Page 34 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

“sorry” doesn’t sweeten her tea

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To you who eat a lot of rice because you are lonely
To you who sleep a lot because you are bored
To you who cry a lot because you are sad
I write this down.
Chew on your feelings that are cornered
Like you would chew on rice.
Anyway life is something that you need to digest.

—CHUN YANG HEE

B e good to Boudicca and Boudicca will be good to you,” Chedorlaomer said.

Boudicca and I eyed each other through the blue-tinted glass of Ched’s fish tank,
and I said: “Tell me what she is again?”
To the naked eye Boudicca is a haze of noxious green that lurks among

fronds of seaweed looking exactly like the aftermath of a chemical spill. But
Ched’s got this certificate that states Boudicca’s species is Betta splendens,
colloquially known as Siamese fighting fish because fish of this kind have a way
of instigating all-out brawls with their tank mates. It’s almost admirable.
Boudicca doesn’t care how big or pretty her fellow fish are; if they come to her
manor she will obliterate them, whether that means waiting until the other fish is

asleep before she launches her attack or, in the case of a fish that simply refused
to engage with her, eating the eggs that the other fish had spawned and then
dancing around in the water while the bereaved mother was slain by grief.