The Annihilation of Piggy No exit hole At the bottom of my brother’s white ceramic piggy bank no way for the rupees to shake out. To my young heart: a cruel omission. Destruction inevitable. And so the day came following one hot Bangladeshi afternoon, dense as a wool blanket a suit made of suffering stifling in its hovering between silent oppression and all-out civil war that long, bloody stand for independence, When somewhere inside that walled stone enclosure, guarded in front by a thick-waisted man with a machete the place where for three years we called home, My brother Paul and I hid the gardeners tools. One stupid, childish act of spoiled rebellion. Shameful in its pointlessness. And then what followed: Atonement. Standing around the stone patio, chickens scavenging at the base of the jackfruit tree, The only thing to be done was break it. My father lifted his hammer. Behind him: My brother spindly, seven-year-old’s legs trembling. I wanted to reach out and hold them still it was I, in this awkward silence this impromptu gathering who was sobbing. Not for the Bangladeshi gardener, nor for his son, whose treasured tools we had mischievously hidden, (and not all of them recovered) and who both now stood a few feet behind us, uncomfortable in their new role. Nor were the tears for myself, neither from regret nor the sharp pinch of public dishonor. Rather, it was for Piggy and her impending annihilation that my young heart ached. In my five-year-old’s mind, before us on the cement patio was a creature, a talisman never meant to be desecrated. Not shattered so ceremoniously into countless tiny pieces, jagged at their edges. Not smashed with pre-meditated vengeance. That my own father would inflict this punishment would forever change the way I viewed him. Changed how I saw his hands, now knowing fully what they were capable of. We hadn’t, of course, my brother and I, meant for any of this to go this far. And yet, now, under the hot, East Pakistani sun, we were all each one of us, Shattered. ~ Deanna Elaine Piowaty
Posted on: Sun, 27 Apr 2014 17:44:20 +0000