Raqiya Ahmed was a shortlisted entrant from the 2021 SBS Emerging Writers' Competition. This is an extract of her piece 'Pantski' from anthology (Hardie Grant).
The day my school shorts were forced to break up with me, I was heartbreakingly left alone with a pair of plain pants. My family disapproved of our relationship one unexpected morning when Ma dropped the news like a bombshell.
“You have to start wearing pants now.” I gulped hard. Her words wounded more than just my throat. They collapsed my entire being. Before I could struggle to defend myself, tears quietly rolled down my puffy cheeks and mixed into the salty snot gathering on my lips. Between each sniff, the blurry black garbage bag came into view, sagging in the corner of my room. Someone had tied an irreversible knot so securely I could not save my shorts, which were trapped in its abyss. I realised then that it was time to part ways, and soon enough, I had dumped my first love in the local clothes bin for charity.
I was only seven years old when I transitioned from shorts to pants, and to me, it was as if my childhood play had ended before it could even begin.
As a child, I didn’t understand why I had to wear pants, or rather I refused to appreciate why. Unmoved by Ma’s wisdom, I had scraped her reasons clean from my ear like bitter wax. I couldn’t care less about the beauty of covering one’s body. All I wanted was to fit in with the other girls, and my ma was directly interfering with that. Only the most flexible, acrobatic, and of course, popular girls confidently exposed their skin. Why could I no longer? The thought pressed against my tender chest for a wondering while, long after ma had explained herself seamlessly.
At the time, I didn’t know my ma was solely the bearer of bad news. She had not designed the new policy, only ensured it became enforced. Nonetheless, I blamed her for sabotaging my chances of fitting in with these pants.
As my childhood expired, so did some of my friendships. My peers were becoming an eye-squinting mirage. Noone ever wore the baggy, blue school pants throughout the summer except for me. I was distant from everyone yet highly detectable by everyone, and it was this social paradox that was so unjust. Despite my heated resentment, I was always grateful for the cooler days. The blistering breeze of winter soothed my discomfort. Under its law, everyone had to wear pants, and just for the season, I appeared less odd.
I obsessively tweaked and adjusted the school uniform, so I appeared less self-conscious and more fashionably tolerable
Although I loathed my pants, I quickly learned how to adapt them to my tastes. I obsessively tweaked and adjusted the school uniform, so I appeared less self-conscious and more fashionably tolerable. It was hip to undo the top button, but such a minor alteration never really made any effectual difference. The changes were only a Band-Aid for my injured confidence, and to some extent, they did help me heal. Eventually, after some time, I was completely oblivious towards its torments. Except, sometimes, during recess and lunch, when the elite gymnasts whirled majestically in their wavy, whooshing, pleated skirts, having flawlessly landed every single cartwheel and handstand. On those occasions I ached to be them. I was so determined to fulfill my dreams, especially after my best friend advertised her own skirt to me one day. “Ask your mum if she can buy a skirt for you. Then we can be twins!” I choked on my lunch at this proposition, then scoffed. She didn’t know my mum. She’d faint if I even suggested it. Still, I really liked the idea of us being twins. As a duo, the hem of our skirts would be like zig-zagged, broken-hearted friendship charms. It also meant, for once, I could be ordinary too.
There was never really a right time to request after school. Ma was always furiously clanking the dishes aside or stressfully battling a pot of crackling oil. I couldn’t ask her when she was irritably busy. She would never agree to it. As my bedtime crept closer, her fumes failed to extinguish, and eventually, I knew I had to face her heat. Slowly, I trudged around the kitchen towards her, bluffing sadness. I tugged the edge of her kameez drowsily, and she looked down into my owlish eyes. Her furrowed brows relaxed, her contours softened, and instinctually I knew I had already won her favour. If there’s one thing I knew about ma, it was that she could never handle seeing her children upset for a long time. In the end, I figured my beaten spirits would be more persuasive than begging pretty please.
I could hardly contain my inflammable excitement the day we visited the uniform shop. All the pieces of clothing were satisfyingly categorised, iron-pressed, and twinkled from their plastic-coverings like sunbathing ripples in a vast ocean. Even the baggy blue pants were less revolting, but my eyes fixed on the skirts. They were divine. I couldn’t wait to do handstands in them. Ma cautiously picked up a few sizes from the rack, and we headed straight to the change rooms. She measured the height, width and waist of all the selected skirts until we negotiated on the perfect fit. Unimaginable fantasies were finally coming true. Ma sliced her credit card down the EFTPOS machine, and my excitement erupted. It was official. I was going to be normal.
