Apr 2, 2013 Original Short Stories
Life – A Story About
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 2, 2013
NOTE:
(Story Begun on April 2, 2013)
(1,969 words during the first half of the
day, the remaining ones post-dinner today.)
Part I (not because it makes logical sense, but because I left it where I left it, to be continued on another day.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The nine-year old boy lay on his exquisitely-appointed, silk-covered bed, and stared at the sparkling gold and blue ceiling. His name was Uyir Arasan, and his name meant Life-King.
He was confused. He thought about things he had never thought before. He didn’t know how to express them.
And he didn’t know to whom he could express them.
He was the product of a social upheaval, the inheritor of chaos and solitude. He was all alone in the world. He had been alone for eight of his nine years. Of the first year, he had no memory.
There were times when Uyir was tired of it all, but he wouldn’t have known how to say that.
He had been in his room his whole life. He wasn’t sure how he got to be there. That was his entire existence. His Keeper was kind to him, but he never saw him or her or it. Food and water appeared miraculously and routinely several times a day. His room was cleaned and tidied daily, probably when he was in deep sleep. He never thought to ask how his sleep was so deep that he didn’t hear any sounds.
There was something wrong with the room. Uyir didn’t know what it was, but you would have known it instantly had you walked in.
It had no windows (he didn’t know that they had been blocked from the outside, and painted over with a pretty scene). It had no observable doors, either (he didn’t know that there were two doors, and both had been blocked up as well, and big door-sized scenes of dragons slaying humans were painted over them).
There was a slot, though, covered over with velvet. Through it, a mechanical arm would extend a beautiful silver plate, laden with delicately prepared, delectable food, fit for a Prince. The mechanical arm would also extend a silver-chased cup filled with water.
(Once, bitten by curiosity, the little boy had lain on the floor, and looked out through the slot. There was a red carpet that stretched in both directions, but otherwise, nothing was visible. In wonder, he watched as a mouse scampered by. He stretched out his fingers, and it climbed onto his hand. He pulled his arm in, and gazed in admiration at the little creature. It did not seem afraid. It looked back at him with little beady eyes, and twitching whiskers. Then, it clambered up his arm, and went close to his neck. It seemed to lean up and whisper in his ear. He loved the feel of it. When he stroked it, it closed its eyes and went to sleep. From then on, the mouse was his sole companion, and kept him from going insane).
When it was supposed to be day, light streamed in, light which emanated from no known source. (Uyir could not have been able to tell you what a true day felt like, although he could dutifully repeat the information imparted to him by an unseen voice.)
Light was gradually turned down, and then switched off when it was supposed to be night. (Uyir could not have told you what night was, either, except to repeat what he had been told.)
He didn’t know what sunlight was, or rain, except from the book that mentioned that the one was bright and the other was wet. He would not have known to ask. How could he, when he had seen neither?
He didn’t know what it meant to have a mother or father, or to have someone love him, hug him and take care of him. The concept was alien to him. How could he know what a mother or father was, when he had known neither?
Someone had taught him language. He hadn’t seen the person who taught him, but heard the voice. Someone had trained him to express himself and his feelings through words, but his face remained, for the most part, immobile. He had no human models to imitate. When he was happy, he would smile, but it looked more like a primate. When he was sad, he felt the sting of a painful substance, which trickled down his cheeks, and could feel his face crumple up. He was told the stinging wet substance in his eyes was known as tears and that tears came when people were sad, or when they hurt, so he supposed that that was what he felt. As for the strange crumpling up he felt his face do, he supposed that that was what the face had to do when the tears trickled down.
So, he lay there, thinking of nothing in particular, and an alien thought entered his mind, that of freedom. He had no word for it. All he knew was that to stay in this room for one more day was insupportable. He wanted to break loose,and dance in the open, where the ceiling disappeared and the walls faded away.
One does not need to learn the concept of freedom from a book. Every living creature knows this feeling in its ganglions, even if she, he or it might not know the word. It is that which makes us happy. It is that which shows us the way to the stars. It is that for which all social revolutions have happened. It is that which makes us human.
The word “freedom” was one which he had not encountered in his daily lessons with the unseen voice. That was one word that was carefully omitted. Only books which didn’t contain that word were chosen for his education.
For he was being trained to be obedient, subservient, and make others in their turn, subservient – to him.
He was a Young Prince: A King in the Making.
A Regent had been appointed in his stead by the people who had overthrown the rule of his father.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
His mother and his father had been slain brutally in the upheaval which had taken place when he was a year old.
His father, the King, had been seen as too idealistic, too modern, too progressive. He was all these, and it spelled death for him in a land where all three concepts were anathema to the ears of the Traditionalists.
For the King had been talking about abandoning the old ways, and about embracing change. He had talked about tapping into the energy of the sun and the winds to create automatic machinery that did the traditional work of the oppressed laborers, who coaxed the fields to yield up their harvest to feed the Fat Ones, who lived in indolence and luxury.
The Fat Ones had a smug certainty about their position in the hierarchy of things. Among the things they were certain about was that they wanted their food grown by hapless humans who were subservient to them. They liked the pomp and circumstance which attended the annual Harvest Festival, with their kowtowing serfs, farmers, millers, milk-maidens and horse-trainers and cow-keepers. They loved the idea of the different Guilds which were required to pay obeisance to them every month in the form of new artifacts and amusing toys. They chuckled with delight every September, when the skilled artisans brought them beautifully wrought gold and silver objets d’art which featured moving, automated figurines that danced, bowed, did cart-wheels and so on.
