Feb 8, 2019 Original Short Story
Cease – A Somewhat Short Story
©February 8th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
The rain had not ceased during the night. The trees in the backyard stood, soggy and dripping, while a couple of squirrels semaphored on the back fence, and a single cardinal sat on a branch, impassive as a statuette.
The woman in the kitchen was tired. Her husband was in the hospital, dying of cancer, and she was catching a breath of air and alone-time, keeping grief at bay with a much-needed cup of steaming coffee.
She had had to return home to let the dog out, feed it, check in on her canary (named Admiral Stockdale, because it looked forever as if it was thinking, “Who am I? Why am I here?”), cook some rice and lentils, make a pot of coffee, and take stock of her life.
Everything was in abeyance. She didn’t know what she felt, in some sense. Occasionally, sunlight dripped from leaves washed with rain before the clouds gathered again. And for those brief golden moments, she was grateful.
She was a creature of the senses. She loved the rustle of the breeze at the tops of trees in the woods, loved the pine-needles under her feet, the scent of forest and animals, flowers, incense, the fresh fragrance of ground coffee, the feel of silk against her neck, the touch of a soft hand, the bumping of her dog’s snout against her flank when she sat on a chair. She loved the sound of traffic, even the smell of gasoline and kerosene in some places (reminding her of the place she had come from), the taste of spices in her cooking, the muted clinking of metal wind chimes. When she looked at a thing, she became the thing she was looking at, so she chose what she looked at carefully, avoiding ugliness. Yet, even some kinds of ugliness had charm, and she found herself gazing sidewise at it.
Today, however, her senses were also in abeyance, except for the grateful cup she was drinking and the slipping of sunlight on rain-washed leaves.
Her husband was dying. He had been her best friend and love for over forty years, and now he was dying.
He was alone in the hospital, where she’d left him for a scant three hours to come home, cook, shower, walk and feed the dog, feed the bird.
So, why did she feel relief, instead of guilt at leaving him alone there for three hours?
And why did she feel guilt at the relief?
She had no children, thank the gods. When her husband died, she’d be alone. Perhaps, she could start over. Perhaps, she could take a long hike into the mountains of New Hampshire, and never return. Perhaps, she’d sell the house, give away the dog and canary, take the money, and go to Iceland.
Yes, she thought, yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll deal with the paperwork, and then, get the hell out of here.
The phone rang. It was the hospital. He had just died.
She swayed. The floor came up to meet her. The coffee cup fell first, hot liquid spilling everywhere, and the jagged shards cut into her neck.
And what was this? Her coffee? Why was it sticky? And why was it red?
Her eyes closed.
When she opened them again, she felt nothing. The room was fading away. The smell of coffee receded. The dog stood at her feet, sniffing, tentatively licking the liquid at her neck.
She got up then, tried to shoo away the dog. The dog sat back on her haunches and howled. The noise pierced her to the bone. She felt a cold breath at her shoulder, and turned. Her husband was standing next to her. She touched him. He was gazing blankly at her.
“No!” Her outburst surprised her, for she didn’t hear it. It was an earthquake deep within her … self?
Terror washed up like waves, but receded just as rapidly, and she felt her ground under her feet being sucked out from beneath her.
Then the sucking sand at her feet began to lose its grip, and the rushing waters receded completely, and the kitchen began to fade, and she found she didn’t care, didn’t care about anything anymore. And that thought gave her a burst of grief. And she longed to grieve more, to live, to feel, to savor being alive.
Her husband reached out his hand. She felt herself grasping it. He smiled at her, and she smiled back uncertainly. The room vanished.
The phone was swinging from its cradle, and a voice was saying, “Ma’am? Ma’am?”
The canary sang loudly in its cage.
And the dog howled and howled.
The rain ceased.
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Feb 8, 2019 Original Short Story
Coyote Dreams – A Short-ish Story
©February 8th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
The young coyote had somehow stumbled from the darkness of the woods into the misty, drizzling light of the streetlights on the overpass.
She was hungry, and she was lost. Her two brothers and one sister had died in the last few weeks from a sickness, and her mother had vanished in the night. Would her mother return?
The coyote was desperate, and needed to find her.
She crossed the frightening overpass, with the strange monsters of metal rushing like a river beneath it, and trotted up the street that was also an exit from the highway. She smelled delicious smells coming from strange-shaped dwellings that was nothing like what she had seen in the woods.
“I should like to eat what’s in those human-caves,” she thought to herself. “Things smell good.” Her hungry stomach rumbled in agreement.
