indians smell good
every night in my tiny haunted room i try to sleep despite the sticky heat and mysterious noises; sometimes i succeed, sometimes i dont. down below in the dirty void deck , there will always be late-night sounds- the irritating malay upstarts who talk loudly and rev their motorcycle engines and ride up and down the driveway for the hell of waking tired people up, or garbled indian voices, or the disquieting silence.
i love it when im lying in bed trying to ignore the clammy heat of the bedsheet, listening to the rolling syllables of tamil / hindi / some indian language (sorry sne) drifting up from the ground floor. at first the words stream out, round and musical; listening to them i imagine a happy warm group of people nattering away, their sole purpose to comfort a tired scared girl five floors up dreaming of ghosts and isolation. then pauses start appearing, getting longer, and i realise its just one man letting his wife in india tell him about her day. and somehow knowing that im not the only one feeling alone, missing someone, makes it all the worse. and when the conversation ends and silence fills the void left behind i feel like i will die.
but in the ten minutes before he says goodbye i lie bathed in warmth and comfort and happiness, and try very very hard to fall asleep.