The Fat Ones considered this their right and that which was justly due unto them.
They did not like the idea of being shifted from one scheme of things to another. The Fat Ones consulted their underlings, and kept their thoughts private, but amassed their own smaller armies. The King had already abandoned the old custom of keeping spies (Why do we need spies if we are honest? was his question, and the ministers looked at each other surreptitiously).
Then, he spoke about allowing men to marry men, and women to marry women. “Why not?” he argued, “It is love, and love is good.”
Oh heresy upon heresy! The populace shuddered violently. The small section of the people among them who agreed with the king couldn’t voice their agreement. It was too dangerous, and might mean death for them. So, they joined in the abuse-heaping that ensued, even more vociferously than the others, for fear of detection.
He spoke about the disbanding of the religion that gripped the land in its vice-like claw. Religion, which made them act beastly and hate and kill. Religion, which made EVERYONE into slaves, even the Fat Ones. Religion, which was always about the ones in power oppressing the ones without any. How did they all buy into that? was his question. I won’t be the one controlling everyone, he asserted. And I certainly will not have the priests ruling us all!
This was the last straw. The pot had been boiling, and now it foamed over.
The ravening hordes arrived, plundered and looted the palace, and killed everything that moved.
The carnage that resulted was appalling. The entrance to the Royal Kitchens was a standing pool of blood. At the edges of the pool were the slain ones, arms outstretched in supplication, terrors in their open, unseeing eyes. The gold-liveried Guards at the front of the palace had been casually killed, their throats cut, or their hearts stabbed. They lay there, like pieces of crumpled grandeur in their gold and red garb. The pretty palace maids clad in sky-blue and white pinafores had been in the gardens, hanging up clothes, or feeding the Royal Chickens, or herding the Royal Geese, or chivvying the Royal Peacocks. They had turned at the sounds and cries emanating from the courtyards, and tried to flee, but had been caught and killed. They lay there, supine and formerly pretty on the painfully green grass, their blood quenching the earth’s thirst, their stunned open eyes gazing up at the absurdly bright blue sky, while birds twittered happily around them.
It is always thus: Calamity and beauty, death and life, all these happen in those freeze-framed moments, when it seems well-nigh impossible that the world, and life, could be anything other than free and lovely, for the taking by all.
Alas, that day, life was taken from some by the others.
The King had been slaughtered with his ministers, where he had sat, holding state. The Queen had raced down the corridors to scoop up her baby and flee, but had been stabbed casually by a passing marauder.
And the baby had lain, warm and happy, gazing up with his bright brown eyes at the gold and blue ceiling of the room which had been his home for that whole year.
Who knew what he thought? Perhaps, he loved that ceiling, even then, and always looked at it. Or perhaps, he hated it, and wanted it to open, and reveal what lay beyond. For even one-year old babies have the urge to go beyond the edges of things and experience free-fall in space.
The baby had been saved, as babies often are in such stories.
How had that come to be?
After the upheaval, only the palace had been left standing, ready to be torched and burned to the ground the next day. The rebels went home, presumably to have a good meal and rest before their next spree. Nothing satisfies the lust for death as much as that which gives people life: Food and sleep. So, they went home, and their wives fed them, and treated them as if they were heroes.
After lusty eating, drinking, and mounting their women, the men went to bed, and had uneasy dreams. They hallucinated about the dead. They swore the next morning that the king had appeared before them all, and his voice had rung out from the edges of death, promising revenge. They woke up trembling and tired.
Uyir’s mother had died only a few feet from him. He might have died too, but for some reason, the marauders had been distracted by a commotion further down the hall, and had gone to add to the killing madness there.
Hiding in the huge closet to his room was his terrified nurse, Chaya. She had seen it all, and it was all she could do to keep herself from screaming hysterically when she saw the men, crazed by their lust for blood, slaughtering the Queen as if she had been a sow in a butcher’s shop.
When the sounds of their butchering spree had receded into the halls down the other end of the palace, Chaya, the maid, had crept out, shaking like the last leaf on a tree in a storm. Weeping bitterly, her hands shaking as though with palsy, she went swiftly up to her Queen, dipped her hands in the Queen’s blood, and came back to the baby. She daubed him with his mother’s blood, and then fled for her life.
She was the reason he was alive.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
I wonder who I am.
The thought leaped unbidden into the young Prince’s mind, swiftly following the first indefinable thought which smelled sweetly of of a thing that we would call Freedom.
Is anyone else in this world besides me?
This thought stayed with him. He knew it to be true, because one didn’t have to be told there were others there. We are like creatures with antennae. Our antennae pick up signals, even in our sleep. We know that that there are unseen presences among us. Our skin registers the shift in the air molecules, displaced by the presence of someone else, even when our eyes are shut, and we are in deep sleep.
I wonder how I came to be.
This thought stayed with him. For some reason, he was acutely agitated.
None of the books from which he was patiently taught by that unseen Voice mentioned parents. Mostly, the books were about science, mechanics, solitary people and adventures in which parents didn’t figure. If they did, he did not register them as possibilities.
Just then, the mouse ran up his arm and squeaked in his ear. He felt an uprush of tenderness. Stroking the quivering little thing with a gentle forefinger, he spoke softly to it. The creature’s presence calmed him, and he was consoled.
