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Chapter 2:- Chapter Two - Coconut Girl
There is nothing in the world that tastes better to me than the juice of a young coconut.
Once every few weeks I’ll take a bus down into the heart of the city, or walk if it’s nice out, to the international markets. They sell young coconuts there, and they’re pretty cheap.
The whole way home all I can think about is getting to the juice inside. Once I get back I cut away the fiber padding around the coconut, drive a nail into the soft part in the side and drain the juice into a glass. I don’t even filter it. If there’s bits of flesh or fiber at the bottom, they go down the hatch too.
If I have the patience, I’ll throw the glass in the freezer to cool it down. Usually I don’t have that kind of self-restraint. When I’m done with the juice I wrap the coconut in a towel or a pillow case and beat it off the concrete of my apartment balcony. Once it cracks open, I scoop the flesh into some Tupperware and store it in the fridge. I can snack on it as is but there are a lot of recipes I've attempted over the year. Sometimes I shred it and make coconut milk by hand. I love sweet coconut curries. I also love coconut bread, coconut cheesecake, coconut milk lattes, coconut shrimp and pretty much everything else that calls for coconut that I’ve found in my stack of cookbooks.
It was Saturday. I’d been grocery shopping most of the morning, taking my time, picking my ingredients carefully, reading my weekly food planner as I went. By the time I was done I was struggling to carry four canvas bags of groceries home with me. It was warm, almost hot but not quite, and I wanted to walk back to the apartment building but there was no way to lug everything home on foot. Public transport it was.
An hour later, I'd put away everything but one young coconut. I’d bought three, and the other two were already nestling in the back of the refrigerator like two bleached, oversized pencil tips, pointed ends upward.
I’d just gotten the knife out to carve away the fiber when an odd sensation shot through me, telling me something was off. It felt like a combination of an electrical jolt and a monumental change in gravity. A moment later I felt normal sensation flowing back into my limbs, and I looked up. There wasn’t anything amiss in the kitchen. I walked out through the dining room, into my tiny living room, and peered out the window.
The sky was darkening.
It was just slightly grey, and when I slid the glass door open and wandered onto the balcony I could smell ozone.
"Storm coming," I whispered.
I quickly slid the door back in place, just in time to put a barrier between myself and the first clap of thunder. I couldn’t see any lightning but I knew it was out there, somewhere. Maybe it was hiding from me around the other side of the building. It might be big, and shiny, but I’m sure it’s capable of being sneaky. Things that can frighten are always capable of being sneaky.
Still, all I heard was the dog’s growl of thunder, rolling through the sky above my head.
It would be hard to get to me inside my apartment, but I always felt that paranoid nausea when I saw lightning. If I stayed away from water, I’d more than likely be okay. That meant no showers, no baths, no sitting on the toilet and no kitchen work until it was over.
I put the coconut back into the fridge, beside its siblings. I didn’t have time to mourn.
I walked into my bedroom. I refused to run. Even when I’m terrified, I won’t run. If I’m caught running whatever’s threatening me will know I’m scared. So I walk. Let them think I don’t care.
I grabbed my heaviest blanket and folded it up, grabbing my keys from the nightstand. I slipped my sandals on in the hallway in front of the door and left the apartment, double checking the lock from the outside. It was secure.
On my way to the elevator, I heard a door in the hallway behind me shut. It was too quiet for a normal door closing. Someone was closing it gently, trying not to attract any attention.
I’m sure the person behind the door didn’t want the Blanket Girl to know they were watching her.
I’m weird. I know that. But so are my neighbors. I’m not so weird that they should be giving me an unnatural amount of attention, but they do. As far as I'm concerned that makes them much stranger than I am.
Most of my neighbors know I sometimes carry a blanket with me. I wonder how many of them have noticed the correlation between rain and the appearance of the blanket. I hope they don’t know where I go when it rains. That would generate even more gossip.
There are women here who don't work or do so from home and have kids in school all day. Some of them congregate in groups outside or in their apartments and chat. Occasionally I envy them, but I’d have nothing to say if I were included.
I took the elevator down to the ground floor, then wound my way to the back of the floor until I came to the basement entrance. There’s room after room of old storage spaces down there, and most people here now don’t even know it exists. Mostly old appliances are stashed there, and the possessions of deceased or evicted tenants are kept until someone claims them or sells them.
Aside from my use of the basement as a storm shelter, nobody ever spends time down there but The Ghost.
