The Struggle of the Hyphen

Opening Scene: Introduces the  protagonists, sets the tone, and foreshadows the primary conflict. 

Sophia had been wide awake for 15 minutes, but her eyes remained tightly shut, an act of passive resistance she hoped would deter the intrusive morning light. But when the musical chime on her cellphone rang out blithely a third time, she resolved to snooze no longer. There was no escaping this day. Sophia rolled from her side onto her back and gazed up at her bedroom ceiling, momentarily hypnotized by the fan affixed to it. Clutching her kol balish close to her, she watched as the fan whirred sluggishly, as if it too were weighed down by the oppressive summer heat. Round and round it turned, like a dog chasing its own tail, a tedious, endless cycle with no discernible beginning or end.                                                                                            

 In her mind’s eye, Sophia envisioned herself pushing away her kol balish and disentangling from the ketha, both souvenirs Ammu and Abbu had bought her eons ago during one of their annual visits to Dhaka. American as she was, Sophia could not sleep comfortably without the quintessential Bangladeshi body pillow and quilt, even in the dead of summer.  She saw herself hopping energetically out of bed, rejuvenated from a night of sound slumber and embarking confidently on the day's journey before her.                                                                      

Spurred by this vision of her better self, Sophia sat up and stretched her arms overhead, sighing when her neck cracked as she moved it in a circular motion.  Mid-stretch, Sophia caught sight of the bar exam preparation textbooks splayed atop her dresser, just a few yards from her bed. She could not see the pamphlets for the New York State Drinking Driver Program, but she knew they were there, hidden furtively underneath and between the textbooks that would dominate her life for the next 2 months.                                                                                                                    

Sophia groaned loudly as the full weight of the day ahead of her sank into her muddled-sans-coffee-mind.  First, she would attend a bar examination prep class at Hofstra University School of Law from 9:30 AM to about 12:30 pm. This would be her routine five days a week until the bar exam at the end of July. Then, every Monday, like today, she would drive to Nassau Community College after class to attend the Drinking Driver Program mandated by New York State for people convicted of driving while impaired.                                                                                        

Sophia was one of these people.                                                                                                                           

The reality of this truth left her breathless every time.                                                                      

Today was Sophia’s first day of this new, unwelcome routine. As she thought through the logistics of her day, an image of the temporary driver’s license she had received in the mail just the other day flashed before her eyes.  With a flicker of despair, she recalled the word conditional splayed conspicuously across the license in capitalized scarlet letters.  It was official- she had been branded. Sophia sighed, rubbing her arms in an attempt to self-soothe, absentmindedly scratching a mosquito bite on her left wrist. At least she could drive herself around, she reasoned glumly.  If her license had been revoked or remained suspended, she would have been forced to rely on her parents or brother for transportation, uncharacteristic behavior that was sure to raise suspicion. Why can’t you drive yourself? They would ask, probing incessantly until an explanation was extracted.                                                                           

Would Sophia have been able to withstand their interrogation? Or would she have folded, like the agitated witnesses in Law & Order at whom she had always scoffed, taking the proverbial stand to recount the details of that nightmarish night when she downgraded from lawful citizen to lawbreaker? Sophia shivered involuntarily. Yes, at least she could drive herself to each destination, one holding her bright future while the other served as a painful reminder of the past. At least she could continue to hide the heinous truth of being a convicted criminal from her parents.

Still, the small blessing did little to comfort Sophia. She felt heavy inside, and the weight of her secret pushed her back into bed.  Her gaze returned to the whirring fan above her as she mulled over the irony of the situation: she was an aspiring lawyer seeking atonement for breaking the law. It was kind of funny- in a morbidly comical way, of course, but Sophia was far from laughing. Tight with tension, she needed some type of release before she began the day.  Reflexively, Sophia reached into the drawer of her bedside table and rummaged blindly through old phones, obsolete chargers and digital cameras until -huzzah!- she found her trusty companion, a vibrator her best friend had gotten her the year before as a birthday gift.                                 

Sophia settled herself comfortably into her pillow, excited to surrender her troubled mind to pleasure’s oblivion. She pulled down her panties, pressed the on button and applied the vibrator with the ease of a practiced veteran.  Within a few minutes, Sophia could feel the approaching crescendo of a powerful orgasm and she braced herself. She needed this. Nothing else existed at that moment: not the bar exam, not the DWI classes, not her abiding shame and guilt. Only pleasure. Sophia moaned, her eyes squeezed shut, her body tensed, riding the waves of rapture, when, suddenly, the vibrator stopped.                                                                                          

Fuck.                                                                                                                                                                               

Sophia could not recall the last time she had charged the battery. She pressed the on button once, and then a second time, and then she clicked it furiously. But her efforts were in vain- the vibrator remained lifeless.                                                                                                                    

“Argh!” Sophia flung the vibrator across the room and heard it thud against the wall and onto the carpeted floor.  She contemplated using her hands, but an orgasm seemed elusive now as her thoughts returned to the day before her. Sophia emerged disgruntled and disheveled from bed and shuffled to the bathroom that she shared with her brother, resisting the urge to cry like a baby bereft of its pacifier. Perhaps a nice, soothing shower was all she needed, Sophia thought hopefully. But the sight that awaited her quickly dispelled any notions of comfort: Saif had left the toilet seat up and the toilet unflushed yet again. It was a familiar sight but this morning it was the final straw.

As she looked down at the toilet bowl, the bright yellow urine taunting her with colorful audacity, Sophia began to weep. Nothing was going her way this morning.