The Love Stories Of Two Sisters (Flash Fiction Part 4)

Image by Jess Foami from Pixabay

Flash Fiction #160

This is the 4th and last part of the story. The first three parts of the story is here: #1, #2, #3.

From then on, Cia had always been trying to work Arji into any conversation we had in the dorm. When we were having a meal together, she was surely to allude to Arji’s favorite food; when weekend was coming up, she was to mingle Arji’s weekend activity surreptitiously into unrelated conversations. During the summer break, she brought Arji back so that her mother could indulge Arji at home and parade him in front her neighbors. Needless to say, Arji does have the lay-back docile kind of personality. He enjoyed being looked after and having two women fussing over him. And during the semester after the summer break, Cia tried hard to work Arji’s lovable behaviors or other trivial facts into every girly chat.

We somehow all subconsciously understood the strange nature of Cia’s love affair. Nobody ever reciprocated when Cia alluded to her boyfriend Arji; nobody dared to crack a mildest joke about it although we talked about other girls’ boyfriends regularly; nobody would inquire, “how’s Arji doing,” with Cia as if Arji was a well acknowledged taboo. Although we all talked with other girls’ boyfriends, who occasionally came to our dorm for visits, none of us would venture to say even one word with Arji. Probably we subconsciously understood how insecure Cia was in regard to her boyfriend. Consequently we tried to make her feel better for not showing even the slightest interest. When Arji came for a visit, we pretended that he’s not there. And Arji was so docile and so unskilled at communication that he never initiated even one short conversation with any of us. The whole thing felt very strange indeed, almost like the tense and eerie beginning of a mystery movie.

When graduation came around, Cia’s behavior took everyone by surprise. At the time, our department would only allow ten students to apply to the graduate program in our department. Other students would go find a job, apply to other universities, or go overseas. Unfortunately for Cia, she was the #11 on the list of students who wanted to apply to the graduate program of our own department. The cut off line was right before her and she was excluded. Since I belonged to the students who were not interested to stay two more years in the same place, I was not even aware of this cut off line or any other restrictions in existence until the whole thing later transpired.

One day, when we were having a group dinner in the dorm, Cia suddenly stood up, went to the corner bunk bed (unoccupied) where our boxes, suitcases and packages were piled up. She dragged a box out and showed us the content: In it, there were about twenty to thirty books stolen from various libraries. It turned out that one of our dorm mates, Silky, had taken these books out of the several libraries in our campus without really borrowing them officially. Silky was her nickname. Her parents worked in a silk factory and she ended up with more silk clothes and pillow cases than other people.

None of us thought this was a big deal, but Cia wanted to make a big fuss about it. As you know, we were having a third-world economy and people had to hustle for a living. It was not an uncommon thing that our ethanol in the lab was stolen by drunkards; our lab animals disappeared into somebody’s kitchen and ended up on his or her dinner table. Actually in one very enterprising little town not too far from our campus, teachers and students would routinely carry desks and chairs from schools into the weekend market to build their stalls to sell food or goods.

Anyway, lady Z who was in charge of student affairs was contacted immediately by Cia. I didn’t know what Cia told her, but Z was so excited that she came immediately for a meeting with all of us. I guessed that Z thought she discovered a gang of thieves or something. Since stolen equipment or provisions were serious issues in the university, Z thought she finally uncovered something big. However she was sourly disappointed when she arrived, knowing that only about 30 books were in question and the loot was too small to be anything significant.

Still Z immediately went into an official mode to record our words since each of us was a witness. We were all rather reluctant to say anything since it was a little crime in a little teapot. We would rather let it go, but Cia insisted. Since we couldn’t say that stealing was a right thing to do, it ended up that each of us denounced stealing and censured Silky in our witness recording. By the way, Silky was absent that day for some reason.

Anyway, Silky was put on suspension or probation immediately. And I think you can guess why Cia was doing this. It turned out that Silky was #8 on the list of students to apply for the graduate program of our own department. Getting rid of Silky, Cia became a rightful candidate.

Reflecting on the past, I just feel that Cia could have become a normal human being if she was brought up in a normal environment. However that was too much to wish for. Even now, I can still remember Cia’s complaint about her mother who didn’t love her and who didn’t bond with her that a normal mother would do with her child. However, Cia couldn’t see through the charade her mother was playing on her to manipulate her mind and behavior. Cia blamed her sister who attracted her mother’s attention away; Cia blamed her future brother-in-law, who was not handsome enough to please her mother; Cia blamed her sister for not being filial and not showing interest in her mother. Cia, although knowing that her mother would not love her, would continue to try to impress her mother. After all, the one who’s not impressed is the most worthy of being impressed, in her opinion at least. And along the way of trying to impress a person who was very hard to be impressed, Cia became more and more like her mother. She would try to manipulate everybody and every situation, beat herself up to achieve one impossible goal after another, and make people around her live in dramas and tensions of her own creation.

(The End)