—————–To Be Continued———————–
Tags: #Freedom, #Life, #Solitude, Change, Coming of Age, epistemology, Language, Original Story-Part I, tradition, Uyir, young adult
Mar 31, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Character Vignettes for Possible Novels, Original Short Stories
Beloved Conman–A Vignette
©By Vijaya Sundaram
Past midnight, March 31st / early April 1st, 2013
He was a conman.
He lived to convince. He exuded confidence. He was absolutely and utterly right, all of the time.
He didn’t know it. They never do, those conmen. How else would they convince anyone else of their sincerity, unless they had already bought their own story? They buy their own stories so fully that they would be hurt, surprised, outraged that their story could be anything but true.
He had the smile of an angel. He loved others, so it seemed. They loved him back, fully, devotedly, forgivingly.
Sometime early in his youth, he had been betrayed by life. And although he wasn’t the type to nurse long-standing grudges against people, he had held a grudge against life. Life owed him, you see. It owed him, and all it had ever done was take from him.
So he took revenge, and took from life.
Unfortunately, others, real people, living beings, were often hurt by his decisions. He rode, rough-shod, over people’s advice, proferring his own, convinced he was right. And when he was wrong, as he often turned out to be, in his business dealings, which resulted in huge losses for others, and lost fortune for his family, he found many, many convincing, frighteningly plausible excuses.
Everyone, but everyone bought his story. They were moved by his angelic smile, his baby-faced sweetness. Often, however, when he wasn’t aware, his son caught a glimpse of deep sadness, a regret that was so monumental that she was sure his spirit was struggling, dying under the punishing weight of so many errors of judgement, so many tragedies wrought by his confidence in what he was doing, and his still-convincing story of why things had not worked out.
Admitting that one is wrong is painful. Admitting that one has been wrong one’s whole life can be devastating.
What can one take with one at the end, before the final curtain?
A story? The truth? The unsaid things? The heart-break?
For you see, when he tried, sometimes, to venture to suggest that he had been wrong, everyone rushed to reassure him that it had not been his fault. No one could bear to cause him more heartbreak than he had already endured.
He was saved from being totally disingenuous. He had a sense of humor. He could make everyone laugh, make people happy, make people glow with pleasure when he praised them.
He had helped many. He had a kind heart. He forgave easily. He saw the best in others. He had an elephantine memory, a gigantic intellect. He was all of these things, and more. He was both orthodox and free-thinking, bound by tradition regarding his life and wife, but eager to have his children break free of them. He was quick to anger, but equally quick to apologize for his anger. He was affectionate and gave hugs easily, and was cuddly with his children.
His beaming face attracted everyone. Wherever he went, he drew the attention of people, who saw in him a saint, or a sage, and if they thought about it, they would have said that he was Santa Claus personified.
He had been a good son and brother. He had helped his parents out and had them stay with him and his family in the twilight of their years; he had helped his four brothers get high-paying jobs, he had arranged for his three sisters to have good marriages, and had created a beautiful working atmosphere for his underlings at work.
He knew he had been good. He had done all that he was supposed to do. Now, in his middle years, he felt like taking his risks. What was life for?
So, he leaped into calamity, eyes closed, and all of his ventures ended in disaster. He had to flee abroad to make money. No one knew where he had gone, until a letter arrived. His family had to make do, selling away their gold or silver, books or furniture, whittling their life down to essentials.
Then, he returned. And he tried to do the right thing. Except that he failed again and again. A demon seemed forever hunched over his back, digging its talons into his fate.
He sorrowed secretly. Perhaps, he told his wife about his sorrows. No one knew, and his wife certainly wasn’t about to share anything. Secrecy was her middle name. Outwardly, he maintained his bonhomie and confidence. He continued to weave the myth of his life, with tales rewritten for easy digestion by his listeners. Everyone suspected that he was conning them, but there was enough honesty and humor that they revised their opinion.
If one looked carefully, there was regret being etched into the leathery skin around his eyes, his liquid eyes that were wide and innocent, but in unguarded moments, shrouded in secrecy, removed and disconnected from whoever was looking at him. He looked inward, and what he saw he did not like.
And if one continued to watch him undercover, one would notice that his face would lighten, and the lines would fade away, and his smile would come from the depths of his soul — for he saw something else there that he did like.
Through all the loss of fortune, the calamities he had heaped upon his family, his wife, his siblings, his friends, he knew he had done something else.
He had, just by being his beaming self, spread happiness.
So what if he had conned everyone around him about his mistakes? So what if he had deliberately taken risks with his family’s savings, and risked his children’s future? So what that he had sold his family’s gold and diamonds, copper and silver? So what if he had taken out massive loans that his children had to pay back?
So what that some others, faceless and unknown to his family, had their fortunes squandered by his partners whom the conman had trusted with their fortunes? There is no one more gullible than a conman, and one would laugh at that, if it weren’t so tragic.
No doubt that the faceless unfortunates had cursed him in several languages. No doubt that they wished ill upon him and his family, so that his sons would suffer, and his sons’ sons would suffer. No doubt that they had been destroyed by his and his partner’s risk-taking and their deliberate playing with their money. The conman never benefited from any of this. His family spiralled down into penury, and stayed poor. The conman must have been racked by guilt, but he sent cheerful letters home, describing the places where he’d been, and the people he’d met.
Then he came home, and several tragedies occurred. Losses, deaths, more losses, ill-health. That’s a different story for a different time. The tragedies, however, brought him back and kept him closer to his wife and children. The conman’s face had become marked by suffering, which simply vanished when he smiled. It was as if a boulder had been removed, and the light streamed into a cave that had been shut.
