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Wara's War on Terror
Fiction by Karamoh Kabba
“My left leg is cold, I mean very cold and numb,” Wara complained. She removed it from under the cover, stretched it out with tremendous effort and asked Mojo to massage it for her. Mojo, her husband, did and applied some ointment—yet, the coldness and numbness reigned. They became worried: “Do you have a chest pain?” Mojo asked. “No,” she answered. “Do you have any pain in your arms?” he asked again. “What about in your legs?” he went on. “No, I don’t have pain anywhere,” she explained almost snobbishly. “We need to go to the emergency room then,” he suggested. “Let me call my doctor first,” she said and groped on the lamp-stand for the receiver. “Hello,” she paused…. “I have this strange coldness and numbness in my left leg. It has been like this for the last three days doc,” she paused again, “and my husband wants us to go to the emergency room,” she explained. “What do you think is the reason doc?” she asked. “I am becoming very worried,” she said firmly. Responding to the doctor, she uttered intermittently: “…No,” and paused. “…No,” she paused again. “…No, not really.” She held the receiver between her neck and shoulder, held her hair to the back and untied a ponytail, while she listened to the doctor. At last, she said; “…Oh! Really! Thanks doc. I feel better now doc.” She stretched her arm out in the semidarkness for the lamp-stand again and hung up the phone, turned away from him, cuddled a pillow under a cover and wept. Mojo became even more worried: “What did the doctor say to you?” he asked nervously, thinking that the doctor had told her something bad. He had felt better when he heard her told the doctor, “I feel better now doc.” But the crying was puzzling, and he sat motionlessly on the bed. On the far quadrant of the room, between light and darkness, as Auguste Rodin’s sculpture of The Thinker, was a gloomy silhouette portrait of Mojo. Peeking at the shadow from under the cover, she said, “He said it’s tress related,” in great despair as though she was expecting reaction directly from the shadow. Without uttering a word more, Mojo left the room and went into the children’s room for the rest of the night. Wara and Mojo were refugees from a far-away land that was in a civil war. Mojo was a slender man in stature when he came many years ago, but had put on considerable amount of weight lately. His doctor recently told him that the accumulation of fat, especially around his belly, was also stress related. He held a degree from his country of origin’s Mountain Top University, but here, he drove a delivery truck as an independent sub contractor. It meant that he provided his own truck, vehicle liability insurance and gas to drop off and pick up whatever job the main contract holder company assigned him. Wara, a secondary school graduate from her country of birth had since settled for a nursing assistant career. Unlike Mojo, Wara showed no signs of overweight, but she frequently laid herself about and easily ran out of breath, especially when she walked up the stairs to their fourth-floor apartment.
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Wara woke up the next morning and went into the bathroom. She stood in front of the mirror. Hopelessly, she looked at her image and flinched. But on the other side was a neat display of empty brand name personal care containers, well organized as on a convenient store personal hygiene aisle. She frowned at that also, pulled the shower curtain apart, and revealed two half-empty tubes of generic conditioner and shampoo in the tub. Mojo, who worked in the evening, woke up earlier to prepare the kids; he was in the kitchen, arguing with them over what was for breakfast. He was supposed to have woken up earlier than he did today to take them to school in time for the school breakfast. There was no milk in the refrigerator to prepare cereal for them. There was only one egg left. He was relieved to find enough pancake mix, which turned into a sudden surge of lameness through his body when he discovered that the pancake syrup was down to the last drop. While he was off to the nearest Grandè Food store to pick up a bottle of pancake syrup, Wara came out of the shower just in time the kids were rushing up to her, griping; “mommmmyyy, I’m hungryyy, mommmmyyy I’m hungryyy and mommmmyyy I’m hungryyy,” one after the other. It caused her an increasing palpitation along with a piercing feeling of pain in her chest. She knew that there was no food in the house and that the kids had missed the school breakfast. “Where is your dad?” she asked. “We don’t know,” cried the youngest child. “He left to go somewhere,” mumbled the younger child as she rubbed her stomach, “hmmm, my stomach is growling.” “He went to the store to buy something,” the young child uttered. Wara went into the kitchen and took out empty boxes of everything that was in the refrigerator, looking to see if there was syrup for the three plates of pancakes that Mojo had lined up on the dining table. She shoved the empty boxes into the garbage bin that was lined with the last trash bag in utter frustration. She turned around only to find the empty syrup bottle on the far corner of the kitchen counter just where Mojo had left it. She supported her weight against the half-open refrigerator door with enormous lameness, slamming it back to close, before she banged repeatedly on it with both fists in a fury that led the children, who had formed a queue behind her, jostled their way into the living room in great fear—they were waiting in great expectation for food, but not for such outburst of hanger. She leaned her forehead against her clenched fists, with her whole weight further supported by the refrigerator; she sobbed profusely. Just when she turned round, Mojo had returned from the Grandè Food store. He stood still, bewildered, with the bottle of syrup in his hand, at which