May 18, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story
Enter a caption
PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Realistic and semi-Paranormal Fiction
Beyond the Veil
©May18th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
The waiting was hard, but it was all Santosh could do. Images of his new bride, now in the hospital, flooded his mind.
Standing up suddenly, he brushed his shock of black hair back, went to the window, and looked out blindly. The world was racing towards its goalless future. He couldn’t care less now about others. Only the present mattered.
Suddenly, he felt a touch on his shoulder. He turned, and smiled in joy. “Amala! Wait … how are you here?”
She laid a finger to her lips.
The door opened. The surgeon entered, face sombre.
The room spun around.
____________________________________________________________
With thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, Fairy Blog-Mother to all of us who cannot wait for her munificence (:-) ), and to J. Hardy Carroll for that evocative photograph which puts us all in mind of eternal waiting rooms.
Tags: #FridayFictioneers, #LoveandDeath, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt
May 18, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story
The Wait, or The Tame Elopement
©May 18th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
We waited with drumming hearts. We were breaking a rule.
“Next!” came a voice from the office. We entered with our friends, Ajit and Randy.
“Sign here,” said the magistrate. We signed. I didn’t remember much else in that bureaucratic blur.
“Have sweets,” he ordered us. The dingy room burst into applause as we exchanged pedhas.
Later, after a wonderful thali lunch, followed by a happy party at W’s house, I went home.
That was precisely one day short of twenty-eight years ago.
Six months later, we were “officially” married in a Hindu ceremony.
And we began our married life.
_______________________________________________________________
With thanks, as always to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, Fairy Blog-Mother of the whole Flash Fiction universe (listen, all you other flash fiction writers out there!), and to J. Hardy Carroll for that photograph that makes us all think of waiting spaces.
This is a true story. Obviously, I’ve left out a LOT of details. It was a whole lot more confusing and crazy and exhilarating than I could say in a hundred words.
And our 28th Wedding Anniversary is tomorrow! What a wonderful ride it’s been!
Tags: #Elopement(ofasort), #FridayFictioneers, #Marriage, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt
May 18, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
South-Bound
©May 18th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
The land pulses with heat
And moist air, pregnant and brooding
With malligai and bougainvillaea
And chanpakam and rojapu.
The pure and sinful scent of chandanam
The heady perfume of ylang-ylang
The fragrance of Madras coffee
The aroma of steamed idli with sambhar,
And upma and paper-crisp dosai-chutney
All blend with memories of temple-bells
And camphor-scented rituals before the
Incense-intoxicated household gods.
Where girls go to school in two-plaited
Goody-goody-ness, speaking primly
To each other on buses that lurch on,
While they stand in starched
School-dresses, carrying bulging
Satchels on thin shoulders,
And gaze stiffly forward, despite
Suggestive remarks and frank stares
From shiftless and shameless louts;
Where dabba-wallahs carry tiffins
To and from school and workplaces and homes,
In muscle-melting heat, on sturdy bicycles,
Secure in their role as food-carriers,
Doing no harm, doing much good;
Where the emaciated mendicant,
Bent-backed and black from the sun
Comes to the door of house after house
Singing, “Bhavathii Bhiksham dehi,”
And the lady of the house approaches,
Tips a bowl of uncooked rice into his brass pot,
While her child watches from the door
Heart beating fast for the barefoot beggar,
Whom one must never turn away empty-handed,
Because all who come for food
Are from the Divine, and may not be refused;
Where temple bells ring on Holy Days,
And the chanting of fat Brahmin vadiyars
Weaves a moody spell in the mid-morning heat
That mingles with the radiant burst of marigolds
Forming garlands for the gods, or priests,
While starving men and dogs sit outside the gates
Some waiting, others rooting through trash;
Where puritannical prudery persists
And the tyranny of tradition holds sway,
Where rules are made, and followed blindly,
Unquestioningly, and no sense emerges
Save that one must uphold tradition;
Where kindness saves, and community
Knits lost people together during floods;
Where dancers, musicians, thinkers
Create new worlds, rich with art;
Where technogeeks leave in droves
To find more sympathetic stomping grounds;
Where curd rice and pickles are enough
To keep body and soul together
In searing heat, and grinding poverty;
Where the sun beats down without mercy
And the rains slash down without ceasing,
Where the Bay and the Ocean
Drum incessantly against the land,
And the sun floods the waves in the early morn,
Strewing leaves of gold that skitter
Across the troughs and swells –
– This was the land of my youth. –
Where do you come from?
They asked, when I moved a few states Northward.
I answered, simply, “The South.”
And they said, Ah yes, I thought so.
Where do you come from?
They asked, when I moved across the ocean.
And I answered, “From India.”
But it is the South which beats in my body
Like a drum or a pulse.
And I shall return some day,
Unless the sea claims it first.
And if the sea does claim it,
I shall transform into a South Indian mermaid,
And swim home to the land under the sea.
_____________________________________________________________
In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: South
Tags: #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #South, #SouthIndianReferences, #TheDailyPost