But still, the conman’s children grieved in their own way when the conman suffered, and the conman grieved when he saw his children grow older and take on their own mantles of suffering, unique in their way.
There is no balm for the soul of a parent who watches her or his child struggle and fail, struggle and be hurt, over and over again.
But his children forgave him long ago, though. They had loved him. Each had nursed some anger, but dealt with it separately, privately. Anger is heavy. Some deal with the burden of it. Some shift it from side to side. Some put it down, and walk away, leaving it to disintegrate into atoms.
It was easy for his children and his wife to put it down and walk away. They had bought the conman’s mythology. Each played a role in the Greek tragedy of his life, some willing, and some unwilling, participants.
He made it easy for them. He had always been loving and lovable, and scattered his lightness of spirit in different ways. Each child received some part of his genius, the only wealth he could give.
And his wife? She was glad that she had him, finally, in the twilight of his years. He was bed-ridden now, but he was finally hers, not anyone else’s.
For although she saw through his tricks, she had always loved him. He was the heart of her heart, the joy of her life, the one to whom she had given her eternal, unshakeable love.
And he knew it, and wanted her to go with him when he went.
But that was where she drew the line. She refused. The children needed her.
And so he went, fighting death the whole way. Life had cheated him out of many things, too many to enumerate. Disease claimed him, as it seems to claim everyone in this world.
And perhaps, he saw the truth, shining and clear, like a fixed star, before he went. He stared, mesmerized into space, seeming to commune with certain Ones.
And then he went, transparent and peaceful, and everyone stood at his bedside, held his hands, gave him their love, and sent him on his way.
And he was received lovingly into the spirit world, by those of his siblings who had gone on, whom he loved and continued to love, where he and his parents, and his brothers and his sisters were one family again — which is perhaps what he’d always wanted.
And his wife and children carried on, perpetuating the myth of the man he had been.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Family, character sketch, conman portrait
Mar 30, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Character Vignettes for Possible Novels, Original Short Stories
Loneliness — A Vignette
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 30th, 2013
The old woman sat, enshrouded in sadness and loneliness.
Her spirit was young, gay, schoolgirilish. Her mind was brilliant, but old. Her heart was carunculated, folded over and over by memories of grief, loss, hatred, jealousy and despair. Her body, though old, was strong, and her face was beautiful, like a translucent paper-covered lamp.
She had always been on the outside looking in. She had never fully understood herself. She understood others, but as an alien might, through long observation, experimentation, attempts to blend in with the locals, and even achieving a measure of success in that, but always with a sense of strange isolation. Humor and a biting wit had sustained her through all that. Faith gave her some comfort, but her mind always interfered.
She was generous with her gifts, but longed for acknowledgement, which she felt she had never got, at least, not enough.
She took care of herself, never imposed on anyone, was independent, hard-working, good and moral. She gave of herself to all who came to her. She sought, and got, contradictions, arguments, verbal sparring. She loved that, but didn’t understand that it distressed others. She was often critical, very critical of others, because no one could match her standards, not even she. This left her feeling desolate and always dissatisfied.
She could never stand anyone for too long. People irked her. They felt like burrs on her clothing, clinging madly, like little irritants, feeling poky and interfering. Yet, it was she who would long for their company, and would ask for it. Now, they bothered her at every turn. She felt as if they interfered, but it was she who interfered when she had a chance to, correcting others, expecting a weird sort of subservience, and hating it at the same time, positively glowing with impish delight when she caused distress of some kind, or disturbed people’s equanimity.
She was a mass of contradictions: A pillow stuffed with confidence and anxieties, pleasures and sorrows, losses and grief, indifference, affection, detachment and attachment, delight and irritation, love and hate.
And she was the loneliest person on the planet. Always, in her mind, her own dead mother’s voice spoke, critical and caustic, seemingly unloving and cold with a Puritan coldness.
The tragedy was that the old lady didn’t love herself. And though she felt herself to be the loneliest person on the planet, she was loved. She just didn’t fully know it, and always rejected a little while after she encountered it. After all, or so it seemed to her, if others loved her, then they didn’t really have any good taste, because she was unlovable. Therefore, she could reject them with ease.
Now, in the closing darkness of the noon, she longed again to be understood. She called her son, and got her daughter-in-law.
Her daughter-in-law, inexplicably, loved her. They both loved one other, even though they each might have got on the other’s nerves from time to time. They spoke. The old lady stated her thoughts about what she had been through recently. Her daughter-in-law assured her that everything would be all right, and reassured her of the love of her children for her. After a few sweet reminiscences about other things, the old lady said goodbye and hung up.
And after that ‘phone call, the daughter-in-law knew this much: Her mother-in-law had achieved a lot in her life, but all that had faded away with the onset of years. Age is a thief, an inexorable, ruthless and hateful thief. It takes away and takes away. When the daughter-in-law was young, she thought it would be lovely to grow old. Perhaps, for some, it might be, but she saw, first-hand that this romanticising of age was just that: A romantic notion. Age was cruel. Loneliness looms large. Loss and sadness linger.
For the sad truth remains: All of one’s achievements are naught beside the huge, pervasive threat of imminent amnesia and death.
So it is with the old lady, and so it will be for all of us, except, perhaps, those who seek immortality through art and music, because, as Nabokov said about Lolita in his immortal, shocking, dark and deeply moving book: I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality that you and I may share, my Lolita.
