Aug 30, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction
Word Count: 100 words
Genre: Paranormal romance
Ghost-Boat
©August 30th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Every evening, Saras goes down to the banks of the river flowing near her house.
A dark boat emerges silently from the gloaming. Saras steps on board. Sitting back, she sighs. The boat moves. No oars break the water’s surface.
Long ago, she’d loved the boatman.
A bamboo flute breathes desire and despair into the air. Saras sings with it. And she waits, calmly, without hope.
Now, Saras hears a question. Her dead lover’s shimmering form emerges. Saras says softly, “What took you so long to ask?” then, dissolves into tears.
When the boat returns to shore, it is empty.
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.I was away on vacation this past week. Catching up is hard to do. I thought I’d post this before the next FF prompt showed up.
This is a serious addiction.
Thanks to Rochelle, our beloved Fairy Blog-Mother, for hosting Friday Fictioneers. Her stories always inspire and move me.
Thanks to Georgia Koch for that mysterious photograph!
Tags: #FridayFictioneers, #Love and Death, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt, #Supernatural
Aug 18, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction, The Daily Post
PHOTO PROMPT © Janet Webb
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Post-apocalyptic magic-sci-fi
Hive-Bound
©August 18th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I wait, resting my haunches, dreaming of other times.
My people went away millennia ago, leaving our perfect hive among beautiful, polished stones on a blue china plate, which sat on a table abandoned by humans who’d left in a noisy hurry, and hadn’t taken anything with them.
Everybody on the planet had left.
I stayed behind. I am the guardian of this beautiful, irradiated, breath-killing world, and I know they won’t forget me.
In stasis, I watch my dreams flow by, iridescent as the wings of my people.
Time passes. I wait quietly on my eggs, which never hatch.
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Thanks to Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting Friday Fictioneers every week, and for letting us bloom into story-tellers in the magic of her warm encouragement!
Tags: #FridayFictioneers, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt, #Post-apocalyptic fiction, #Sci-Fi Magic-Realism
Aug 12, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction
PHOTO PROMPT – © Adam Ickes
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Long Walk
©August 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I remember the clouds that day. The sky shone like my mother’s eyes, when she told us to be good, to always listen to Dad. She told us to stay inside the house. She told us to give Dad her letter. She reminded us to say our prayers. She said she loved us. Her eyes were wet.
Then, she walked away with her suitcase, her pretty dress fluttering in the breeze. At the other end of the boardwalk, a car waited. She got into it, and it drove off.
I will never leave you, I think, holding my girls close.
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It’s been horribly hot, but FF beckons, and I cannot resist the call. Thank you, Rochelle, for always urging us on with your gracious example, and your moving stories! This is a very evocative photo-prompt. Thank you, Adam Ickes, for the picture.
Tags: #Abandonment, #FridayFictioneers, #RealisticFiction, Original short story based on photo-prompt
Aug 9, 2016 Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story, The Daily Post
The Merchant and the Mendicant
©August 9th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
A merchant clad in fine silk came stumbling along the mountain path. Dust covered his clothing, and so were his feet, though he was shod in good sandals. His brown eyes were stark and staring, his neatly trimmed hair and beard were dusty, and his breathing labored.
“I cannot walk any more,” Rajat thought. “This heat is killing me.”
He reached into his cloth bag, and took out a container of nuts and dried fruit and a stoppered metal container filled with water.
“At least, I have food,” he said aloud, to no one.
Someone answered from behind a tree. “Yes, you are fortunate. Could you share some with me? I have eaten only bugs and jamun for two weeks, and I would be grateful for some food.”
Rajat started visibly, but contained himself. His instinct was to cling to his food, but looking at the emaciated man who emerged from behind the tree and stood before him, dressed in dusty orange rags, with a rough growth of beard and matted locks, his selfishness wavered. He noticed that the man held a begging bowl in one hand, and a gnarled walking stick in the other.