Instinct made her keep to the shadows, and instinct made her avoid the rushing metal monsters. A large, pale animal (she knew it to be human, from what her mother had taught her) inside one of the metal monsters pointed out to her, as she lurched hungrily across the median strip to get to the sidewalk, and another pale animal yelled out a word, but the coyote was, by now, not surprised by anything.
She had a purpose. She needed to find her mother, and then, some food. Preferably, the latter first.
She went from door to door, but all human dwellings were closed, and their windows were unfriendly and blank behind curtains. She almost howled then, but a bark from an animal (was it a coyote? No coyote sounded like that, but still …) that seemed familiar made her hackles rise, and she growled softly.
An answering volley of barks settled it. She had to find out what that was. She plodded up a side street, and found herself on a small road behind the main one she’d left. Wearily, she went up the street, wondering whether she’d ever find her mother.
She found a wooden structure on this small road. It smelled alien, nothing like the friendly woods in which she lived. Nobody seemed to be in it. Suddenly, she was exhausted from having faced all her besetting terrors so bravely, without realizing the toll it had taken on her frail frame. She crawled under the wooden structure (which appeared to be on wooden legs), curled up, and fell asleep.
The moon arose in a ragged sky, with trailing, spent-looking clouds. The rain had dissipated, and the night was unusually still for a few minutes.
She awoke to a rustle and a snuffling, then a short burst of barking. What was THAT? She burrowed further into the center of the space beneath the wooden structure. She heard a voice (did it belong to those strange animals who rode in metal monsters?) calling the barking creature, and tensed. The voice and the barking animal receded, and she heard a slam.
All was still again.
Four, four-footed, furry, mocking creatures with dark-shaded eyes and bushy tails (Racoons! Here?!) ambled past her wooden structure, then, sensing her presence, scampered up the wooden stave-fence near her wooden shelter. They leaped up a large pine tree, making little chittering noises.
She was too tired to care. She saw a mouse go by in the moonlight. Slowly creeping out from under her enclosure, she leaped on it, and fed ravenously on its warm, pulsing body, relishing its blood, even as she hungered for better food.
The moon now shone down, and a light shone in a wooden structure behind a gate, and creeping close to the gate, she could see a large two-pawed creature tapping at a box of light. The creature was fixated on its light-box, and didn’t notice her.
She could smell something delicious now. The large creature had stopped tapping, and was holding a morsel of food (she knew food!) to its mouth. The smell of fatty solid milk (she knew milk!) was emanating from the square morsel, and the coyote couldn’t bear it any longer. She sat on her haunches, threw back her head, and let out a short burst of howl-barks.
A light went on outside the human animal’s home. The large human animal with no fur came out on two legs, holding a small light-tube in one of its front paws. The coyote edged back into her place of safety.
The human creature came to the gate, and waved her light about. The coyote stayed still under her wooden shelter. The human made some noises that might have been friendly. The coyote didn’t want to find out whether that was true, or not.
The human went back inside.
The coyote had had enough. This was too much. She couldn’t survive here. She needed food. Perhaps, the human animal could give her some. She threw back her head, and let out another burst of howl-barks.
The human didn’t come out again.
The coyote’s little heart beat fast. She didn’t want to die of hunger here, slowly wasting away after eating a mouse or two. No, she’d rather die in the woods, in a warm, rich leaf-scented canopy, or in the cave where she and her family sometimes sheltered from the rain.
Stiff and sad, she made her way back, slowly, slowly, slipping along the shadows, all the way back to her dark, friendly forest, where she had waited forlornly for her mother earlier that evening.
She made her way back to the cave where she used to shelter with her family, and there, to her blossoming joy, saw her crouched mother, waiting for her.
The little coyote threw herself at her mother, nuzzling and crooning with joy. Her mother nuzzled her back, licked her, bumped her with her snout, making little happy sounds. She nudged her child towards some meat. Deer meat! Fresh! Full of rich, rich blood, and muscle, and bone. She tried to tell her mother about her adventures, but hunger overcame her, and she let out a little howl.
Together, they feasted. The moon shone down. Somewhere else in the forest, a family of deer mourned the loss of their adolescent fawn, but here, the young coyote and her mother were satiated.
And for the moment, peace reigned in their little cave in the woods. Perhaps, not tomorrow, nor the day after, but in a few days, there would be another fight to survive. Times were thin, and the weather went from ice-cold to very warm and wet within days, and she was confused. She might have to escape into the world of metal monsters and humans again. Not yet, not yet, though. For now, she curled up against her mother’s warm, welcoming body, and nose-to-tail, both fell asleep, as the moon travelled across the sky towards dawn.
And while life fought death in the world outside, the human at her box of light tapped away, and dreamed up a whole forest in the safety of her warm, comfortable home, before she went up to bed.
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