Am Home

Kabir waited for his father to pick him up from school. He munched on cake rusk sitting on the stairs to the academy. Crumbs fell between his leg. The sky was pale grey. Kabir couldn’t remember the last time he saw the sun. He was growing tired of wearing a sweater like a second layer of skin — always on, night and day, only being stripped away when bathing.

The other students at the academy had been picked up. Kabir’s father probably was busy picking up rides. There was nothing to do but wait. 

Kabir thought about reading. He was in the home stretch of a Zadie Smith novel his older sister gave him. He found it fascinating, seeing the complexities of his own family reflected in her characters. He wasn’t Pakistani, though. And he wasn’t Muslim. His parents were Nepali immigrants. 

Kabir didn’t read on the steps that day for one reason: awareness. He knew that if he stuck his head in a book, he’d lose track of who was walking by. Was the British man in work boots going to start something? Would there be a word thrown his way, soaring across time and space, hitting him and his psyche unaware? Would the older boys, white or black or somewhere in between ask him questions, ask him where he came from, ask him why he was here? What if?

Kabir stood up, brushed the cake rusk crumbs off the collar of his school-subsidized blazer, and walked to the side of the academy. He wanted to get off the street. It is better to sit under a tree, he thought, than to sit on cold concrete.

But when he got to the Yew tree that shaded the side of the academy, he found the graffiti. “Pakis Go Home” it said. Great red spray paint, probably from earlier that day. He looked around, ashamed. His wide eyes searched for anyone around. He was alone. 

Kabir stared. Visions of thick-necked kids in hoodies and gold chains crowded the spray painted message. So tough, so vain, so filled with anger and nowhere to go on this island.

A horn honked. Kabir turned towards the road. His father had just pulled up. It was time to go home.