“Yes, come join me,” said Rajat, and tipped a handful of nuts and dried fruit into a cloth handkerchief that he pulled out from his bag. He also took out two chappatis and two oranges, and offered one of each to the emaciated man, who refused the bread, but took the orange.
As the mendicant came forward and squatted beside Rajat, he could not help but notice the man’s radiant calmness. There was a stillness in his golden eyes. It perturbed Rajat. Watching the poor man eat slowly, Rajat was unaccountably touched by the trembling slowness of his movements. Rajat had never before paid any attention to the poor. He had spent his life making money, and tending to his family’s needs. When he’d passed the poor, he’d tossed a coin or two into their tin cups, but had never thought of them as people. Now, seeing this starved man, he was struck with a strange wonder, and a rising curiosity.
They did not converse while they ate. After eating, they took turns drinking from the stoppered tin bottle of water he carried. Rajat drank, passed the other his bottle, and was glad to see the mendicant holding the bottle away from his lips. Quietly, they passed the bottle to each other. A few drops fell to the ground when the mendicant drank with slightly shaky hands. The thirsty earth swallowed it up and left no trace.
And still, they said nothing.
Silence prevailed. Little lizards crept out from under the shade of boulders, and scampered across, making little puffs of dust. A staccato sound of a woodpecker broke the silence. Somewhere, they heard the almost-sweet call of an osprey. The earth panted in the heat, and the only cloud in the sky was loose and fluffy, like poorly carded white wool.
“Where are you going?” asked the mendicant.
“I don’t know,” said Rajat, staring into the distance. “I left my home, my wife, my brother, my son, my aging mother, my business. I’m just going, but not sure where.”
He sighed, and felt a stab of pain somewhere in his stomach. Perhaps, it was the food.
He realized that the mendicant was looking at him, waiting. There was a question in his eyes.
“‘Why did I leave,’ you want to ask? Because I’m sure my younger brother slept with my wife. I’ve seen how familiar he is with her, and I see how easy she is with him. Now, I’m not even sure that my son is my own. I couldn’t bear to be around them. I was afraid I’d kill him – or her. So, I said some harsh things, but controlled myself after that. My wife wept and denied it. My brother cursed me for being a suspicious and heartless beast. I didn’t believe either of them. I took my horse, my share of whatever money we had, bid my mother goodbye, and left. I grateful that my mother cannot see or hear very well, and that she doesn’t know what happened.”
The mendicant glanced at him, and was quiet for a time. Then, he spoke. “What about your son?” he asked.
“My son cried, and begged me to take him with me, so how could I not? But then, after the sun beat down on us, he cried again, and said he wanted to go home. What could I do? I set him on the horse, and told my horse to take him home. He knows the way. He’ll be all right.” Rajat tried to summon up indifference, but his voice shook a little.
To make up for this lapse, he reached in again into his bag, and offered him some flat bread again. “Want some?”
“No, thank you. I am content. This food was a luxury. I thank you for your kindness and your company,” replied the mendicant. His formality seemed incongruous, and didn’t suit his attire. His ribs moved as he spoke, and his eyes were hollows. Still, his words of contentment rang like a bell in the silence.
Silence fell again. The merchant laid a cloth on the ground under a tree, and lay down. The mendicant still squatted in the dust, now tracing patterns on the ground with a stick. Raj opened an eye, and said to the mendicant, “You can lie down, too. I don’t mind. What have I to lose? I have already lost everything of value. I am truly poor now. There is nothing left to live for. Perhaps, I should become a mendicant, like you.”
“Are you poor? And is this what you want? What you really want? Sometimes, I think men are fools, fools!” said the mendicant sharply. His eyes were bright in the sun, and his look stopped the merchant’s flood of self-pity.
Rajat was taken aback by this outburst. “What about you? he asked the mendicant. “What are you running from?
“The question is: What am I walking towards? I have given up this world, but I do not despair, like you do. I have no one and nothing to hold me back. I seek contentment. Rage does not fuel me,” replied the mendicant. “I was once a man of means. Then, I was ruined. I didn’t mind. It helped me see clearly for the first time. Still, I wish I had a family or children. I’d have liked that.” His tone was wistful.
