Congratulations, RCS Winners!
5:58:00 PM
The winners and non-winning award winners of the RCS Essay Competition have been announced. Congratulations to Inessa Rajah; the senior winner, Esther Mungalaba; the senior runner up, Ghauri Kumar; the junior winner, and Tan Wan-Gee; the junior runner up.
I won Bronze, by the way.
The winning stories can be read from the official website. Here's mine.
Wiping away tears seems to have become a permanent part of her miserable life. As she traces black fingers against black skin, clearing the tears unsuccessful in completing their downward journey, more form in her swollen eyes and quickly replace their predecessors.
This forces even more tears from her.
The glass lies shattered on the ground. In the dark of the room she’s locked herself in, the crystal of the broken edges gives off light that she spends her time admiring.
She couldn’t do it, once again. Breaking the glass was no difficult task; willing to cut a wrist with one of the pieces, however, was.
She didn’t.
When she first saw how she had been rejected, the beauty of another girl replacing her and a promise being broken, she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to say. She ran away.
She just ran away.
Next, she caresses her hair, cascading down her shoulders; dark and wavy. When she was only a girl, her mother used to brush it and tie it into her favorite ponytail, before she left for school. Her friends loved how she played around with her carefully styled hair. Every day, they would ask her to wave it around like she did. And she would.
But her hair, he didn’t see. He saw only her skin, her dark skin.
She picks up the mirror on her right, and stares in it. She sees nothing but dark. A thought comes to her mind of illuminating the room. She pushes it away. She knows that it’ll be nothing but dark that she’ll be able to see.
She had lit up when her mother confirmed that the family wishing for her hand in marriage for their son will be visiting. She had been waiting for this her whole life. To be whisked away by a prince of her own. To feel loved.
But, he chose someone else. He chose her sister, her fair-skinned sister.
“Don’t let her touch my Barbie, mommy!”
“I only want to take a look.”
“No! I won’t let you! I won’t let you touch her with your hands.”
She still remembers that fight. She hadn’t known how deep the words of her sister were then. But she learned soon enough, as she grew up.
She knows that her sister came in front of her suitor deliberately.
Her teenaged years were the most difficult. The girls she called her friends, had turned her away. She sat alone in lunch breaks, and was always the last one to be chosen. No one talked to her in the locker room, no one said hello to her or was kind to her. She was the only dark-skinned girl in her batch.
But she didn’t let the color of her skin belittle her. She graduated, with flying colors. When the gold medal she earned was being presented to her, she couldn’t resist throwing a glance where all her tormentors sat. They all stared at her with contempt in their eyes.
She was rewarded with the same contempt on the day of her first job interview.
“Top of your class, you say?”
“Yes.”
“I see, impressive.”
When she didn’t receive the call she’d been anticipating later, she mustered up the boldness to call the woman herself, who had interviewed her.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t hire black people.”
She had fallen silent for weeks after hearing that.
Hours pass by, and she doesn’t move. The tears have stopped. She knew they would. They always do. She feels like an enormous weight has been lifted off her shoulders.
She walks out of her room.
The guests have left, she learns. Her parents have agreed to the marriage of their fair-skinned daughter with the son. Her mother tries to talk to her, but she storms out of the house.
And never returns.
Ten years later…
“This way, miss.”
Alex walks inside. She returns every single glare she receives, with amplified hatred. She smiles when the people glaring at her flinch or shy away on her retaliation.
Just like always.
This is it. This is where she wanted to be her whole life. To work as a journalist at Glam Mag, America’s second best magazine, has been her dream. Will she be hired? She keeps on asking herself the question until a door appears in front of her and she’s jerked out of her reverie.
“This is her, go in.”
“Yes, thank you.”
The man who led her to where her interview is supposed to be conducted, smiles and leaves. Wow, she thinks. That’s a first. She knocks and enters when asked to, the amusement still evident on her face.
There she is, she says to herself in her mind, the owner of Glam Mag. She’s fascinated by how graceful the woman looks. ‘Kind’ is what comes to her mind when she’s finally read her whole.
“Please, have a seat.”
And she does.
Five hours later…
Alex is home already. She skipped lunch and went straight to her room. She has a habit of talking to herself when stressed. All her friends think she looks funny whenever she does. But they like her anyway. Her best friend, Cameron, was the first to accept her for the vivacious person she is. Cameron, whose dreadlocks she admires.
The women who interviewed her, the owner, said that she’ll give her a call after an hour or two.
She has been staring at her phone all this time, waiting for the said hours to pass.
They have.
She goes through how the interview went in her mind. She thinks she answered validly all of the questions she was asked. They even laughed together, the owner and her. She told her of her escapades, and how she never let her demanding, conservative mother keep her from doing whatever she wanted. That seemed to have drawn a smile from the owner, she remembers.
“Top of your class, you say?”
“Yes.”
“I see, impressive.”
They shook hands and then she left.
At Glam Mag…
She dials the girl’s number, a smile spreading across her face when how the interview went comes to her mind. She isn’t surprised when Alex immediately answers.
“Hi!”
“Hello.”
“I know I must behave and you must act professionally and all but I can’t wait!”
The owner laughs, amused by Alex’s liveliness.
“Get ready.”
Now it’s Alex’s turn to laugh.
“Congratulations, you’ve been hired!”
Alex screams into her phone.
At night…
She retrieves the photo that she always looks at before going to sleep. She misses her family greatly.
She brushes her hair, which always cascades down her shoulders; dark and wavy. Placing the brush from where she took it, she walks to her bed and lies down in it, the photo in her hand.
Looking at it, she smiles.
“You are definitely not your mother, Alex.”
She then shuts her eyes and falls asleep, for tomorrow will be her niece’s first day of work with her.
***
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