Every afternoon Aachchi listens to cassettes of John Denver’s Greatest Hits and pirith tapes sent from a Vihara in Sri Lanka, the sound of chanting in Pali as natural as the hum of traffic on North Sunset Avenue in Covina. She only turns on her television to watch All My Children or the occasional classic movie. Her cassette player is her constant companion.

One visit we hear the drone of game shows instead of the low chanting of Buddhist monks. Her tape player has finally given up the ghost. We take the opportunity to get her something better. We comb the electronics department at Radio Shack, select a state-of-the-art boom box with CD player. As an added surprise we pick up some John Denver.

On our next visit, we bring her the gift. We open the box and lift out the machine, shake off Styrofoam, uncoil the cord, triumphant. We tear the cellophane off John Denver, show her where to insert the disc, how to push play, repeat, skip—confident her life will be better. She smiles, thanks us for her present. She offers us fish cutlets, red punch in plastic tumblers, Danish butter cookies from the iconic blue tin.

The next time we visit Aachchi we find the CD player packed neatly back in the box, her old tape player in its usual place on the bedside table. When we ask her if she doesn’t like her gift or if she’d rather we get her a different one, she waves us off. It’s just not the same. The music doesn’t sound the same. We offer to show her again how to use this device that will make life easier, but she declines. Aachchi says she is okay with her soaps, assures us that the radio still works.

She pats our hands gently, says, It’s okay, baba. Sometimes things break.

Aruni Wijesinghe

is a project manager, ESL teacher, erstwhile belly dance instructor, and occasional sous chef. A grateful Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, she has work published nationally and internationally both online and in print journals and anthologies. Her debut poetry collection, 2 Revere Place (Moon Tide Press, 2022), is a love letter to her family and miraculous childhood in New York. Her latest collection, The Litany of Missing (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022), is a meditation on loss, longing and love.

Author’s website: https://aruniwrites.com/