FOLD YOUR PAPER PLANES

For years, the girl has folded the images into a paper plane, held it against the light, a forced smile — crooked and soaked in despair — plastered on her face, and watch as the wind comes from the West to take the paper plane from her hands. She watches as the wind carries the paper plane, swings it from one side to the next. The plane floats against the wind, buoyed by the air’s power, and then flies away. She never sees where the wind’s energy became incapable of holding the paper plane; she never sees how the plane, tired of resting on the wind’s palms, starts to go down. Never sees the plane nosedive from its lofty heights; never sees it drown in a body of water — mud, sea, ocean, river — or fall to the ground; never sees the paper plane immersed in water, turns mash, and the mashed-up pieces float to different parts; never sees how the feet of people she’ll never meet grind the plane into nothing; never sees the plane buried in the ground.

For years, she has tried to forget that night. No matter how deep she buries it, the memories still find their way to sprout leaves and branches that block the sunshine from shining on her.

She is eight, alone in the house, with her aunt. It is two days since her parents and her three-year-old brother traveled for another of her parents’ many ‘church appointments.’ Three days before, when she was told her aunt would stay with her for the one week her parents would be away, she cried to come with them. They told her she had school to attend. What of Adams, he too has to go to school, she argued, eyes glistering with tears. Her mother told her that her brother’s education wasn’t as important as hers, that he was three, and she was eight. Her mother was never nice to her. Her father pleaded with her to stay with her aunty with a promise of buying her that bicycle she always wanted. The promise of the bike was enough to dry her tears temporarily. But on the day her parents left for the airport, she howled and held on to her father’s trousers. She never cries when they were going; she was used to it; they were barely around. But on that day, she didn’t want them to go.

That night, she was lying on her bed with the lights on, rain pelting the roof of the house. She was reading a book, one of the many ‘young adult’ books her father got for her after she devoured the children’s books he bought. The story was about a girl who was bullied in school. The girl had a friend who, although weak, defended her from the school bullies. The girl in the book was finding out just how strong she was whenever her weary-looking friend was beside her. She was almost through with the book. The guy the bullied-girl likes, who had treated her like trash earlier, and even bullied her, was making advances. The girl’s friend was telling the girl not to accept the guy’s advances.

Her door creaks open slowly — a silhouette. The girl drops the book. The outline becomes a person. The person smiles at the girl. It surprises the girl that the person is in her room. It’s her aunt. Her aunt asks her what book she’s reading. She tells her the book’s title and the author. Her aunt had been good; she allowed the girl to eat whatever she wanted. The aunt asks her what the story is about. The aunt’s eye is fixed on the girl’s eyes. The aunt picks up the book, runs her long, oxblood painted nails over the book’s pages. The aunt is flipping through the book as the girl tells the aunt about the girl and her fearless friend. Her aunt is paying her rapt attention. The girl’s father never listened to her long enough. Her mother didn’t even bother coming to her room at night. She was too busy praying and studying the word. Her aunt listened to her and asked questions in between. The girl was excited to have finally found someone who listens to her, takes her seriously, and cares about her need other than giving her gifts.

The next day, when her aunt came to her room to ask her what story she was reading, she told her, excited. And the next day, her aunt came again. The day after that, she came back. This time she stayed later than her customary one hour. That day, on the third day, her aunt’s hand snaked under her pajamas. The hand ran up and down her thighs as she read the story of a wrongly kidnapped man. That night, the warm weather, the blaring car horns outside the house, the loud John Legend’s song playing in the living room, the humming air-conditioner could not drown out the tingly feeling she felt as her aunt’s hands ran through her thighs; neither could they save her when her aunt’s lips locked with hers. Before she found herself entrapped in her aunt’s snare, her pajamas pulled off, her back on the bed while her aunt’s fingers tickled and thrilled the space between her thighs. Before she tried to push her aunt away but was too young to. Before her aunt’s fingers dug and dug into her, sending waves after waves of pleasure she didn’t want but couldn’t control. Before her aunt ordered her to replicate what she did on her body. Before her aunt directed her hand over her bare body. Before the girl’s hand was commanded to squeeze her aunt’s breast; before the girl’s lips were forced to suck on her aunt’s chest. Before her aunt led her hand down the aunt’s thighs. Before a thick, long rubber material was handed to her and asked to push in between her aunt’s legs. Before her aunt’s screams that perplexed and scared her. Before between her aunt’s thighs leaked with slippery semi-liquid. Before her aunt told the girl never to tell anyone what had happened before. The girl started enjoying it whenever the aunt came to her room, even when her parents were around. Before she went to her aunt’s house, five years after, to beg her aunt to do what she had done to her that night. Before her aunt told the girl never to come to her house again because she was no longer into such things. Before all of this, the girl read teenage fiction, dreamed about when her father will bring her bicycle, and how she’d ride the bike to school and back. Before the girl became an unrecognizable being, she was just a girl who read books and pined for her parents’ attention.

Now, the girl watches the plane fly away and wishes the memories will fly away, drown, be trampled on by strangers. Buried.