Finally, this: Ozymandias by P.B. Shelley.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Age, #Death, #Loneliness, #Love, Amnesia, Despair, immortality through art, Long Life, Nabokov, Ozymandias
Feb 27, 2013 Original Short Stories
Metamorphosis – A Short Magical Tale
©By Vijaya Sundaram
Feb. 26th, 2013
The mists descended, and the shadows prowled across my back yard. I had been looking out the window. It was, as usual, 3:00 a.m., and my head was buzzing with unceasing chatter. I had worked all day, and had been unable to get a certain image out of my head, or should I say, a certain imago out of my head.
I had wandered into my yard that morning, before heading off to work, and attended to sundry matters — pruning a bush here, watering some rose bushes there, ruthlessly yanking up some weeds, smoothing over the soil, looking admiringly at my butterfly bush that bloomed exquisite and purple, like smoky twilight, while butterflies obligingly admired it.
As if impelled by a magical impulse, I drew near the bush, almost swooning with delight from the delicately overpowering scent of the blossoms. That was the moment when things froze into a tableau in my head. I saw a thing that did not seem to be real.
I can still picture the scene: The sun’s rays pouring down on the bush, the splash of color of the butterflies and the flowers, and … a certain large thing that hung from a leaf. Larva? Pupa? Imago!
Fascinated, and slightly repulsed (no entomologist, I), I stared at the thing, and it bulged. I made out the faint shape of something completely perplexing. It didn’t look like an insect to me. The butterflies were making much of it, though, and they seemed to think it needed their loving attention. They fluttered around the beautiful blossoms, drank nectar to their heart’s content, and then hovered over this object. A ray of light caught it, and I drew in my breath in amazement. A long, thin, straw glowed liquidly, and something was coursing down it, into the imago!
I must be losing my mind, or I really am ignorant about how things work in nature, I thought, and mentally shrugging my shoulders, and detaching my gaze from the strange, pulsing, bulging thing, I turned away.
All day, the thing haunted me.
Working at my desk at the Daily Trumpet, scanning my email, trying to marshal my thoughts into coherent words to produce for my column, I found my mind returning to that, that, well, imago hanging from under that butterfly-bush leaf. My back ached abominably.
“What the hell are you doing, just staring at that screen?” asked my editor crossly. He was definitely not one to be crossed. Deadlines were to be met, and if they weren’t, we had to deal with his unleashed wrath, which had the force of a hurricane.
“Sorry!” I muttered. “I was just reviewing my facts. I’ll get to it. I mean, I’m on it, okay?”
“If you aren’t, I’ll be on you like a ton of bricks, so hustle!” he said, rudely and stalked off.
Pam, on my left, smiled sympathetically. “One would think we were a major newspaper, instead of a dinky little town rag! He has delusions of grandeur, that one! Don’t worry! He needs us as much as we need him!”
I smiled uneasily at her, and reached over my shoulder to rub my back. Pam had a way of sounding sympathetic, but I never knew where I stood with her. She might just as easily go and tell him what I said, if I said anything. So, I kept my mouth shut. One cannot overstate such a thing enough: When you have nothing to say, don’t say it! When you have something to say, say it with enough witnesses around. Better still, don’t say anything. Just put it into your first novel.
I turned back to my work. Somehow, I managed to write my column. I have no memory of what it was, or whether I was even remotely interested in it. The day seemed to have been covered in a sort of thin shell, or a mist. I felt nascent. My back really hurt.
Later, I had a sandwich with Pam and Jake at the local deli a block away. They talked of this and that, mostly complaining about Jason, our editor. I nodded, said a number of “ums,” and found my head throbbing, as if a band of silver had been tightened across it. The light hurt my eyes. I put my hands to my forehead, and a few beads of sweat dropped into my plate.
Pam looked worried, and I knew this was real concern. “You okay?” she asked. “You look ill. Do you want me to tell Jason you’re ill and had to leave? You really need to go home, you know.”
I felt grateful and strangely disconnected. I pulled out a few bucks, put it down on the table for my sandwich and coffee and said, “Yes, I think I really must. Would you tell him? Thanks so much!”
Jake offered to drive me home, but I said I’d get a taxi.
And so, I came home, and bathed my temples in cool water. Felt better, marginally so. I took an aspirin, and went up to bed.
The image wouldn’t leave me. My back was throbbing unceasingly. I stirred restlessly, got up, turned on the idiot box, watched some mindless soap, turned it off, slept uneasily for a couple of hours, ate a microwaved dinner, drank a glass of wine, prowled around my house, called my sister in Seattle, my mother in Florida, my father in Toronto and my ex-husband in Washington, D.C. (but he was busy with a brief and brushed me off).
The sun had just dropped out of sight, but its glow was still there, blending into the purple of twilight when I decided to go back out into my garden.
I didn’t want to stare at the butterfly bush. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Would I?
No. So, I watered the plants, pulled up more weeds, lingered on the tulip patch, where the lobbed off stalks stood forlornly, tended to my basil. thyme and mint, inhaling their heady fragrance, which seemed to dissipate my strange feeling of malaise. Then, seeming to do it almost by accident, not by design, I went to my butterfly bush.
The butterflies were still busy (Strange! They should have gone by now). The imago was still bulging and pulsing. I was very unsettled by that. It made me faintly queasy. A dim light seemed to glow from within it. An unearthly hum seemed to envelop it.
I turned away, went back in. I couldn’t bear it now. It worried me. The rest of the night passed in a blur. I had some soup, showered, read a book, went to bed … and didn’t sleep. My back hurt too much, and my sides ached as well.