“Well, you can have mine!” quipped Rajat bitterly, but stopped laughing when he saw the mendicant’s calm look. “Well, I’m going to sleep You may lie down on this mat with me, if you wish. You’re a strange one, but I like you.” He closed his eyes.
The mendicant said nothing, but quietly laid himself down at the far end of the cloth. The sun beat down less fiercely as a few hours passed. The hot, sticky afternoon wrung itself dry into evening. Purple patches appeared before Rajat’s closed eyes. Green ones followed. He couldn’t sleep, but lay still, hardly moving a muscle. He was sore all the way down to his soul.
Little scampering noises added to the oppressive stillness. A squirrel sat on its haunches, and nibbled a groundnut they had dropped. Its tail flashed in the sun, like a semaphore. Rajat didn’t see it. He had fallen into a swound.
The stars were bright in the sky when Rajat came to with a start. The night air was cool. It came to him in a flash that he had met a mendicant, and spoken with him. He turned to his side to see if the fellow was asleep.
There was no one there. A smell of sandalwood hovered about the place.
Where the mendicant had lain was a pattern of shaved sticks of wood. The sticks pointed to the direction from which Rajat had come. Near it, in the dust was a picture of a house. A little boy and a woman stood beside the house, waving. Beside them stood an old woman. She seemed to be crying. On her other side was a distraught young man. He seemed to be calling out to Rajat.
Rajat stood up, shocked, staring at the pictures on the ground. He looked around, and began to call out for the mendicant, but stopped. He hadn’t even asked him his name.
Heart beating faster, he packed his ground-cloth, and his food and water in his cloth bag. He knew he was wanted at home. He reached down, and looked again at the picture. Underneath it, was a single printed word. It read: Luxury.
And Rajat started back down the path that would lead to homewards.
As he receded from view, a new picture seemed to emerge from the dust. It showed a man walking homewards, towards love.
Just then, a sudden gust of wind rose up out of nowhere. It blew away the sticks, and the pictures in the dust. Nothing remained, not even a footprint. A patter of raindrops fell.
In the distance, an emaciated mendicant walked away, his begging bowl in his hand. No one saw him walk into the gathering clouds. In moments,the horizon swallowed him up.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Luxury, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Aug 7, 2016 Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story, The Daily Post
Stubborn
©August 7th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
The five-year old child stomped his feet, and cried. He didn’t want to take his bath. His mother, Rachael, a harassed, overworked nurse, who’d come home from her evening shift just in time for the babysitter to rush out, wanted to get him into his pajamas, and tuck him in bed. She tried to sing to him, reason with him, cajole and coax him. Nothing worked.
Finally, she gave up in exasperation. “Fine, then, let’s just comb your hair, like this. Now, let’s wash your face and ears with a wash cloth like this, scrub your hands, like this, and rinse your feet in the tub. I’ll pour water from this watering can. You can pretend to be a tree. Come on now, Russ, you can do it!”
“I won’t get in,” yelled Russ. Sighing, his mother perched him on the edge of the tub, and rinsed his feet with a jug of water.
While she was helping him into his pajamas in his bedroom, she said, “Why didn’t you want to get in the tub?”
“Because of the monster,” whispered Russ, with his fingers on his lips. The monster doesn’t like me washing in there. The monster gave me a warning twice already. That’s why I wash in the sink. I don’t want my feet inside that tub.”
“What monster, sweetie? There aren’t any monsters here. And besides, you didn’t put your feet in the tub,” said his mother.
Just then, she heard sloshing and stomping sounds coming from the bathroom. For a mad moment, she thought … then, she looked at her son.
His eyes were wide, as he looked at something behind her.
Rachael froze, and something prevented her from looking around.
“I’m sorry I washed in that tub, even if it was only my feet. I promise I won’t do that again,” squeaked Russ to the thing behind her.
“This is your final warning,” bellowed a terrifying voice.