she was only pleased. Without looking at him or saying something, she forced her way between him and the kitchen counter, back to the room to finish dressing up for work. In front of the dirty linen draped dresser, she took the Cocoa Butter Formula with Vitamin E for Dry and Ashy Skin lotion from under a pile of more dirty jeans. On to her palm, she shook out every smidgen of lotion and massaged it sparingly over parts of her body that would be exposed to the harsh weather condition outside. The deodorizing powder had worn down to its oval edge and she smeared whatever morsel was around its rough edge against her bare underarm. ************************* After work, she drove to the school to pick up the kids. But not until she came home for a quick shower and a change of her nursing uniform to a regular clothe. It was a careful routine to prevent her children from possible nursing home diseases. She left Mojo in the apartment preparing to go to work. Just what they had to do since they could not afford a baby-sitter anymore. Mojo had left by the time Wara returned from the school. While the kids threw their school bags, shoes and clothes everywhere in the apartment, where they would pick them up the next school day without looking at the day’s homeworks or the daily school notices in the bags, Wara headed for the couch by the door, where she sat and recuperated from her shortness of breath from walking up the stairs. She rose from the couch and walked to the kitchen after she had regained her breath. She threw a bowl of rice and soup in the microwave. She had cooked it couple of days ago. She dished it in three separate bowls, lined them on the dining table alongside three glasses of water, returned to the sofa to wait for the sheriff who delivered the nonpayment of rent citation every month at this time. Ashamed of sharing it with others, she must remove the pink slip from the door before her next-door neighbors came to visit. She did that first before she returned to see how the kids were doing on the dining table. Today, Sarah, the oldest of the three kids ate much of her food. She seemed to be more understanding whether she knew of the hardship in the family or not. Joe and June complained when Wara asked them, “why are you not eating your food?” “There is nothing to eat mommy,” they nagged. “But I just gave you food,” Wara refuted. “Rice, rice and rice everyday,” they fired back petulantly at once. Wara walked away and returned with Mojo’s leather belt, wrapped neatly around her clenched fist: “Start eating now!” she threatened them. “Now! I say!” she struck the belt against the dining table hard, and the terrified kids gulped the content of their bowls down in no time.
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Wara was very irritable: She did not understand why she could not afford the things she used to afford. She did not only pay late rent fees, but court fees also. She paid the rent only after it had accrued a 5% interest rate, a dollar per day penalty after the tenth of the month. They had, at least, one month behind on their rent for about two years now. But she knew they were spending three times what they used to spend on gas two years ago. Their grocery cost had doubled since then. Their utility bills had almost doubled as well. But her salary remained the same besides the twice fifty cents raise she got in the last two years. In fact, Mojo brought home a bit more than what he used to make, because he drove more hours than before to keep up with the hardship. She could only discern these things separately, but unable to consummate them into one big picture. It seemed over her head that her friends discussed that her family was not alone in this situation. She had no interest in the political and economic news that point to a fast depleting middle class and a growing poor becoming poorer trend in the last ten years. She could not relate the correlation between her economic predicament and her stress. To console her despondence, she spent her spare time in the couch doing her nails and watching talk shows until her bedtime when she gulped down a pill of Prozac, undo her ponytail and went to sleep. And in this way, she managed her stress. On her way home, she had stopped by the SVC pharmacy to pick up a refill of Prozac prescription the doctor had called in for her. She pushed one down her throat that evening. She loved the nerve calming effect from the pill: She got a bit more tolerant with the kids, and it helped her postponed the thought of her financial hardship for the next day. But she lost all sensual desires. She did not read the side effects on the bottle nor did her doctor or the pharmacist educate her about the side effects of Prozac. So, she went to bed every night and dozed off. She paid Mojo no mind. She snapped when Mojo tried some little romantic tricks on her, “all you care about is sex!” She went on, “Leave me alone, I have no feelings.” Confounded by what his wife was going through, Mojo became suspicious that she was seeing somebody else. He asked many questions when Wara went out for whatever reason that led to late arguments, which disturbed the kid’s sleep time, and in turn went to school very tired. Mojo could endure no more: He snapped out of it and packed up his bag and returned to his home country. Wara was unable to cope with the rent on her income alone. She too abandoned the apartment and lived with her aunt. In his home country, Mojo became very active in the aftermath of war reconstruction projects, in the society where his degree and foreign exposure meant something; he regained his worth and dignity. “The children can return to their country of birth anytime they wish to do so. You know that we can fight on here at home. It’s time to come back home, Wara” he explained to her when he called. And Backhome, Mojo and Wara fought on happily thereafter. Posted 12/14/2007
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