A Burning Bun in the Oven

“Where the fuck are you? I should be able to see you,” KayO said, squinting and looking around the airport receiving area.

“Oh, I just had to step out,” DM said on the line.

He sounded distracted.

“What do you mean ‘step out?'” KayO said as he stopped walking.

“There was this thing I had to…take care of.”

“Like, with you cousin in Richmond?”

“No, like a bun…”

“Wha-“

________

Eleanor really wished she had not shaved her legs. Men never seemed to understand how much effort it took, and how much of a waste it was if the realization that the man they did it for was not worth sleeping with hit.

“So I’m really trying to get comfortable being with myself,” Allan was saying, almost to himself.

The guy had seemed almost too good to be true, she now told herself, regretting spending the extra hour to look extra nice today. He had seemed like a good listener on the dating app, and seemed to have some rad hobbies. However, the past 45 minutes had been him droning on about himself and past girlfriends while putting away 4 drinks that Eleanor had a feeling she might end up paying for since he had not mentioned a job.

She was just beginning to make throat sounds to come up with an excuse to leave when, out of nowhere a man with a knife popped up behind Allan.

Eleanor would for weeks feel guilty that she had not screamed right away or warned Allan, or done much at all as the man grabbed her date in a rear-naked choke while moving the knife menacingly close.

It took just a single therapy session for her not to feel that guilty anymore. She took a holiday to Seattle to put it all behind her.

_______________

Nisha sat at her desk, the clock about to strike midnight, and wondered. An energetic young lady of 23, she had the look of a rising star in journalism. The story she was putting together had a good number of elements that could win her one of the smaller prizes that year.

The assailant, before cutting the victim’s throat, had painstakingly cut the terrified victim’s man-bun.

Across Nisha’s desk were several books about American/Canadian settlement and wars between the RCMP and Indigenous people.

“Scalping,” she said to herself.

No one was sure who had begun scalping first. Was it American settlers, doing something to the proud top-knot sported by Navajo and other nations? Was it the Dakota that did it to settlers as a way to warn them against taking their land?

“Why would an immigrant to do this?” she pondered.

Her phone rang. She picked up without looking, knowing it had to be important at this hour.

“Nisha,” her editor said, sleepily, “There’s been another one.”

“The scalping-killing?” She dropped her pen.

“Yeah.”

________

Excerpted from a lower-tier newspaper in Canada.

A total of 44 men were killed in just 8 hours in Vancouver.

“This is terrorism,” an eye witness who did not want to be identified by name said. “The terrorist first grabbed the man bun and chopped it off, and then stabbed the man in his love handles and mid-back.”

….

The Association of Man Buns has declared war on the state of Afghanistan.

“We have a right to defend ourselves,” the official spokesman said.

Canada has also declared war on Afghanistan.

“The terrorist was Pakistani, but Canada is going to war with Afghanistan since the latter has more natural resources,” said the Foreign Minister. “What, did I stutter?”

….

The war ended in about 2 days. Most Canadian armed forces that were deployed to Afghanistan ended up becoming wives to Taliban warlords. One warlord cited the smooth faces and man buns as the reason why he made his 4 Canadian man-wives dance for him

Fifth Man

“Annumol, please come to the line, please.”

Joji was at his wits’ end. Like the end of every holiday he had been on since he was a child, this one was having challenges that would be greatly helped if he were the sort of man to drink blended Scotch by himself.

He remembered his father, sitting in the dark wooden chair in his kesari that had the gold trim, thick Scotch glass in hand as he watched the family go about their nightly duties.

Joji unfortunately was not the sort of man to drink alone. His father had made fun of him for only drinking “with company,” as the man had put it. He could never understand that Joji needed some talk, a joke or two to help the drink go down. His father, rather, had used the drink to help deal with the family on a nightly basis.

“Joji, she’s still sitting,” his wife, Preeya, said, jostling his elbow.

Joji looked at Preeya – a short woman of 5’0″ who carried herself like she was six inches taller, which would make her taller than him. He wondered if he should twirl his moustache to reassert himself in the situation, but dismissed the thought since he had never done anything remotely akin to that gesture.

“Annumol, join the line now,” Joji found himself saying in a louder voice, wondering if he were the centre of attention in the otherwise orderly line that had white people from multiple western countries in it, as well as other Indians and even a smattering of Black westerners on holiday.

He wondered why his second progeny – Annumol – was so hard to control, in comparison to Seema, his elder wonder child that was so obedient and just behind him in the line (he didn’t even need to check that she was there – he knew she was).

The line jostled and shook a bit as the family surged towards the cutoff point.

“Sir, we need to close the line and open up for the next seating group,” a smiling Balinese airport staff in a sort of giraffe print violet and white-violet dress told him.

“Annumol,” he shouted at this point.

“Annu, enthadi vazhathe,” Preeya yelled at the girl who was still sitting and putting away her drawing book in the seating area a few feet away.

“Sir-” the woman was smiling less as she said this.

“Hey chettha, why are you all wearing the same shirt?”

Joji looked over to his right and saw the inquirer – a bald man who might have been from the mid-south of India, or somewhere else. He was smiling like he knew the answer already. Joji closed his eyes and sighed as Annumol joined the line next to him.

________________________

“So, Bali, ah?” DM asked, sort of nonchalantly over the phone line.

“This place is a smelly cunt,” Kayo said, knowing what the question entailed.

“Man, Australians love that place. ‘Goin’ to Bali for a bit of surfin’, mate.'”

“Yeah, I saw them. Skin hanging loose from too much tanning.”

“Yuck.”

“I tried to walk to the beach, but kept getting harassed by the taxi drivers.”

“Harassed how?”

“They asked me do I want taxi; I said no. Then they asked if I want scooter; I said no. Then they asked massage; no. And then finally they ask if I want ‘boom boom.'”

“Ah that kind of place.”

“It’s a tourist trap man. Nice beer though.”

“You drank by yourself?”

“Well yeah, since I’m here for work, I thought I’d enjoy while getting emails done.”

“I cannot imagine ever doing that.”

“Yeah, ‘cos you like vodka only.”

“No, I mean the emails and beer.”

“Man, there’s nothing like a local micr-brew chocolate porter and doing emails.”

“Yuck.”

“Wait, man, there’s a whole ass family going to Singapore with me that are all wearing the same shirt.”

“What the fuck?”

“Dad, mum and 2 daughters I think teenagers. All wearing black pants and a grey-green shirt with tropical flowers and leaves.”

“Like a Hawaiian shirt?”

“Sort of. I don’t think those flowers are from Hawaii,” Kayo said like he was a botanist.

“Why would anyone do that?”

“Shit, look at his moustache. I think he’s Malayali.”

“A matching Malbari family?”

“This is hilarious.”

“Why don’t you ask them why they’re doing it?”

“Ha, no.”

“Maybe they’re going to a bachelor party.”

“With kids? Though I did watch this Malayalam film called 12th Man where there’s a murder at an intergender bachelor party.”

“Ask them, man.”

“You know, that would make me like the protagonist of the film investigating the murder. Only, I’d be the 5th man.”

“Whatever. Ask them.”

“Okay.”

Kayo got up, putting away his work MacBook Air.