Rachael fainted. When she came to, Russ was asleep in bed, and she was lying in a chair. It was just a horrible nightmare, that’s all, she thought. And Russ is too stubborn for his own good.
She got up to go out of the room, and get to sleep. She was exhausted from a long day at the hospital.
As she went out the door, she thought she heard a sloshing in the vicinity of the bathroom. Her heart thudded.
I will NOT go and investigate, she thought. She turned right around, walked into Russ’s room, locked the door, pushed the dresser against it, and fell back into the rocking chair near his bed.
She lay awake for an hour, and her last thought before she drifted back into an uneasy sleep was, Thank goodness my son’s a stubborn little guy! First thing tomorrow, we’ll leave this god-forsaken place!”
She thought she heard the drain gurgle in the bathroom, and it was music to her ears. Then, she fell asleep, and knew no more.
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Tags: #FlashFiction, #OriginalShortStory, #Stubborn, #TheDailyPost
Aug 3, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction, Uncategorized
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Realistic-magic-realist fiction
Empty
©August 3rd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Every day, they peer over my shoulder with haunted eyes.
I ignore them. I’ve a job to do. Some days are good. The money’s okay. At least, the drunk ones can’t reach over far enough to grab my breasts.
My parents died from alcohol poisoning. I don’t drink.
At closing time, I cleared out customers, then sat for a few minutes. My feet hurt.
“Join us,” said a silvery voice. Heart hammering, I turned. Her hand emerged from the painting. I had nothing to lose. I took it. Colours swirled.
The world faded like a dream. I drank new air.
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Thanks to our dear Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for hosting Friday Fictioneers in her indefatigable, inclusive, and cheerful way every week. Thanks to Ted Strutz for that strange photograph, which I like very much.
Tags: #FridayFictioneers, #SupernaturalFiction, #Surrealist story
Jul 27, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story
PHOTO PROMPT © Janet Webb
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Drowning
©July 27th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Leila stood in a corner, sipping water, wondering why she’d attended the party.
It’s not that I’m ugly, she thought. I’m … boring. And I hate small talk.
Well, I won’t stick around, she decided, setting the glass down. She moved towards the door, waving a vague goodbye.
A beautiful woman who had glanced over a few times, detached herself from a group of attractive hipsters and came over.
“Hi, I’m Rona. Want to join us?”
“I’ve got to catch a taxi home.”
“I’ll drive you home. What’s your name?”
“Leila,” she answered. She locked eyes with Rona. Her heart lurched.
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Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, our much-admired Fairy Blog-Mother, for hosting us tirelessly at her Friday Fictioneers Salon, and to Janet Webb, for the evocative photograph.
Tags: #FridayFictioneers, #Loneliness, #Love, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt
Jul 21, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
Perfugium
©July 21st, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
“What is that thing, Sire?” clicked Secondus.
Primus, squinting through the periscope at the watery world around them, clicked out a reply.
They’d been stranded in the trenches of the ocean world. Air supplies had diminished, as the plants in their craft died. They’d risen to the surface just in time.
Their craft bobbed nearer. The water fell away; the drowned land rose into view. There was no sign of life.
Primus quailed when he saw the figure holding its torch.
“They must have been giants,” he rasped.
They discerned some writing below, but no matter.
They’d finally found refuge.
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With many thanks to our Super-Muse and Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for hosting Friday Fictioneers week after week. Thanks, also, to Jan Wayne Fields for the beautiful photograph.
Tags: #FridayFictioneers, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt, #ScienceFiction, #StatueofLiberty
Jul 12, 2016 Original Flash Fiction, The Daily Post
(g)Host
©July 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Annika slipped past the gate of the house in the woods.
She had gone exploring, and was lost. She had wandered out of her backyard, where she had been playing a make-believe game. Her mother was sound asleep in the hammock, made drowsy by the sound of bees in sunshine. Her father was away in the city, working.
Talking to her unseen friend, whom she could hear, she had walked down the street, and found herself at the edge of the conservation lands that adjoined their town.
