in the menstrual hut
by Sumitra Singam
Seema and I sit with our backs to opposite walls. As far apart as we can be in this tiny, circular space. She gets the benefit of the breeze from the open doorway – they fan her ankles that have become thick with her swollen sense of status.
“It is almost nightfall,” she says, looking to the empty cooking pot.
She now outranks me, and I should therefore cook. I spit bloody red betel juice, and it lands not far from her foot.
“Chchi!” she pulls her leg away. “If Kabir had been here!” she says.
Ah, Kabir. If he had been here, what would I have done? She is welcome to him, if I am honest. I was sick of his drinking, his slurred reaching for me in the night, his grunting and thrusting.
“You couldn’t give him a son! What did you expect him to do?”
“Seven daughters are nothing?” I counter.
“Daughters. Pah! All they will do is come here every month and fight about who is to cook.”
“Who is fighting? I am not fighting. I am chewing my betel leaf and thinking about the datura plant I have growing in my yard.”
“See! There you go again making dangerous statements. How do you expect us to ever have a civil relationship if you threaten to poison us all the time?”
“Who said anything about poisoning? I am just thinking about my garden.” Does Seema truly believe we will ever have a civil relationship? This woman who pressed my feet each time I was pregnant? Exclaimed with me when I told her Kabir had taken the housekeeping money for toddy again? This woman who didn’t bat an eye at betraying her sister when a man fed her some sugary lies?
“Perhaps I will make something,” she says. “You are always irritable when you are hungry.”
She fetches the atta, begins kneading it into dough. Measures mung dhal into a pot – it cooks quickly. She chops ginger, chilli, roasts heady cumin and mustard seeds. Within twenty minutes she has a meal ready.
She hands me a plate with two rotis nestled into each other, a little pot of dhal sitting off to one side. It is perhaps her way of saying sorry, and also her way of saying this is how it is now. I tear off a piece, dip it into the dhal and begin eating.
Photo of Sumitra Singam
BIO: Sumitra Singam is a queer, neurodiverse Malaysian-Indian-Australian coconut who writes in Naarm/Melbourne. Her work has been published widely, nominated for a number of Best Of anthologies, and was selected for BSF 2025. She works as a psychiatrist and trauma therapist and runs workshops on how to write trauma safely, and the Yeah Nah reading series. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?). You can find her and her other publication credits on Bluesky: @pleomorphic2 & sumitrasingam.squarespace.com