like what I saw there.���
She heard the pain in his voice. ���What happened?���
He turned half away. She could feel the intensity of what was within him. ���Can we sit down?��� he asked. She released him and he moved to the chairs and sat. She sat down too.
���I was seventeen,��� he said. From his silhouette she could tell that he had turned his face to the sky. ���We were living in Bangkok. My mother was back on the Game.��� Jenna waited, hardly breathing.
���It was difficult, living there after spending so much of my life in Santa Barbara. They are two different worlds. Santa Barbara is clean and orderly and calm. Bangkok is wild and loud and dirty. I cannot describe it to you. It is like a jungle, so much life roaring at you from every direction, all of it grasping harshly for existence, screaming to be heard over everything around it. I did not handle it well. I���lost myself. I was like a man who falls into a flooding river. In my fear I fought the current instead of riding with it. I thought my scream could be heard above the others.���
He stopped talking and took her hand. He squeezed it very tightly. Jenna felt what this cost him and she stayed silent.
���When I realized no one could hear me I began to go the other direction. My life meant nothing. What was the purpose of caring for it? It was not long before I fell into drugs. I cycled through everything I could get my hands on but one clearly stood out for me. Yaa baa, what you call meth. It made me feel powerful. It made me feel alive.��� He stopped, as if he wasn���t sure where to go next. ���This will make no sense to you. Yaa baa is a powerful spirit, dangerous and deadly. Death powers it, envelops it. And yet, it is powerfully vital as well. Because it is death, it made me feel alive. As if it was only by balancing on that line between life and death that I could feel alive.
���After a while I started selling it. Yaa baa is very popular in my country. It is perhaps the ultimate symbol of how your culture has defeated mine. Hard work and success are the only real markers of life for most of us now. The other pieces of our culture crack and fall away and this is all that remains. With the help of yaa baa a worker can work eighteen, twenty hours in a day. It is the ultimate drug of capitalism: cheap and the key to working beyond the normal capacity of the body.
���I loved selling it almost as much as doing it. The risk of dealing is its own high. I began to spend my time with a dangerous crowd. We���d stay up for a couple days in a row, drinking, running meth. I had a motorcycle ��� a motorcycle is the only way to beat the choking traffic of Bangkok ��� and a cell phone. I���d get the call and off I���d go. The motorcycle was part of the high. Death is always just one mistake away.
���There was this guy, Anga, only a little older than me, and also half caste. He was always strutting around, acting like he was something, trying to be what you would call a player. He fancied himself a dealer, wanted to come up fast. One day he got an order for a large quantity, several times anything he had sold up to then. He went to our distributor and convinced him to front him the dope. And it worked. The man gave it to him. Anga was so excited. He was going to make the big score and make them notice him, treat him with the respect he deserved. This was his big chance.���
Maha lapsed into silence for a minute, remembering. Jenna said nothing, afraid to break the spell.
���It was a set up. They jumped Anga and robbed him. They beat him pretty bad and took all of his stuff. I was there when he showed up at the distributor���s place, crying, completely broken and lost. The distributor told us to take him out and kill him, dump his body in the canal.���
Maha turned to her. Jenna felt as if her heart would stop.
���We dragged him out to the canal. He was crying, begging. I stood there and watched while one of the others shot him. I did nothing. I said nothing.
���That���s why I knew what to do tonight. I never want to feel that way again.���
