ALL ON MY BIG YELLOW BED SHEETS

My big yellow bed sheets. Ok, to be totally honest, once upon a time they were my mother’s big yellow bed sheets. Now, they were my big, torn bed sheets with a hint of yellow. Nonetheless, if they could speak, they would weave tales like tapestries. Of my parents’ infidelity. Of how I lost my virginity on them. Of my twin sister’s promiscuity. Yawn. As I lay on my big yellow bed sheets.
Such minor details about life I ignored. I mean, what more could I possibly learn about unfaithfulness? Or difficult times? My father probably deserved whatever my mother brought his way. They never tired of telling us how we were conceived under the influence of cheap liquor and illicit brew. All on the big yellow sheets. He went and fucked around; she went and screwed around. After several hazy days of drinking, partying, and fucking and/or screwing, they would meet in the bedroom. Quick grope, fondle, kiss. It was over before it even began.
Tara. My twin sister. Smooth, flawless skin the color of cocoa. Clear eyes that were always questioning. She exuded incorruptibility until she opened her mouth. She could embarrass a truck driver with her language. Of course, being a child of my parents, she had picked up a thing or two about the art of seduction. She was a mistress in the game and played for keeps. She always told me, scornfully, that her way was the only way out for our kind. Poor big, yellow bed sheets, currently some hand-me-downs from beloved said parents.
I went to the council school nearby. School was my other world, my break from reality. Reality was absentee parents. Reality was alcohol, cheap perfume and sex. Reality was maturity before time. Reality was a bitch. When I was in school, I became a sixteen year old girl who was allowed to be a child. I had dreams and plans. I could pretend that I was functional. I could hope that one day I would be released from the bondage of my life.
Tom, my best friend, also went to the same school. He was as dysfunctional and as confused and disillusioned as I was. Tom did not know his mother. She upped and left when Tom was just but a toddler. His father was one of my mother’s regulars (probably my sister had been there too, I don’t know. And I didn’t care), which meant he was also rarely home before midnight.
Together we would dream big. We would detail a life that had big mansions and flashy cars. Maids at our beck and call. We would travel to see the world together. And when we would have children, they would love us as much as we loved them. They would want for nothing that our hands could work for and provide. Oh, what bliss life would be for us.
Everyday we would build our sand castles in the air, and every evening they would be torn down when we went back home to reality. But we did not give up. We would patiently reconstruct them the next day, trying so hard not to let the worries and cares of reality bog these castles down.
It was during the Christmas holidays. Holidays were a nightmare for me. It meant that there was no school. No time out from life. No peace and quiet. No hanging out with Tom everyday. Just Tina and her men. My father wouldn’t be home. My mother would be drunk and passed out.
Anyway it was during the Christmas holidays. Tom and I would meet in the afternoons outside our school gates. We would walk for kilometers just talking. And building. And planning. He would then walk me back home then head to his own. But not today. Today was different. Surprisingly there was no one home. I invited him in and offered him tea. We talked as if we were sparing words.
It happened so fast, yet I can detail every minute. A kiss here, touch me there. Everything we ever wanted to say, but couldn’t, flowed out of us in waves of innocence and inexperience. Innocence. Inexperience. The worry on my face. His reassuring words. And on my big yellow bed sheets, I found love.