Like the color blue - An original story by Kim Tuyen Pham
“Hi, may I sit here?” The Indian guy, whose name read Sandee on the small name tag attached to his white uniform, asked with a smile. He then immediately sat down as if her consent was imminent enough to be taken for granted.
Mia was having dinner in the staff canteen. On her left, she had a plate of chicken curry with basmati rice, the daily food provided by the canteen, and on her right a mug full of ice water. She was staring at the curry while eating it slowly, carefully chewing every bit of chicken before washing it down with a mouthful of water. She looked up to see the guy with a shy smile and, without consciousness, both of her hands grabbed the plate and the mug to pull them closer to herself as if they were taking too much space on the huge empty table where she was alone minutes ago, but which was now occupied by The Indian guy. The canteen was still not busy. It was only 6:20 in the afternoon, too early for a lot of people to have dinner. Mia finished early today at 5:30 but she had a very busy day. Her job as a dive instructor was hard sometimes when she had a lot of Discover Scuba Diving customers - people who want to try scuba diving for the first time. Today she had to go in the water 5 times from early morning till late afternoon, almost non-stop. Vicky, another instructor, and her workmate were in bed all day due to a high fever (she had too many drinks last night and fell down in the water while she was trying to walk on the beach and got a cold). The third instructor was on the boat all day. Therefore, all the DSD’s had to be done by Mia. After she had done with the last DSD couple, very funny Chinese newlyweds who were like rocks in the water, the manager came to Mia and told her to go home and have a rest, and that she could come to work late the next day. She took a quick shower then hurried to the canteen, not only because she was starving, but also because by this time of the evening it would be like a desert and she didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not to anyone at all. She looked across the table, there were plenty of spaces in the room to choose but Sandee had to sit in front of her. At her table. She wanted to be alone.
“How was your day?” Asked Sandee. Both of his hands were tearing the chapattis into small pieces and pilling them up like a small mountain on his plate. He had a bowl full of fish curry next to him, ready to be poured on top of this mountain of bread once he was done preparing it.
“Very good… Excuse me, I must go, I finish my dinner. Have a nice evening.” Mia took her plate and her mug, stood up, and went to the corner to put them on a table full of dirty plates. She could still feel the guy’s eyes on her back. She put the things down and rushed out of the canteen toward her room.
Vicky was already dressed by the time Mia came back to the room. They had been sharing this room together for 3 months at this resort in the Maldives.
“Hey Mia, you are back. How was today? Bad I supposed. I’m so sorry I couldn’t come to work. All the stupid drinks last night, and the rain, and the cold water. Hayah… A lot of Chinese DSD hah? I don’t know why they all want to go diving… Most of them don’t even know how to swim. Why bother then? Just stay in the villa and eat and sleep and fuck, that should make them happy. You think I haven’t tried to talk them out of diving? I tried many times! They just don’t want to listen! I want to go diving. And 5 minutes later… Oh, seawater is too salty! What do you think? This is the sea, not your stupid little villa’s swimming pool you idiot! You tell them to lay flat and kick, and they will just be like hug bags attached to you and don’t move at all, and the currents at house reef, you know how strong they can be... Fucking hell…”
Once Vicky got into something it was very hard to make her stop. She was funny and noisy but not a bad friend or roommate. Mia, on the contrary, was always extremely quiet. She rarely talked, only listened, and smiled. And smoked.
Mia opened the drawer of her night table and took out a package of Camel Blue. “Vicky, I’m going outside to smoke.”
“Cannot stand a minute without a smoke can you? I mean, I don’t want to be a mother here, you can do whatever the fuck you want, but this must be the second package today…”
Mia smiled shyly and walked out to the veranda. She lit up the cigarette and quickly smoked it, then lit another one. She smoked like a kid who, for the first time, has the freedom to eat ice cream and sweets without the control of her mother.
Vicky came out from the room and said “Mia I’m going to the bar, no, not to drink, it’s enough for today, just to have a little chit chat with the guys. You know the Indian guy, Sandee? He’s kinda into you. Of course, you don’t like him I know. He even asked me once if you are like, you know, don’t like men. Ha ha… Don’t lock the door, I will be back at some point, I lost my key yesterday when I was drunk. The manager will kill me haha, this is the second time already…”
Mia went back inside the room and plunged herself into bed. She turned the light off, then curled up into a ball and fell asleep.
There was nothing too special about Mia’s appearance. She was short and slim with a round face and brown hair. Her eyes were also brown and watery sometimes, which made her look sad. If there was something worth mentioning it was her breasts. They were surprisingly big and round for such a small girl. She used to be very embarrassed about her breasts and always tried to hide them under big loose shirts. Then Takamura said to her that night “Your breasts are amazing. I have never met any girl with such perfect breasts”. He treated them as if they were valuable gems. He would kiss them, suck on them and play with them for a long while before he put himself in her. After he left Mia looked at herself naked in the mirror every night and all she saw was her breasts. Too big and useless. For months Mia took on that weird habit of staring at her breasts in the mirror. Months after Takamura called her and said he had to go abroad because his parents wanted him to live in Switzerland with them. His parents knew nothing about Mia. She never existed to them, and maybe never to Takamura either. She fell back into depression, an old friend which came to her long ago and stayed until she met Takamura. Now the old friend was back.
Mia’s parents got divorced when she was fifteen and she moved out to live with her mother while her seventeen-year-old brother went to live with their father. It was a big shock for Mia since she and her brother were very close. After the official separation, the two of them still met every day at school until her brother died in a car accident. Both their parents were out of town on a business trip at the time. They came back the next day and Mia was gone. They didn’t find her until 2 years afterward. She went to live with a friend in Tokyo and worked in a bar at night. When they found her she refused to come back with any of them so they decided to give her some money and let her be. They didn’t know about the lonely nights she passed crying and hurting herself in the darkness. They knew nothing about the pain and depression she had to carry. Then she met Takamura.
To be followed...
If you liked the story so far. Subscribe to read the rest of the story and leave your comment to tell me what you think about it.