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Suriana
I stared down at my favorite novel sitting on the empty wooden table that has probably been sitting in that very position for the past sixteen years. I gently turned my gaze towards the room I was standing in, I took a minute to gaze at the walls, wondering, why they are painted in a bronze color and not orchid. I suddenly got a strange urge to paint the walls in a burnt sienna color, just as the walls in my home in Malaysia were sixteen years ago. At that very moment, I burst into tears. I didn't know why. I never knew why.
I came to this country with my mother and my sister after spending nine glorious years in my small little home in Kuala Lumpur, one of the largest cities of Malaysia. From what I remember, I was barely ever allowed to leave the house. Occasionally, I would see a few middle-aged women and men pass by me and give me a hateful gaze, and speak terrible words to me to hurt my feelings. Our neighbors would grasp any chance to insult my mother by telling her how terrible it was for her to give birth to me. My only reaction was a question: why? What was it about me that made them hate me so much? That question was never answered.
Three years after we arrived here, my mother passed away due to a terrible accident. That night I couldn't stop crying. I remember cuddling
myself up by tucking my arms around my knees that touched my
chest. My sister was in a deep sleep; therefore she wouldn't notice me screaming my guts out with tears leaving a puddle a whole day of rain could only leave. That incident had affected me forever.
Since the night my mother left me and my sister alone, I took on the role of a mother to my younger sister, Azura. Today, we are here, in Cleveland, Ohio, after spending most of our lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It had been approximately one week since we came to live on Larson Avenue, the street adjacent to Gibb Street. Luckily, because I was well-educated, and because my sister was a well student, I was able to admit her into a fair High School. Cleveland was a rather quite city, filled with many diverse people, as opposed to the everyday scholars you would see in Cambridge. I imagined myself enjoying this city and perhaps even make a few friends. I hoped that today would mark the beginning of a new life, a better life. Then the phone rang.
It was a call for me about my sister from her school. She was a fifteen year-old sophomore in High School. My life took another unexpected twist in just one phone-call conversation. The lady had a tough tone, which made me realize that this was clearly not a call made to discuss Azura's progress. She broke into hysterics the minute I answered her first question. She sounded horrified, as if Azura had just committed murder in her classroom. She started speaking to me about the terrible things she says Azura did in her class. I was shocked to hear her tell me that my younger sister had jumped in the middle of her Geometry class and started speaking as though she did not belong here, in this High School. The Geometry teacher further explained to me how she had whispered in a low voice something about being a well-known prestigious diplomat named Rebecca Hartsfield. I could not believe what I was hearing. She ended with notifying me that Azura was in the Principal's Office, still with the idea that she is Rebecca Hartsfield.
I remember rushing there to meet her with great anxiety as I could feel my heart beating faster than ever. As I was passing Gibb Street to reach to her school, something stopped me. It was colorful land, making this street look marvelous and phenomenal. I couldn't stop myself from standing there and staring at the gorgeous piece of land, and happy people planting there, responsible for the place being so unbelievably sensational. There were all sorts of plants, such as Swiss Chard, lima beans, hot peppers, Golden Root, tomatoes, sweet peppers, a variety of flowers, carrots, and much more that my eyes didn't have time to observe. I knew I had to run to Azura, but my body was not cooperating with my mind. At that moment, a man, I assumed was Indian, entered the garden right past me. I assumed that he was with his wife and his son, and he took them to the carrots of the garden. I further assumed that he grew them. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him, but there was no time. I quickly ran after promising myself I would come back to this astounding garden.
I walked in the High School at a tremendously fast pace, which was not that easy considering the fact that I had walked in at the same time the bell had rang indicating that it was time for the students to change classes, and the fact that the High School was attached to a middle school did not help me at all. As I was searching for the Principal's Office, a student in front of me had dropped his books. He looked Mexican, and after seeing his name Gonzalo on the edge of his floppy binder, it confirmed my hypothesis to be true. I helped him gather his books and asked him if he had could point to me where the Principal's Office was, and he politely showed me after thanking me for helping him. Now that I knew where it is, instead of walking swiftly, I stalked into the Principal's Office to add to the drama. I informed the lady there at the counter who I was and she led me into this private room where Azura was. The principal had a hard expression on his wrinkly face. He gestured his hand towards the seat next to my sister's asking me to sit down, which I did. He began with a brief clearing of his voice and the folding of his hands, which indicated that this was certainly not something he had taken lightly.
He began by stating the obvious, which was that I knew what had occurred which brought me here. He slowly moved on to the topic of why Azura had behaved in such a terrible manner, and why she is continuing to do so by pretending to be this Rebecca. I confessed to him that I had no idea why she was behaving so, and I also admitted to him that while we were traveling from Cambridge to Cleveland, she was reading a novel in which the protagonist was a female diplomat named Rebecca Hartsfield, and that I failed to see the connection. After I was finished explaining to him, he introduced me to a man sitting behind us who happened to be a doctor who specializes in psychological diseases. I was furious at him for even suggesting the ridiculous hypothesis that my sister is mentally ill. The doctor then spoke to me and asked me about how Azura felt before we came to Cleveland, during the travel from Cambridge to Cleveland, and her behavior after arriving here. I was very honest with my answers yet I couldn't exactly see what these details would do to help him see if she truly was mentally ill. At the end of this life changing event, me and my sister were left with three options: to get medical attention for her (which was there polite way of telling me to lock her in some asylum if psychotherapy doesn't work), to find a school for "special" children (which would not be available in Cleveland, and I was in no position to move again), or simply take care of her myself. The worst part was that these reasons were offered because in just thirty minutes, my sister was recognized as a patient suffering from a psychological disorder known as Dissociative Fugue, a disorder in which a person, while traveling from one area to another, looses their identity and takes on a new identity with no memory of their past identity. My sister was mentally ill.
As we walked home she resentfully insulted me, calling me a terrible kidnapper, asking me what right I had on her, and I couldn't answer, because in her mind I was not Suriana, her older sister who she loved so much, instead, I was this strange lady holding her captive. She fought hard, ready to run, and I ended up chasing her into the prodigious garden. Even she stopped before it, gazing deeply into its great beauty. She put her hands to her head and was about to collapse, but, fortunately, I was able to catch her. I held her for about fifteen minutes, and then her eyes opened. She said "Suriana", which gave me such a large sense of joy and immense happiness because I realized she was once again my little sister Azura. The doctor had notified me that if I were to be lucky, this disorder would not affect her for long, but I never imagined it would happen so quickly. My only possible explanation was that it was a miracle.
I used the garden as something that could have possibly provoked my sister's disorder to run away. Although, of course, I could not be positive, after all, I didn't specialize in psychology. Therefore, in order to thank the garden, I decided to plant called Abeliophyllum, which is also known as White Forsythia, particularly because this extraordinarily amazing plant is extremely delicious and beautiful, just as the garden was for us. We associated with plenty of people there, one of which included the Indian man who went past me the other day. We shared our religions and lifestyles with each other, and this man was very kind to me and my sister. The next day, he had even offered some of his cultural food for me to try while we all worked together to clean some of the trash piled up in the right corner of the lot. I thought of the protagonist in my favorite novel, and all of a sudden, I felt like the protagonist in my own little novel.
what did you all think? do share your comments=)
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