Standstill by Sashi Perera

Author:Sashi Perera [Perera, Sashi]
Language: spa
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781761350092
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2025-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

10

The definitive loser

Melbourne, February 2017

Ammi’s brown eyes reflect stark concern when they meet mine as she turns off the car’s engine at the Perth Airport car park.

I jump in before she starts listing her worries. Her CD of Buddhist monks chanting prayers for good luck was blasting through the living room speakers from dawn. I say, ‘I’m not going too far away this time, Ammi, it’s like a four-hour flight across the country. And I’m going to study. Also I’m thirty.’

She shakes her head. ‘Always leaving. Call me when you get to your cousin’s.’

I spend some weeks at my cousin’s house in the Cranbourne ’burbs then move to Tharu’s brother and sister-in-law’s apartment on St Kilda Road in the city because it’s closer to get to my classes once they start. My almost-but-not in-laws are welcoming and supportive humans who I feel at ease with. We’re not legally family as we thought we would be. But I find that there are bonds that hold, beyond those carefully laid out by law. I am reminded again to be grateful for the kindness of people who should despise me for ruining their brother’s life.

I’m happy to be in their company. When they sleep, I lie awake unable to settle in comfortably at rock bottom. Each place, Colombo then Egypt then Dar then Bangkok, was a false bottom and there was so much further down to go. I have landed in Melbourne and am gingerly stepping around, waiting to fall again while hoping it’s the actual, actual bottom this time. It’s like approaching a toilet with its cover down, outside your home and in a public place: is it clean or filled with a torrent of shit? I’ll only know with time and that is horrifying because I’m already at a dead end with money, work and love. The only property I will ever hold will be in Monopoly, and likely only the plastic green houses, not even the red hotels. The Smiths have banned this game in our friend group because on a weekend in Bali, we started playing after drinking too many Bintangs and one of our friends was so smug about his money stash that he started setting it on fire with his cigarette lighter and a fight broke out.

If I can’t be good at relationships or work or Monopoly then I’ll be amazing at studying. I’ll take nothing less than a high distinction because that will make up for the mistakes I have made in my life. This is the way forward; I’m taking a break from work so this is all I have to focus on. If I can have visual proof of my intellect, it will mean I am absolutely fine and definitively in control of my life.

Armed with this surefire plan, I start looking for a place to live because I don’t want to tax the generosity of my hosts. I make enquiries on Facebook and am steered to live in the inner north so I start looking for a room to rent.

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