A glimpse of what tanned skin highlights

One of the tips to maintain your fair complexion is not going outside as much as possible. Even with caps, umbrellas or these days UV and anti-ultraviolet rays lotion could not guarantee more than staying inside to your skin. This feat would not be compatible for almost everyone, of course, as he cannot  help but get taken shelter under the bowl of suffused-light-producing disc above due to his requirement to roam around place to place to reach his destination.

Especially in summer days, people are resigned to go out under the horrid rays of the sunlight. This time, it is an obligatory task for me to let my fair skin scorch by the intensity of the sun’s rays. Undoubtedly, a consequence of damaging my long-taken-care skin from going out is too imminent to avoid. As a teenager crazing the trends of Korean actors and yearning for the kind of their complexion, getting contact with the sun rays is the last thing I wish to do.

“Is it mandatory to get me to go to the office?” I pleaded.

“Listen,” grand ma said. “You have long kept staying inside the house since after the matriculation exam. Of course, we could have had someone else instead do the task if it were small matters of buying food.”

“Oh, yeah. I used to have my cousins buy food for me. So can’t you just go and do the required steps for me then?” I asked.

“OK, unless you wanna hold a passport in hand!” she said, being sarcastic.

Then silence took place in the conversation. After a moment, I went to the wardrobe to pick up dress to change, with resignation.

It had dawned upon me that I could not disagree going to the office as issuing a passport implements its holder. I had been there once to take photos right in the office and the reason I had been rebellious against grand mom’s persuasion to go there was that I would have to pass the road from the parking side to the office-residing side, and then wait before the entrance until the securities finish checking individuals. And as much amount of time as it would take you to go stand there, the enraging rays of the sun were going to harm my skin.

Any wish of deluge to come or even cloudiness to conceal the sun beyond was an absurd wishful thinking, especially at the peak of this summer. Along on the way to the office on car, I was desperately hoping the wish to come true no matter what. Of course, as natural as it was in such weather conditions, the glee-sun remained bright, emitting relentless, even stronger rays as if it was about to burst in rage.

Making a loud sigh, I got out of the car.

“Why don’t you take an umbrella? We’ve got it at the back dashboard,” the driver suggested. He must have never been to the office.

“It’s useless,” I said, looking at my grandma.

“Yeah,” grand ma agreed. “We have to leave all our belongings, except a pen, a file and some other stationery. You can see why I’d left my purse right on the passenger seat.”

“And some money are kept right in my wallet as the securities allow it,” I added. “You can take an umbrella in the rain, of course. But on sunny days, they made an excuse of not allowing any belonging like an umbrella, complex in structure enough to hide prohibited things, by pointing out a very good umbrella erected at the check-in place. As you can see, that alone can’t give shelter even for two people.”

“Better hurry up, son,” grand ma prompted. “It’s already 1:20 – only 40 minutes left before the slip-submitting time is due.”

Traffic jam had made us wait longer than expected. Drivers minded too much on their business of heading to their destinations to make a second-stop even on the zebra line. After a demanding effort to get to the other side of the road, where the office had established itself, our progress to it was impeded by yet another long queue of people waiting to get themselves security-check. Getting into the entrance of the office from the parking side was as if it was testing how long an individual’s patience could last.

A good twenty-minute period had passed by the time we were in the office. It was an old Victorian style building, with a wide entrance and an exit, led by four to five stoops. Painted was pale white color whose degree of paleness was added by years of lack of refurbishments, renovations and maintenance. Without a swarm of people in and out the office, the building would have seemed derelict. The only apparent emblazonment would be splash and blots of betel spits here and there on the walls and floor. Oil from men leaning against the walls brought some oily back head shape smudges as they left and those having a paper upright against the walls and filling forms also left some kind of hodgepodge scribbles as they took advantage of the walls as an enormous free sketch. Colorful walls of the office building, indeed!

We rushed off to the counter where slips – the officers gave the prospective passport holder a month ago or so after the latter had completed compulsory steps – were submitted. A policeman with stiff and oily face, bald head, dressed in typical police costume – algae color shirt and trouser – was in charge, supposedly writing down on stacks of forms.

I shot a quick glance to the surrounding nearby. The room was literally congested with people. There were four counters with four different color signboards above in the room and rows of seats laid in front. Yet all the rows had been occupied by so many people. Some even had to share a single seat. Such an ant-nest view, body odor and drowsy aroma of their perfume merged and attacked my sensory nerves badly that I nearly vomited.

“Here is a slip. Is it still in time to submit the slip, isn’t it?” grand ma grinned the policeman.

“Hell, NO!” the policeman retorted, not even taking his eyes off the paper he’d been jotting down with a pen.

“Oh, why is that?” grand ma asked, slightly indignant yet reserved the feeling gracefully.

“Tim is due,” snapped the policeman curtly.

A double checking of grand ma’s watch, mine, the clock suspended on the wall above the counter and even other people’s around could give an conceivable proof that fifteen minutes had still left before the ‘official’ due-time.

Being too accustomed to, however, such an impasse that no one could go against ‘whatever comes from my mouth is legal’ regime men, grand ma silently retraced from the counter. I followed her, with obvious exasperation that was depicted on my frowned eyebrows and gritted teeth. Flushing cheeks exacerbated my already-bewildered image as people waiting around were keeping eyes on us, too.

After turning the corner of the room, I began to explode my utter disappointment. “Dammit. Bastard’s son!”

“That’s the way they behave. Their predilection for mischief and glee,” grand ma added.

