Mama Said Knock You Out

'Sorry, Q, Mama said knock you out.'

I imagine myself saying this to the tall, ginger Q. She has an upturned, ski-slope nose that is somehow in keeping with the rest of her careful, precise features- the small off-purple lips that seem devoid of oxygen, the sparse red eyebrows plucked almost to non-existence, the storm of freckles that dominate her sunken cheekbones that are vaguely reminiscent of a Viking forefather. Sharp chin, angular face like the rest of her, even her personality like her body seemed to be filled with hidden edges, sharp angles, no soft crevice.

She'd be shocked, tucking her long hair behind her pointy ears, pressing her folded arms against her chest. Then it would turn into subdued annoyance, at my obstinance, for she hated anyone questioning her authority.

'You what?' she'd say, the words blasé from her puckered painted pink mouth, not like a rosebud but a plump pomfret mouth, the fishy lips quivering indignantly. 

Her upper-class crusty English accent comes smoothly from a place of effortless wealth, she is come from old money, not the nouveau rich. That is her husband. She is not- she holds on to her class royalty with pride, not shame, unlike the rest of us Asiatic peoples.

I imagine myself next to her, much shorter and wider at the hips though I am younger. There is a dusky brown tinge to my skin, the thickness of my dark eyebrows stands out from hers. Shockingly, I have a bosom, and thighs where she is flat and thin. I have a round face, with deep-set black eyes, and spidery black lashes, long black hair- a triangular button nose, wide at the bottom, narrow at the top. 

"I like Neruda," I say softly, watching her.

"Who?" she asks, and as it fades into the darkness, I wonder if she's heard me at all.