Denzil's Stories

Fresher’s Day On May Day 1972, a boy steps into Aquinas College, uncertain yet hopeful – his first day in an ivy school, amongst Colombo’s world of rules, rituals, and whispered slang. Denzil Jayasinghe 3 min read · 4 hours ago My first morning at Aquinas College fell on May Day, and it seemed a curious sort of beginning. Perhaps all beginnings are a little odd – like opening a book at the wrong chapter and hoping to catch the thread of the story. Getting there hadn’t been easy. They thought me too young, and so I had to collect proofs of my worth, much the way a boy might gather stamps or marbles – one certificate here, another document there. I still remember pacing to Brother Lawrence Justinian, the head of the Christian Brothers. He was an imposing man, tall, dignified, the kind of person who filled a room without raising his voice. He signed my paper in blue ink, and in that moment, I felt both blessed and burdened. My father had the harder task: paying fees in pounds sterling, wh...

The River of My Mother’s Hair A boy in 1967 Dalugama recalls his mother’s long, oiled hair — its fragrance, its braid, its quiet rhythm — woven into daily life, a tender memory that lingers like evening rain. Denzil Jayasinghe 3 min read · Just now I remember my mother’s hair the way one remembers the first rains after a long, hot summer. Straight and black, almost a yard of it, shining with the coconut oil she rubbed in each morning. In the half-light of our house in Dalugama, sunlight slipped through the iron grills, catching the dust in the air, and her hair seemed a dark river flowing quietly through the day. I liked to sit close while she worked on it. She would sit on the low wooden chair by the kitchen window, comb in hand, and give me the small bottle of coconut oil to hold. I felt proud of that little duty. The kitchen smelled of woodsmoke, rice steaming in clay pots, and most of all, the fragrance of her hair. From outside came the sounds of Dalugama mornings: the bread man’s...

A Mother’s Heart A mother grapples with the permanent loss of her son, Denzil, as he enters the Novitiate. She fears he’s becoming a stranger. Denzil Jayasinghe 2 min read · Just now S usan had always been good at reading the silences between words, especially Thomas’s. She’d thought that asking him to help with the packing might ease the weight of what lay ahead – those difficult days that would test them both. But his sharp, clipped answers told her everything she needed to know. It was better to let him be. She had always been the practical one, the one who faced hard truths without flinching. Yet neither of them had ever imagined sending their eldest away for so long. The Novitiate – even the word felt heavy on her tongue. Thomas, in his quiet way, had made peace with it. “We’re giving him to God,” he would say, as if repetition might make the sacrifice feel less like loss. “Surely we must love God more than our own children.” The words sounded right, biblical even, but Susan wonde...

A Room in Sharjah In sultry Sharjah, a young man moves from hotel quarters to Roy’s modest villa, navigating heat, transience, and the quiet intimacy of shared, makeshift living. Denzil Jayasinghe 4 min read · 9 hours ago T he sun had barely dipped below the horizon, leaving a sultry September haze over Sharjah, when I finished dragging my worldly possessions from the Inter-Continental’s staff quarters in Rashidiya to Roy’s modest villa. Sweat plastered my shirt to my skin, and my arms ached from hauling a battered blue suitcase and a bundle of clothes packed inside. It was the kind of evening where the air felt like a damp blanket, heavy and unyielding. Roy stood on the verandah, watching me with quiet curiosity as I set my things down with care, as if each item – a shirt, a pair of worn shoes – held a story of its own. “Goodness, it’s muggy,” I said, wiping my forehead with a handkerchief that was already limp. “I think I’ll wash, Roy Uncle.” Roy chuckled, a warm, rumbling sound that...