There is nothing in the world that tastes better to me than the juice of a young coconut.
Once every few weeks I’ll take a bus down into the heart of the city, or walk if it’s nice out, to the international markets. They sell young coconuts there, and they’re pretty cheap.
The whole way home all I can think about is getting to the juice inside. Once I get back I cut away the fiber padding around the coconut, drive a nail into the soft part in the side and drain the juice into a glass. I don’t even filter it. If there’s bits of flesh or fiber at the bottom, they go down the hatch too.
If I have the patience, I’ll throw the glass in the freezer to cool it down. Usually I don’t have that kind of self-restraint. When I’m done with the juice I wrap the coconut in a towel or a pillow case and beat it off the concrete of my apartment balcony. Once it cracks open, I scoop the flesh into some Tupperware and store it in the fridge. I can snack on it as is but there are a lot of recipes I've attempted over the year. Sometimes I shred it and make coconut milk by hand. I love sweet coconut curries. I also love coconut bread, coconut cheesecake, coconut milk lattes, coconut shrimp and pretty much everything else that calls for coconut that I’ve found in my stack of cookbooks.
It was Saturday. I’d been grocery shopping most of the morning, taking my time, picking my ingredients carefully, reading my weekly food planner as I went. By the time I was done I was struggling to carry four canvas bags of groceries home with me. It was warm, almost hot but not quite, and I wanted to walk back to the apartment building but there was no way to lug everything home on foot. Public transport it was.
An hour later, I'd put away everything but one young coconut. I’d bought three, and the other two were already nestling in the back of the refrigerator like two bleached, oversized pencil tips, pointed ends upward.
I’d just gotten the knife out to carve away the fiber when an odd sensation shot through me, telling me something was off. It felt like a combination of an electrical jolt and a monumental change in gravity. A moment later I felt normal sensation flowing back into my limbs, and I looked up. There wasn’t anything amiss in the kitchen. I walked out through the dining room, into my tiny living room, and peered out the window.
The sky was darkening.
It was just slightly grey, and when I slid the glass door open and wandered onto the balcony I could smell ozone.
"Storm coming," I whispered.
I quickly slid the door back in place, just in time to put a barrier between myself and the first clap of thunder. I couldn’t see any lightning but I knew it was out there, somewhere. Maybe it was hiding from me around the other side of the building. It might be big, and shiny, but I’m sure it’s capable of being sneaky. Things that can frighten are always capable of being sneaky.
Still, all I heard was the dog’s growl of thunder, rolling through the sky above my head.
It would be hard to get to me inside my apartment, but I always felt that paranoid nausea when I saw lightning. If I stayed away from water, I’d more than likely be okay. That meant no showers, no baths, no sitting on the toilet and no kitchen work until it was over.
I put the coconut back into the fridge, beside its siblings. I didn’t have time to mourn.
I walked into my bedroom. I refused to run. Even when I’m terrified, I won’t run. If I’m caught running whatever’s threatening me will know I’m scared. So I walk. Let them think I don’t care.
I grabbed my heaviest blanket and folded it up, grabbing my keys from the nightstand. I slipped my sandals on in the hallway in front of the door and left the apartment, double checking the lock from the outside. It was secure.
On my way to the elevator, I heard a door in the hallway behind me shut. It was too quiet for a normal door closing. Someone was closing it gently, trying not to attract any attention.
I’m sure the person behind the door didn’t want the Blanket Girl to know they were watching her.
I’m weird. I know that. But so are my neighbors. I’m not so weird that they should be giving me an unnatural amount of attention, but they do. As far as I'm concerned that makes them much stranger than I am.
Most of my neighbors know I sometimes carry a blanket with me. I wonder how many of them have noticed the correlation between rain and the appearance of the blanket. I hope they don’t know where I go when it rains. That would generate even more gossip.
There are women here who don't work or do so from home and have kids in school all day. Some of them congregate in groups outside or in their apartments and chat. Occasionally I envy them, but I’d have nothing to say if I were included.
I took the elevator down to the ground floor, then wound my way to the back of the floor until I came to the basement entrance. There’s room after room of old storage spaces down there, and most people here now don’t even know it exists. Mostly old appliances are stashed there, and the possessions of deceased or evicted tenants are kept until someone claims them or sells them.
Aside from my use of the basement as a storm shelter, nobody ever spends time down there but The Ghost.