Thus it came to be that I was standing at the window at 3:00 a.m., staring down into my backyard at the butterfly bush. The mist was swaddling the dark, and I felt wrapped up in my own blanket of strangeness and weirdness. Suddenly the moon came out from behind a cloud, and flooded the place in a pale wash of purple-white. Something seemed to be moving around the imago. The butterflies! They were STILL there!
That’s it! I thought. No more of this nonsense! I am going to get rid of that thing.
I turned on the backyard lights, donned my dressing gown, slipped into my slippers, and armed with, of all things, an umbrella, headed out into the backyard, striding determinedly towards my imago.
The night seemed to press in on me like a shell, and I thought I’d burst from the pressure of it. I needed to break this strange spell. It was not pleasant. I made me fearful and wretched. I would break the spell. I pulled up short in front of the imago — and stared.
The shell was cracking. A leg came out, then two, then two hands parted the sticky, slimy thing, and a small face peered out. The butterflies fluttered onto leaves, and became quite still, as if completely frozen in sleep.
The thing that was inside, emerged sinuously from its shell, and two beautiful, iridescent wings unfolded. There was a sudden, imperceptible sound of a body dropping to the ground, and the being was now on the soil, looking up at me. She (or he, or it) was absolutely beautiful. A glow seemed to light it from within. Deep golden eyes looked at me. I fancied I saw the sunlight playing in them. A halo of hair curled about its head, and it had beautifully formed human features. Only its wings were like those of a butterfly.
It looked up at me, and smiled. A beautiful voice, softer than a sigh spoke in my mind.
Its words bloomed and formed within my head: Mother? Is that you?
The night loosened its hold on me. My silver band of headache broke. The mist that had been blanketing me, released itself into tendrils that floated away. The moon shone down, bright and relentless. I felt my back bursting with something that resembled pain. I bent over, and straightened up. Nothing surprised me anymore.
My wings unfurled. They had always been there, tight under my skin on my back. I had never known. And I wasn’t afraid.
I smiled back at the being.
Yes, my darling.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Original Short Story, fairies, fairy tale, imago, Magical story, metamorphosis
Feb 22, 2013 Original Short Stories
Ebb Tide – A Short Story ©By Vijaya Sundaram Nov. 4th, 2009
They looked at him in the darkness – he could see their dim shapes by the faraway streetlights. A truck rumbled by, and he could hear his heart beating.
“Well? Are you coming with us, or are you going to rat on us?” asked the one with the ski-mask.
Jack looked at them…and his mind went into a tailspin. He had worked hard to be a part of this group of boys, only because his friend, whom he had always looked up to, had joined it. Jack did not like what they stood for, nor what his friend appeared to have become, and yet …
Somewhere in the corner of his vision, he was aware that the moon shone, a slim sliver of a crescent, shedding more darkness than light onto the group.
He could feel their eyes boring into him. His mother would be working at the hospital all night – she was a nurse. His father was sleeping off a drunken stupor, but before that, Jack had been the target of his father’s inchoate rage. He could feel bruises swelling and turning purple under his shirt.
Nobody would miss him. He had been hoping for acceptance all his life. Here was his chance. Should he take it?
“Yes,” he mumbled, looking down at his sneakers.
“Let’s go, then!” said the leader of the group, and they moved with determination towards the abandoned building, spray cans in hand. Jack’s friend gave him a friendly shove. He didn’t respond.
And then, the wild rumpus began.
They sprayed the walls with graffiti, drew obscene images, and gang slogans that he didn’t even know about. Occasionally they sprayed each other’s jackets, and laughed in uproarious glee at their foolishness. Innocently criminal behavior, that’s all it was. Just a bunch of graffiti artists, he said to himself.
They didn’t notice the police car pull up behind them. They didn’t see the cop get out, didn’t see the other detective step out from the passenger seat.
It was only when the lights went on, that they turned in fright. Spinning blue and red lights, whirling like dancers in a dream, flashed rhythmically on the walls they had just sprayed.
Jack froze. So did the others. Then, chaos erupted. The boys ran in different directions. A shot rang out.
Jack felt his consciousness recede, waves ebbing away from the shore. Hold on, he thought, hold on. The waves pulled him farther out. Mom, he thought. I never told Mom that I was going out …
Then, the darkness closed in, and silence welcomed him into her arms forever.
And into that silence, the moon continued to shine dimly, shedding more darkness than light.
Ebb tide.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Original Short Story, acceptance, bad choices, Juvenile delinquent, parental neglect, tragedy
Feb 22, 2013 Original Short Stories
The End and the Beginning – A Narrative of a New Race ©By Vijaya Sundaram January 24, 2012
The planet swung around on its appointed course around the sun, dutifully, tiredly, imperceptibly tilting ever more to the right. Lands grew cold and hot and cold and hot again. Forests died, and mountains grew taller. Tsunamis rose up and islands sank. The desert blazed unmercifully. Birds fell out of the sky. Quietly, entire species died, as the decades drifted by like seaweed on dead oceans. The polar caps melted, and methane clouds rose into the air like ghosts promising a holocaust of fire, ready to ignite, ready to unleash their fierce tendrils of blazing death on the straggling populations of weary humans who eked out their lives in the few safe places on earth.
It was into such a world that the Stranger came drifting through the clouds in her vehicle from a faraway universe.
The Stranger stood, light as air on her feet, straddling continents, and gazing hopelessly around, while the vehicle blended into the very air, so as not to set off any methane into instability. Fire-power was not what propelled her vehicle. What propelled her vehicle was a substance which had no name, and would never be discovered by humans.