As I tucked in my sandpapery shirt, the edges popped out like pie crust, but that didn’t bother me at all because I had a skirt and nothing could ruin my mood
The first and only time I wore the skirt, I made sure I woke up earlier than usual to get dressed. I lathered loads of moisturiser up and down my scaly legs until the white texture turned trans- lucent. I even squeezed my feet into a fresh pair of ankle socks, free from the usual holes and pills, and wriggled my toes like the wave performed in a stadium. As I tucked in my sandpapery shirt, the edges popped out like pie crust, but that didn’t bother me at all because I had a skirt and nothing could ruin my mood.
I joyfully skipped to my ma’s room so she could braid my hair in two. However, my cheeriness crumbled apart after ma scolded me and sent me straight back to my room. "Go and put pants on underneath the skirt."
Each sour syllable bounced against my pounding pulse as I walked towards my room. For the second time, I could fathom neither the wisdom nor benefit behind her instructive words. I shuddered with disappointment. She never told me I had to wear pants before, so why had she changed her mind all of a sudden? I felt betrayed, like the time she had stolen away my Eid money for apparent safekeeping, or the time she denied the tooth fairy’s existence and never placed money underneath my pillow.
I could never figure it out as a child, but years later, I would realise it was never betrayal but a soundless expectation of me to cover. I went to my room, jumped on the edge of my bed and frantically brainstormed my next move. Should I ditch the skirt and wear the pants? Or, should I fuse the pants and skirt together to produce a pantski, so ma’s money doesn’t go to waste either? While I thought about the pantski, an image of my friends and their grossed-out reactions crawled into my mind, and I shivered. I instantly grabbed my pants and pulled them up my legs, but stubbornly, I refused to remove my skirt. There was so much joy, pride, and self already sewn into it, I couldn’t let go. At the very least, I wanted a small fragment of my untouchable dream to come true, even at the price of sacrificing my honour for complete humiliation.
My journey towards the school’s main entrance was a relatively safe one. Although no one directly cursed at me as I passed the silver-wired gates, I became tempted to take off either the pants or the skirt. I was already the thumb-sucking weirdo. My outfit was the cherry on top I could not afford but had to somehow nauseatingly endure. As I headed towards my classroom, the darting stares multiplied along with the whispers. With every thorn-prickling step, the skirt lengthened and drew more attention. It was no longer a rosy dream but a feverish nightmare. I was ashamed of my appearance, and I yearned to run away or hide in the bathroom for a while. What was worse? My best friend had noticed me from a distance and studied my form as she approached me. I hoped I’d somehow disappear by the time she arrived, but I could not escape her as she was soon a breath away from me, still inspecting my anatomy. I hugged myself as if to tone my visibility, to reduce and compress my being. I was waiting for her to laugh or to crack a new inside joke, but she did none of that. There was an evil smile stretched across her face as her gaze tracked down to my skirt. Her honey eyes suddenly sparkled more than mine when I had first laid eyes on them. Unrestrained, her bubbly personality finally burst. She lightly sprung up and down on her toes, and so did her brown curls. "Eikkk. You finally got a skirt!" I was confused yet elated by her reaction, but I also shouldn’t have expected anything less from her. My best friend never saw the weirdness I was so hyperconscious of. Even when I sucked my thumb, she never minded at all. She always looked beyond my otherness and I shouldn’t have underestimated her kindness, as she would go on to compliment me till 3pm that day.
This is an extract from Between Two Worlds - an anthology of the 2021 SBS Emerging Writers' Competition. Source: Hardie Grant
Although my best friend alleviated my fears that day, I never wore the skirt again. Even if she had overlooked all my oddities and accepted me for who I was, I had not, and it would take years of blood, sweat, and tears to learn, accept, and appreciate the art of covering. No one could love my pants for me. I had to do that on my own. I had to return to my roots and extract past knowledge without anyone doing that for me. I had to be my own guide to understand the world around me, and now, I understand. We don’t need pleated, preppy school skirts. Our ancestors gifted us saris with long frontal, tulip pleats, and it’s their symmetrical petals that thunderously summon respect with every blossoming stride. The respect my school skirt could not offer without plucking and removing the stem of my pantski – the very pants themselves.
This is an extract from Between Two Worlds (Hardie Grant).
The 2022 SBS Emerging Writers' Competition is open for entries on August 16. Write on the theme of 'Emergence' for your chance to be awarded the $5000 first place prize, $3000 second place prize or one of two runners-up prizes of $1000. The top entries will also be published in an anthology by Hardie Grant. Go to to register and find out more.
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