And now, here she was, in the wilderness, slipping past the crazily-hanging gate of the house which was in perfect condition – and empty. The trees seemed to stand closer together, and whisper, “Don’t go, little girl. Turn back! Don’t go.”
She turned, then, to the trees, and whispered, “Why?”
But the trees grew silent. Someone had come to the door.
Annika turned around, and saw no one. The voice she had followed said, “Bow down to the Host.”
Annika didn’t understand, and said, “Who? I don’t see anyone, or hear anyone.”
And a voice spoke that would have chilled anyone to the bone, but the little girl was oblivious. “Hear my voice, and tremble. I will rend you limb from limb, but do come in first, for you’re my Guest.”
The trees had begun whispering again when the voice began speaking, so all the little girl heard was the latter part of the sentence. Being an obedient little child, she said in her piping, clear voice, “Okay.”
As she walked up the drive, the trees made a huge clamour, and she turned around, and saw something white fluttering to the ground. She stopped, curiosity piquing her.
“Why do you stop, little girl?” asked the voice by her side.
“I just dropped something. Wait here. I’ll be back,” she replied. She ran down the drive, pushed the gate aside, and bent to pick up the paper.
“LEAVE NOW! It’s a demon-ghost in there, and he will eat you,” spoke the paper.
Annika thought for a moment, then said, “Perhaps, he’s lonely.”
“No,” spoke the paper, “A little girl and a little boy went in there last month, and they’ve never come out. Go! Run! Don’t look back until you’ve reached the gnarled old oak tree down there. We’ll protect you.”
And so, Annika ran. The unseen voice who had accompanied her from her home to the house in the woods called out to her, “Why are you running away? You are our Guest. We’re your Hosts. We will …”
But what they would do did not reach her ears. She ran, panting, to the gnarled old oak tree, then turned around.
The trees had bent down, and formed a wall of green around the house, and were slowly devouring it. A long-drawn-out scream came from it, chilling her senses.
She bowed down to the trees and said, “Thank you,” at the top of her voice, then ran through the woods, until she found the main road. She slowed to a walk, heart hammering, and trudged on till she found her home.
Her mother was still in the backyard, on the hammock, now snoring gently.
Annika slipped into the backyard, and now, her heart beating more calmly, she poured herself a glass of lemonade from the pitcher her mother had left on a table by the side of the hammock. With a slightly shaky hand, she drank it, then quietly began swinging on her swing set, keeping an eye on her mother.
Soon, her mother stretched, yawned, and smiled at her daughter. “Wow! I must have been tired. I’ve been asleep for hours.”
Annika said, “Let’s go in, Mom. There are Hosts out there, and they’ll eat us. I don’t want to be a Guest.”
Her mother laughed. “You’re such a wonderful story-spinner, sweets! Come on in. Time for me to make supper. Dad will be home soon.”
Annika, dumbfounded, looked at her mother, made as if to speak, then stopped.
“Yes, I do spin stories, don’t I? I love them. Thanks, Mom!” she said brightly.
And they went back in.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #GhostStory, #OriginalFlashFiction, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Jul 6, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Oneiric Greek Mythology
Recalled
©July 6th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
She walked down a whitewashed alleyway.
White-gold sunlight shafted down, and cerulean skies shone on azure doors.
Before her was the soft sound of footsteps of someone she couldn’t see. Faint music reached her. She strained to see and listen, but the notes faded away into darkness.
Looking down at herself, she saw nothing.
Panic seized her. Still she followed.
Abruptly, the footsteps ceased. Someone turned. She caught a glimpse of his face, and cried out.
A wild wind rose up out of nowhere, sweeping her away, back to the place whence she’d come.
Eurydice ceased to be.
Orpheus wept.
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Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting Friday Fictioneers, with grace, creativity and kindness week after week! Thanks to Jan Marler Morrill for the lovely photograph, which I imagined was either somewhere in Greece, or the Côte D’Azur, neither of which places I’ve visited.
Tags: #FridayFictioneers, #GreekMyth, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt, #OrpheusandEurydice