She Never Flinched

A tribute to the mother, and a line that defines her presence.

Denzil Jayasinghe

3 min read

The sound came again — that creaking, grating grind of metal on metal, like iron wheels dragged along old forgotten rails. It was a sound I had known since childhood, though I couldn’t say from where. It stirred something deep, something lodged just beneath memory. And then, almost on cue, the wail of a train floated in. Faint. Ghostly. The kind of train that ran on charcoal, not diesel — the kind that filled the air with smoke, with soot, with a certain type of weight. It came from a far-off place, not just in distance, but in time.

I stood still and listened. There was something in the silence that followed, something uneasy. And then, just as my mind began to drift, I felt it — a sharp itch on my groin. I scratched, gently at first. But it grew worse. Urgent. Raw. I looked down and, in the dusky half-light, lowered my pants. That’s when I saw it — a tiny brown insect latched onto my skin, its legs dug in, unmoving.

I had never seen a tick anywhere except on Rover, our dog. Amma used to sit on the back step in the evenings, combing through his fur with her fingers, plucking them out one by one and flicking them into a tin. I never knew ticks could attack me. I never imagined they could choose human skin over a dog’s. But there it was — clinging to me as though I had become its last warm refuge.

Panic took over. I clawed at the thing, tried to flick it off, to peel it away. But it wouldn’t let go. The more I tried, the deeper it seemed to cling, as if my body were its raft, its last hope. It had the determination of something with no other choice, and that made it all the more terrifying.

In that moment of helplessness, only one word rose in me — Amma.

“Amma!” I shouted. “Amma, come here!”

She arrived a moment later, parting the curtain with one hand, a glass of water in the other. Her face was calm, unreadable. She didn’t ask what was wrong — she simply looked at me, and I pointed to the spot, to that small grotesque creature still hanging on like my body was the last tree in a flood.

Amma didn’t flinch. She never did.

“Shh,” she said softly, as though I were still a boy with a splinter or a bad dream. “Keep still. I’ll take it out.”

I stood there, arms loose by my sides, still trembling. She leaned in, studied it for a second, then — using only her nails, like it was nothing at all — plucked the insect from my skin. She dropped it without a word. Her face didn’t change. There was no alarm, no disgust. It was done.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

The skin where it had clung was red, angry. She looked at it briefly, then said, “Wait. I’ll bring some oil.”

She disappeared into the kitchen while I stood there, lightheaded with relief. The train’s wail had long faded, the air was still again. A few minutes later, Amma returned with a small glass bottle in her hand. She opened it, poured a bit into her palm, and gently rubbed the oil over the raw patch where the tick had been.

Her touch was cool, methodical, familiar. She didn’t say much, but she didn’t need to. In that quiet moment, the pain, the fear, all of it slipped away.

Whatever it was — whatever it had been — she had come. And that was enough.