Sorrow filled her face as she looked at the tiny dwellings of the people huddled in the mountains, the history of the rise and fall of the human race in their eyes, as they gazed about them at the increasingly hostile world they had inherited from their rapacious forbears. Clad in their animal skins, in shelters of scrub and brush, they gazed around, their scarred visages showing apathy and absolute despair. Scattered around them were the bones of animals, and small straggling fields of corn. There was no evidence of fire.
I should never have seeded this planet, she thought to herself. I should have gone to another star system. This very planet is fighting my descendants. The planet hates them. The planet wants to shake them off like fleas. What shall I do?
And an idea came to her. To make it all happen, she needed a hundred years or two. Time passed, as time does. Eventually, what she wanted, willed, worked for, happened. The planet straightened itself to the exact tilt necessary for life to sustain itself. All the methane released from the melting of snows on polar caps was gathered up into her spacecraft, excess carbon dioxide powered it, and fresh, oxygen-rich air swirled hopefully around the planet. Rains fell, tides rose and ebbed in predictable patterns, and new, green forests sprang up where they hadn’t been for a while.
Humans in the tropics looked around them, and saw fresh green where there hadn’t been any for decades. Polar caps began to freeze again. Others on the far northern ends of continents looked up and felt snowflakes falling. Nobody knew what it was, but it felt good.
And the migrations began. But this time, things were different. This time, the earth purred. Humans weren’t fleas. Humans were benign extensions of earth’s self. They lived with nature, freely, joyously. Then, they discovered the use of fire. This time, something held them back. They looked up. The sun smiled down.
And though it all started all over again, humans had evolved. Their bodies held all the heat and light, air and water they needed. A new race began, straightened its shoulders and rose up into the air.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Beginning~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Hope, Aliens, Beginnings, Climate Change, Endings, Evolution, Human Life, Planet Earth, Strangeres
Feb 22, 2013 Original Short Stories
The Horse With No Shame – A Transformation Story
©By Vijaya Sundaram
January 24, 2012
I’m going to turn my teacher into a horse! thought Jim, as he watched her writing more words on the board, for them to copy and practise for their spelling test.
He squeezed his eyes shut and wished hard, then opened his eyes again. Nothing happened. His teacher wrote on, oblivious. The other students stirred restlessly, glancing at each other, hands fiddling with objects on their tables – a ruler, a pencil, a paper airplane that someone had surreptitiously made. Their feet tapped, their eyes dreamed on, minds elsewhere.
The hum of the electricity coursing through the lights in the room made his ears hurt. He gazed out the window, and saw a man throw a stick to his dog in the distance. A train rumbled by, and he watched that.
His teacher turned around, and caught him dreaming.
“Jim!” she snapped. “Focus on your work. Stop wasting time! There are all these big words to learn. Copy them down. Are you listening?”
He looked back at her, with his face wiped of any expression. Turn into a horse, he begged in his mind. Come on! Turn into a horse. You can do it.
“Well?” said his teacher, looking at him.
Then, the class gasped. There, before them, a transformation was taking place.
Jim felt all eyes on him, and stiffened in terror. He felt taller. Strange sensations coursed through him. He looked down, and instead of shoes, he saw hooves. Four legs had sprouted out. He felt an irrepressible urge to eat hay, or an apple. He flicked his ears back, swished something, and whinnied.
The teacher fainted. The students cheered.
Then, he trotted to the door, looked back once, and cantered out. A smile hovered mysteriously in the air where he had left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TheEnd~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Original Short Story, children, horse, Mysterious Transformations, school
Feb 22, 2013 Original Short Stories
Dreams from Snow – A Short Story
© By Vijaya Sundaram
Dec. 19th, 2008
The snow drifted down like a dream about to dissolve.
Kevin wandered out of his apartment in the tenement building, in search of his friend. He knocked on the door, and heard shouts inside, shouts and a smack, as of a hand connecting with a face.
He knocked again, louder. The door opened a crack, and a scared face peeped out. It was his friend, Drew. “They’re fighting again, Kev,” he said, his eyes big and scared, “I’m scared.”
“Come out with me. It’s snowing. Come on!” whispered the little boy.
“Okay. Wait. I’ll be out – I’m not telling them,” said Drew, and withdrew, shutting the door. The voices within continued shouting.
In a few minutes, when the door opened quietly again, Drew was dressed in his outer layers, his snow jacket and boots, hand-me-downs, clearly, but still warm enough. There were tears in his eyes. There was a red mark on his cheek, as if a hand had landed there. He had a bruise on his forehead. There were still shouts and noises inside, and the sound of flung objects.
“You okay? What’s goin’ on?” asked Kev.
“The same. I don’t want to be at home,” said Drew.
Kev put his arms around Drew. “I’m your friend,” he said, and together they walked into the snow.
They played in the snow, making snowmen in the front of their apartment building, while a few older kids wandered about throwing snowballs at each other, shrieking with laughter.
The snow drifted down all afternoon, and the dream deepened, didn’t dissolve. They built snow-forts, and made believe that they were polar-bear warriors in the land of snow and ice.
Evening fell. They were cold and hungry now.
Drew’s eyes grew round and scared again. “I don’t want to go back,” he said, “I’m scared.”
“Don’t go. I’ll ask my mom if you can stay with us,” said Kev.
