Noxul Street Splits
I am lucky. I do the splits on Noxul Street. Hanumanasana or samakonasana—the watchers don’t care. The watchers do care how much I hurt, or which level I attain each week: elementary, flexible, or elastic.
I’m currently sitting at flexible, although occasionally I break into the rubber-band category. I’m indefatigable even though the pain is a beast with wide jaws tearing my inner thighs and perineum.
It’s not just me. A group gathers on the corner, which is right beside the Noxul Street Cancer Treatment Centre. Thirty mothers and fathers supporting cancer-ridden children. I’ve been splitting alongside them for the last few years. My crotch burns.
My skin pulls too tight, and it shows in my expression. This is good. Watchers get what they pay for. With the extra cash I can buy chemotherapy for the child. Sila is eleven. She is my world, but she’ll probably be dead in two years—maybe three. She’ll be dead within months if I can’t pay for the next lot of medication. I’ve never seen so many zeros.
Jay has set up a camera on a tripod. The footpath is free. The live-stream starts. The watcher count flips up and up and up like somebody is flicking the corner of a deck of cards. Rrrrrrrrrt! Jay isn’t a pimp. His son died five years ago. Temporal lobe cancer. Jay knows each of us needs a bartering chip.
‘We’ll sell pain,’ he explains. ‘Show it on your faces. More misery, more pay.’
He really means more time with our kids.
Every night, we line up in front of the camera. Count down: three, two, one … split! One by one we slam down on the cold concrete. I cry. The tears are real. My face scrunches. After an hour, I involuntarily start grunting. Halfway, sweat stains all our clothes. Armpits and crotches, chests and knees. My hair is dripping cobwebs.
At the end of the three hours, the total raised isn’t good. Our splitting slows while Jay signs off. I wish the next move would cut me in half—from my vagina up through my guts, diaphragm, sternum, tongue and teeth, right to the top of my skull. I wish Sila would take her last breath and I could split in two at exactly the same moment—then we could soar away from the horror of tomorrow, and each receive a soft feather-down tracksuit which soothes our skin.
Then, Sila could smile and not have to swallow her giant pills while choking on a glass of water and weeping hysterically.
‘Mama, you look so tired. I’m not sick anymore. Honestly.’
I’m grateful for the hidden people watching all of us who split on Noxul Street. Their coins give us time to remain close. In summer, I will carry Sila on my back, skin to skin and she will keep me cool as trickling water. In winter, I will carry Sila, our body heat melting together, her love warmer than the sun. I am so lucky.
Shelley Burne-Field (Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Rārua) is an award-winning writer of short fiction and creative non-fiction, poetry and essays. She has written three children’s middle grade novels—two which have been finalists in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Takapau.