Peeling an onion

Semi - fictional short story inspired by real life muses

A short, unassuming figure with long thick hair untidily tied in a ponytail stood in front of me in the queue to the ever disappointing mess food. I was recently high on the adrenaline of “ragging” juniors as a second year senior. Recognizing an unprepared “freshie”, I decided to deploy my newfound powers.

“Hey freshie, put intro", I said smugly, hoping to see a nervous face turn around and attempt to get through the minefield of hazing rituals. I was not prepared.

She turned swiftly and her eyes were blazing with anger. I remember her chin however, jutting out proudly as she snapped in a composed voice, “I won’t. Just because you are a senior doesn’t mean I have to listen to everything you say.” Then she turned around and proceeded to ignore me.

Red hot embarrassment flushed my body. My friend who had quietly gone along with this charade was pinker still. That hit me worse than my own embarrassment. I knew public scenes like this were painful for her. I seethed at the gall of this junior but also felt a small pit of guilt form in my stomach. Maybe, just maybe she was right. Wasn’t this after all just ritualized bullying?

It would take me a few years to fully regret my actions from that semester. The young, traumatized, and emotionally repressed 19 year old, who had wanted to feel some power over another human, while their friendships collapsed yet again under the weight of academic competition, jealousy, and an inability to manage the smallest of conflicts.

But that was not the end for the freshie and the 19 year old’s relationship. In the way that life meanders from one unexpected turn to another, some five years later they found themselves in the unpredictable situation of becoming housemates in another country.

I fretted about how to apologize for the first impression from the moment our decision to live together was finalized. Did she still remember? Had she even noticed me that day? We had never spoken to each other after that. Aside from a brief foray into her third year bedroom, where I admired her wall art to her roommate in her absence, we had not even shared a hello. So what would this meeting in a strange country bring?

The evening her flight landed, I made meager preparations in an empty house. I cooked a simple fare of dal and rice, though she had mentioned that she would have eaten before coming. Straightened out the beaten old futon one of my fellow PhD scholars had donated to me, and waited impatiently.

When she arrived, it seemed that she was physically unchanged. The same slightly untidy ponytail and a determined set to the jaw, as she refused to receive help while pulling two heavy suitcases up the three steps into the house. The jet lag took her within a half hour of arrival and she was asleep on the futon. As I lay beside her I wondered what this new relationship would bring.

I was not the same person. It seemed reasonable to assume that neither was she. Who would we be to each other?

Many years later when we would reminisce about our meeting in that new home, we would laugh that she had no memory of our very first encounter. She would offer a tongue-in-cheek apology about having taken out her anger at the archaic institution of ritualized ragging on me. I would sincerely apologize again for the violences of my emotionally repressed youth. We would look at each other with deep love and gratitude at being where we were after all the years.

Yet on that first morning after she arrived and I cooked her some scrambled eggs to fortify us for a day of arranging phone connections, bank accounts, and all the other odds and ends that make a life, I had no inclination that I had just met the second member of my chosen family.