“And the people around are too free to mind their business. We are like in the glare of their attention,” I complained.

“They have been waiting there since morning. We should have left home in the morning. Even so, you have to wait until they issue your passport,” grand ma explained.

“You are wrong. We should have left never! Time wasted and most importantly, my skin got tortured by the sun,” I said. Grand ma sighed and went on to the entrance. We were keeping silent until getting on the car. All of a sudden, she gave my aunt a call and described to her our accounts.

“Oh, really? We have never known that before,” grand ma said on phone. “OK.”

She hung up, smiling at me and said, “Your aunt has undergone the same situation. The solution is, according to her, offering them you-know-what!” with a mime of circle formed by her index finger and thumb.

“Uhm…” I was speechless.

We relapsed into the similar process of passing across the street and waiting for some moment at the check-in place under exceedingly strong rays. Sweat glands around my body were stimulated by heat and perspiration swam across under my shirt. Sebaceous glands activated at its worst throughout my face. Realizing my worn-out appearance, grandma handed me a soaked towel. The towel could have well become as filthy and withered as a piece of rag after my consecutive use of it to wipe sweat off my skin.

Back to the very counter, I was startled to find most people, who had been sitting on seats since morning, were still sticking to the seats as if their backs and buttocks had been glued or nailed to them.

“Gosh! Am I going to wait as long as they had been?” I asked, looking to those people.

“Not really, I suppose,” Grandma said, her eyes roaming the dozen of policemen at the opposite side of the room.

“Follow me,” she said, heading to the place where her eyes had previously been attempting to seek someone there.
She made a meticulous survey at every single policeman who all looked as if their strength was sapped from time to time by their paper work. She, in fact, was scouring there for an appropriate, seemingly good-natured candidate to ‘do us a favor’. This feat requests acumen to select the right person, telepathy to literally guess if the person is willing to accept the favor and on top of everything else, eloquence to convince him to help us.

Grand ma then took an approach to one of the policemen, whose constant grin on his face seemed he would be playful and whose occasional nod while babbling with his peers presumed he might be passive. She could not have chosen anyone better than this man for our sake.

“The time to submit the slip is due at 2:00, right?” grandma asked the same way as she did to the policeman in charge at the counter.

“Well, it’s 2:15 now. You want to still submit it then? How may I be of your service?” he replied formally.

“He’s smart enough to get the point,” I remarked, almost murmuring behind grand ma.

“I’d be more than happy if you……,” grandma toned down as if she was afraid someone else would happen to eavesdrop.
No doubt, voices from conversation nearby already drowned out our speaking in a mumble.

The man made a gesture of his palm upright. A penetrating sign! “I’ve got it,” he grinned.

Taking the slip from grand ma, he went to the counter as lightly as if he was going for a tea-break. He then vanished behind the flat wooden door of the counter. We did not have to wait long. He strode towards us soon. This time, discreetly. Leading us until he found a place out of sight from his fellows, the policeman took my passport from the pocket of his trouser.

“Unbelievable! Good that I don’t have to waste time waiting in front of the counter like many people have to,” I said in amazement.

“Thank you, ‘Sir’,” grandma said. “And the deal would be?”

“6000 kyats: you know, 3000 for the one in charge at the issuing department and the same amount to me,” he said without hesitation.

“It’s alright,” grandma said, a little unexpected of this much amount.

He comfortably took the cash from her as if such under table-deal had been too pedestrian and mundane to him. With as much agility as a criminal made getaways, he fled from our sight in certain seconds. Supposedly, he was going to the issuing counter to share half of his ‘spare income’ to another fellow. The rectangular wooden sign beside the counter said “Unnecessary to grant cash” with big words engraved on it. Who cares?

“Only stupid people have been waiting there,” I giggled.

“You think 6000 kyats is a handful of cash? Not almost everyone can bid it,” grandma said.

“At least, it’s worth it!” I said, strutting down the stairs as if I have been awarded the most prestigious privilege.

“Don’t view those people with a glimpse. Take a careful look to even people around you now,” she said with sobriety.

People around me! Almost every one of them had looked worn-out. Their threadbare dress smeared with some dirt, oil; some of theirs are repulsively laden with small holes; untidy hair, small figures, tanned skin, which must have resulted from years of labored work. Belonging to working class, struggling to survive. How could one of them have dared spend a substantial amount from petty salaries and income of ‘their  sweat and strength’? Their patience to wait since this morning would have been, in other words, the same as ‘6000 kyats’ grandma gave the policeman, which I claimed had been nothing.

I was motionless for a moment when this for-the-first-time contemplation struck me. I’d been whining for ‘passing the road and waiting at the check-in place’ like an epic disaster. In fact, that’s exactly how everyone must have gotten through. In my life of no physically exhausted work, I had assumed every single work that would squeeze my sweat as Heavy, Burdensome, Stressful task. Instantaneously, blushing cheeks went through my face. I’d been desperately in panic the fairness of my complexion was going to lose. Now that I know, those people with much tanned skin around me are the ‘ambassadors’ of survivors in life and workers with integrity and vigor.

Before we passed through the road to the parking side, the clever driver had come to where we were with an umbrella he’d taken from the back dashboard.

“Hey, the sun is too bright,” he squinted at the sun. “So I took this. Take shelter under this.”

“It’s ok,” I said with rejoice. I waited till the cars passing through the road had stopped and run to where the car was parked, letting my skin caress by the dazzling and invigorating rays of the vigorous sun.