June 2023: 200 Cups of Chai - Emily Chapman
You’re staring death in the face, he said.
What are you going over there for? A pretty young girl shouldn’t go places filled with danger.
She should protect herself inside the high walls of the middle class and fill her head with books and birdsong, not guns and grand speeches.
Be privileged. Run away from yourself.
Deliberate the colour of your toast in the morning, it’s much safer than running towards salvation when you’re holding the hand of someone chained to despair.
Don’t look these people in the eyes, he said. They’ve seen too much.
If you catch a glimpse of their burnt iris, you’ll never get to worry about the colour of your toast again. Or listen to birdsong the same.
But I want to sit at the table with these people, she said. They too worry about mundane things.
Like the sweet taste of ripe fruit.
How much milk is needed for 200 cups of chai.
The beautiful girl who walks down the street with hair spun from gold.
I too want to take off my shoes and know how it feels to have their dirt beneath my feet.
They may not have books to fill their heads, but they have stories that belong inside their pages.
Their people were arrested, beaten, accused.
Is a democracy designed to make us feel like our liberties are being abused?
There is no danger here for me, sitting at this table.
It’s out there, in the middle class.
Where the people do not look at death in the face, or hear the bird sing its sad songs.
They recite the grand speeches born from the ones sitting here, with the burnt iris
Who sometimes speak of mundane things
over 200 cups of chai
The ones who make me unafraid to die
Emily Chapman
Right Left Write’s June genre prompt was Realism.
In July, we’ll be exploring Speculative fiction. Show us your best writing - whether you stick to the theme or experiment and subvert expectations! Find out more about the competition and submit at www.queenslandwriters.org.au/rightleftwrite.
Right Left Write’s June genre prompt was Realism.