Lipstick,
Lipstick, Lipstick
by Amit
Parmessur
My name is Antish.
I am 13 years old but I’m not even a lottery
winner. It’s all down to some lipstick.
Parents, avoid lipstick else you can break the
future of your children.
Do you know what
my life is because of lipstick? My life is hell.
I live in a rented house. My parents are barely
able to pay the rents. The clothes I wear have
thinned to invisibility. My dreams are still
dreams. My belly is more like my back. People
even say I’ve got 2 backs. My mother, father
and I we have 6 backs.
I shall always
curse lipstick and have a grudge against the
ancient Egyptians who invented it too. Lipstick,
lipstick, lipstick. I just hate you. The only
redeeming feature is that I’m 13 years old.
I can change my fate. But without lipstick my
life could have already changed.
Without lipstick,
my clothes could have been visible. To everyone.
My dreams in my head would have hatched into
reality. We could have transformed half of our 6
backs into bellies in my family. There could also
have been 4 backs instead – my mother’s,
father’s, mine and my little sister’s.
How I long to have a doll-like sister! It all
went wrong only because of some lipstick.
Everything began
with the morning news today. It was announced
that a 13-year-old boy had won the first prize of
the national lottery. For a moment I thought it
was me. The winner’s photo flashed on the
screen. I was surprised. Usually winners
don’t like themselves to be presented in
public in my country. They fear they might
attract thieves. As the picture animated the
screen I felt nostalgic. I now feel like telling
you how I met him.
It was a week
before the announcement of the results. I put on
two T-shirts to prevent my backs from being
visible. My mother too was ready to go out. But
then, she told me to wait outside for a couple of
minutes. I waited, unaware that my chance of
becoming a millionaire was decreasing. I waited.
My mother came and we took our bodies without
bellies to the market.
First we went to
buy a few lottery tickets. There was a boy in
front of us in the queue. He bought his ticket
and went away. I bought a couple too looking with
a lot of hope at my mother, who smiled back, with
her blood-red lips shining.
Hadn’t my
mother told me to wait for her we would have been
in the boy’s place, we would have bought the
ticket the boy bought, we would have been the
winner he was and I would have been the 13-year-old
celebrity on the television screen, not him.
Lipstick. Lipstick.
I shall always hate you. Lipstick. I shall love
you and Egypt only if one day my mother applies
you, I wait for her and then we go to the market
to buy a ticket worth millions.
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