The passage of time
By Punyakante Wijenaike
The sun sinks slowly into the horizon. For a moment it stands like a ballet dance on the brink of the horizon. It is golden and smiling, not the harsh penetrating smile of daylight, but the soft, sad, mellow smile of twilight.

It smiles at the two young girls seated on rocks by the sea. The endless waves, now touched by the gold of the sun's sinking rays, keep rising and rolling towards them, breaking at their feet on the rocks below. The spray touches them but they do not move.

The elder girl sits on the tallest rock, shaped like Piduruthalagala. The younger girl sits on a low, flat, square rock. She is comfortable there. Her large, brooding eyes never leave the sun's sinking face, as if her last hopes lie in him.

'Are you making a wish?' asked Andika, the elder one seated on the mountain.

'I am,' whispered Amiya, 'But even the sun cannot make it come true, I know. I am only three months younger to you.'

'How do you know the wish will not come true? It can happen later, much later, to you. Everybody is not the same.'

Just then the sun sank into the sea. Only two little fiery eyes peeped at them through clouds. Then they too closed for the night.

'The sun is gone!' cried Amiya, 'I told you time waits for no one!'

Tears came into her eyes.

'See how beautiful the sky has become,' said Andika from her mountain.

Amiya looked up. Shades of orange, pink, blue and purple painted the sky, touching even the edges of the white clouds. It was a beautiful sunset.

'But those colours too will go soon. Purple will become black,' she muttered.

'But then the moon and stars will come out,' consoled Andika.

'See how relentlessly those waves keep coming forward, almost as if they want to bite us,' muttered Amiya.

The elder girl said nothing, sensing the fear in the younger girl. A silence stretched before them, broken only by the wind and the waves. Even the birds had flown to their nests.

'Andika?'

'Yes?'

'Does it hurt a lot?'

'Sometimes. Not all the time.'

'But why were you crying and why did your Ammi give you panadols?'

'Now I am all right. After the panadols.'

'Does.... does a lot of blood come out of your body? Does it gush out of your body like those waves?'

'No. It trickles, like a stream.'

'But it comes regularly, once a month?'

'Yes....'

'It cannot skip even a month or two and then come.'

'No. Not unless there is something wrong.'

'Wrong?'

'Like there maybe a block or you are going to have a baby.'

'I hate growing up!' said Amiya savagely. 'We were so happy, like children, running, climbing, swimming. Today you can't get into the pool. So I don't feel like getting into the pool either. We can no longer do things together!'

Amiya began to weep, the tears not coming one by one but pouring like a stream down her face.

'Come climb onto my rock. There is plenty of space on the mountain. Let me put an arm around you. We are still friends, no matter what has happened.'

But Amiya sat where she was, on the low flat rock.

'I never want to climb that mountain,' she shuddered. 'I'd rather join the waves as they come and go into the sea!'

'But the sea will return you along with the waves, said Andika. There is no escape from what has to be!'

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