The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam

Author:Anuk Arudpragasam [Arudpragasam, Anuk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250074751
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

5

DINESH MOVED QUICKLY at first through the darkness of the canopy, in spite of being unable to see the ground in front of him. It felt pleasant to use his legs vigorously after having sat down for so long, to feel the pressure in his feet and the strain in his calves as they lifted up the weight of his body with each step. He moved surely and without hesitation along his habitual path, and then as the trees gradually thinned and the darkness let up he found himself slowing down, not so much from fatigue as from a kind of nervousness about what would happen on his way through the camp. His movement became more tentative, and then finally, at the edge of the jungle, he came to a stop. The sky, immense and empty, opened out over him. The half-moon was brightly visible, except for brief interludes in which whorls of translucent cloud passed beneath, and it gave out a soft blue backlight that seemed wholly without source. Stretching out in front of him each tent in the vast settlement absorbed and reflected this light, like a nighttime gathering of wraiths with nowhere to hide. The dull thudding of artillery and gunfire could be heard in the distance, but the camp itself felt cocooned in silence, as though the fighting that was raging on nonstop to the north, west, and south was a blanket in which the camp was swaddled rather than something that could enter and destroy it at will, without warning, many times a day.

Careful not to disturb the pervasive stillness, Dinesh began walking quietly through the periphery of the camp. Most of the evacuees were inside their tents, together with their families and things, but many were sleeping under the open sky, on the ground and in uncovered trenches, individually and in groups of up to four or five. Observing them as he passed into the more populated sections of the camp Dinesh found himself filled, slowly, with the sacredness of being awake in a place in which everybody else was asleep. Those who had just fallen asleep he could tell apart easily, by their furrowed brows and curled lips, by the effort and struggle to block out the world that was imprinted still on their faces. Their muscles were taut, their bodies curled into tight balls, their closed eyes screwed up as if to prevent anything outside them from entering in, fighting to obtain or retain a state of sleep before it was made impossible by the next shelling in a way that was not so different, perhaps, from how long ago, if he woke up earlier than necessary in the morning, he would refuse to open his eyes and stubbornly pretend to still be sleeping, despite knowing full well that soon he’d have to get up and rejoin the world. The people who had been asleep longer, in contrast, let their bodies relax and their lips droop. Their faces were peaceful and unstrained, and no longer displayed any sign of a struggle to fend off the world.

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