This short story emerged from the act of trimming nails after 6 PM, a practice surrounded by Sri Lankan myth and familial wisdom. It unravels the superstition surrounding this tradition, weaving in a burglary as the consequence of the narrator ignoring this myth to create suspense. Through exploring identity nuances and the manipulation of reality, this narrative celebrates the depth of Sri Lankan myth.
I didn’t know how to trim my nails until I was eight years old—so I waited until Amma cooked lunch. We ate, washed the dishes and swept the kitchen floor before I tugged on the sleeve of her dress, playfully scratching her arm with a giggle.
Amma trimmed my nails whenever she had free time during the day – somewhere between doing the laundry and waiting for the chicken to cook before dinner. This annoyed Thaththa.
‘You shouldn’t trim nails after six o’clock. It’s bad luck,’ he would argue.
Thaththa was a practical man. He was an engineer who made calculated and rational decisions for a living. I didn’t see him as someone who would believe in bad luck and superstition, but there was something comforting about the fact that he did.
‘But why is it bad luck, Thaththa?’ I would ask him expecting a logical explanation.
Thaththa was smart – he knew the answers to everything. But he would never answer my question, and would instead snap back with:
‘It’s bad luck, child. It doesn’t matter why.’
***
When I was fifteen, I didn’t clip my nails short – the girls in school considered length more stylish. Every Monday morning the school prefects checked our nail length and every Monday morning jagged nail clippings were left on the floor beside the auditorium doors. Some of us had had the patience to use clippers, others had bitten them off, and those who couldn’t argue that they weren’t even that long, had slithered down the side and snuck into class.
One day it was me who slunk past them, so the moment I got home I knew I had to trim them before I was caught.
I took the school bus home, had my lunch, collapsed onto my bed in my uniform and didn’t wake up until it was six o’clock.
I knew it was past a decent time to be clipping my nails, but I had no choice.
‘You shouldn’t trim nails after six o’clock,’ Thaththa’s words nagged in my head as I clipped them in a frenzy. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the neighbour’s black cat – weaving through the green, brown and transparent glass bottle shards they’d cemented into the parapet wall to keep trespassers from jumping over.
Darkness slowly crept in. The bats disturbed the dry leaves as they awoke from their slumber in the old mango and jackfruit trees. But there was also a persistent rustling, growing louder in the neighbour’s garden. I couldn’t see anything past the wall, but as I tried the sound shifted to heavy thuds, echoing loud enough to permeate the music playing through my headphones. It was like someone was forcefully tugging against a door or window. I anxiously clipped the extra bits of nails that stood out in the dark and ignored the shiver down my spine.
The minutes slipped away as they always do when you don’t want them to, and soon it was time for a shower, homework, dinner, and, finally, bed.
***
I woke up as though I was emerging from a trance.
It was ten o’clock, way past the time the bus normally picked me up for school. I couldn’t believe Amma hadn’t sprayed cold water on my face, or that Thaththa hadn’t turned off the ceiling fan to make it unbearable to sleep through the humming mosquitoes and humidity.
I heard them snoring in their bedroom.
I stepped into the hall and saw cupboards, drawers, tables, chairs toppled over. Books, magazines, foreign coins scattered all over the floor, the front door wide open.
Someone had been here.
I ran to the window and looked out at the street. There were four police jeeps parked in front of the neighbour’s house.
I walked outside the gate in my pyjamas and poked my head out. A policeman approached me and asked if I was aware that the neighbour’s house was robbed while they were away on vacation.
A hot fever surged through my body, making me feel sick. I rushed to wake Amma and Thaththa. I cupped cold water in my palms from the toilet sink and threw it on their faces. I turned off the ceiling fan.
Amma held the headboard of the bed, attempting to stand, but immediately retched. She sat back down, clutching her chest and complained of a sharp pain.
‘Child, what time is it?’ she mumbled as she grabbed for the alarm on the bedside table.
Too weak or stunned to speak, Amma tugged on Thaththa’s cotton banyan and nudged him awake. He rolled on the bed, squinting at the bright sunlight, then sprung up, scanning the room as if it were unfamiliar to him.
I had left the front door open, so the policeman had walked into the house – into the bedroom – and now stood staring at the three of us, dazed and seated on different parts of the bed, trying to make sense of what was happening.
‘Sir, Madam. Are you ok? It appears there was a break in,’ he said, trying to shake us from our daydream.
He sniffed the air, then raised his eyebrow. It reminded me of Amma when she’d realise that the large pot of chicken curry she made for the entire week was burning on the stove. He told us that we needed to give our blood and tissue samples to the forensic team.
***
Thaththa kept calling the local police station for updates. They had a reputation for taking their time. It was nearly six o’clock when he received a call from the chief.
‘Sir, it appears that your house was the site of a robbery last night. We believe that a gas was administered through the open windows, causing you to fall unconscious during the incident,’ he explained to Thaththa, who had put him on speaker so that all of us could listen in.
Later, the police search party combed through the gardens, garages, and the flower beds of both houses for any traces left behind – fingerprints or anything that could identify the thieves.
And there, in the neighbours’ flower bed, I saw it. A wave of sickness swept over me. There, lying next to a bag of Amma’s gold jewellery, was my nail clipper.