They went to Kev’s house, where his mother took in everything at a glance, and didn’t ask too many questions. She’d seen enough in her life to know what she saw, and while she was gentle, she was also tough. She made them hot cocoa, and fixed them a large cheese-grilled sandwich each. They sat companionably together on pillows on the floor, eating their sandwiches, drinking their hot cocoa, watching Sesame Street on the little television in the living room. Kev’s mother sat, her ample frame taking up a lot of the couch, book in hand, occasionally looking over at the boys, her large brown eyes filled with worry and tenderness.
Suddenly, there was a loud knock at their door, and a voice, shouted, “Open up!”
Kev’s mother opened the door a crack, and looked out.
“Drew’s in there, isn’t he? Send him out, or I’m calling the police,” came the angry voice of Drew’s mother.
“I’m not coming with you! I don’t want to go home,” cried Drew, holding on to his friend’s hand. “I want to stay here forever! I hate you and I hate my father!”
Drew’s mother pushed the door open, walked right in and grabbed hold of her trembling son. “You’d better come home right now, or else,” she yelled. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her hair was a tangled mess. Her dress was stained as if food might have been flung at her.
Kev’s mother said in a steady voice, “Calm yourself, Miz Wright! Take a breath. Do you see your son’s bruises? I should report you! Take a breath. Why bother to come for him? Do you really want him home?”
Mercy Wright took a deep, shuddering breath, and suddenly looked defeated. “I have no one. He’s mine.”
“Then take care of him!” said Kev’s mother. She folded her arms across her chest. Her voice was stern, but her eyes were kind.
Mercy Wright looked at Drew, let go of his hand, and said simply, “Do you want to come home now? I’m sorry. I won’t let your Dad hit you. I won’t let him come near us. We can go away, if you like. I promise.”
Drew said, timidly, “Will we really go away? Why do you want me, momma?”
She burst into tears. “You’re my son.”
Drew understood. He went up to her, and put his little arms around her tired, worn-out frame. “I love you, Momma,” he said. He took her hand, suddenly grown-up, all of six years of age.
He turned to Kev and Kev’s mother, who said, “Will you be okay? We’re always here, if you need us.
Drew nodded and said, “Yes, thank you for everything, Mrs. Armstrong. Thanks, Kev.”
Kev gave Drew a hug. Patti Armstrong pulled him into a warm embrace, her eyes bright.
Drew left, with his hand still in his mother’s hand. Outside, the snow drifted down still, like a dream about to dissolve.
Kevin looked out the window and watched his friend and Mrs. Armstrong make their way through the snowy path. He hoped his friend would stay.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Hope, #Original Short Story, Friendship, parental neglect and abuse, reconciliation, Snow
Feb 22, 2013 Original Short Stories
Alice and the Strange Situation
By Vijaya Sundaram January 24, 2012
The food seared Alice’s tongue, and she gasped, trying to politely hold it in, but not quite succeeding. She grabbed a napkin and spat it out, turning away.
“Such bad manners,” huffed the fussy old lady at the head of the table. Her least favored granddaughter, the one who was the product of a marriage between the rich old lady’s daughter and her erstwhile chauffeur (now working for someone else), glared around at everyone.
“Sorry! I had no idea that you would serve boiling hot food for your grandchildren!” she said forthrightly and rather rudely. Her grandmother glared back at her.
Into the stunned silence which fell in the dining room, the other grandchildren tried not to giggle or smirk. They, after all, had an advantage. Their mothers, who were Alice’s mother’s two sisters, had made good marriages, following the old lady’s wishes every step of the way, and were now living in grand mansions. They got American Girl Dolls for their birthdays, and plenty of pretty dresses, toys and frilly things whenever the holidays came. Their baskets were always full of candy and stuffed bunnies during Easter visits, and their birthdays always took place on Grandmama’s large, sloping lawns, with catered food and marvelous games, pony rides and clowns.
Alice’s mother got up and, ignoring her mother pointedly, poured her daughter a glass of lemonade.
“Drink this, and we’ll go home right away, darling,” she said, glancing coldly around the room. Her husband had quietly declined the invitation to the old lady’s 70th birthday dinner.
Alice drank, got up, looked around the room, dropped a stiff curtsey to her grandmother, in her frilly dress (her cousins’ cast-off clothes), and said, “Good bye! Thanks for having us. Happy Birthday!”
They left.
Everyone looked at their plates. The chicken on the plates had started to move. Before their disbelieving eyes, the chicken bits assembled together, sprouted feathers, beaks, feet, and other appurtenances, and started to cluck plaintively.
There was a massive commotion and screams of consternation.
Meanwhile, Alice and her mother drove away in the car they had summoned – Alice’s father was driving it. The car rose smoothly into the air, and into the clouds, turned into a UFO and disappeared in the depths of the darkening evening.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: alien allusions, snobbery, Surreal story, Transformations
Feb 22, 2013 Original Short Stories
Not Crying (A very short story)
© ByVijaya Sundaram
Dec. 11th, 2009
“Why didn’t you do your homework on time?” screamed the teacher at the girl, who stood before her, fighting back her tears, and staring woodenly at the teacher.
“Well? Why don’t you answer me? Why are you standing around, not telling me anything?” yelled the teacher.
The girl refused to speak, for fear that she might cry. She stared at the ground, swallowing her tears.
The teacher, livid with rage, said, “That’s it. Insubordination! You will spend an hour in detention with me!”
The girl went back to her place. The other students tried to look at their books, trying not to embarrass her with their sympathy.
The teacher went home that day. She kicked the dog, yelled at the cat, burned the roast beef for dinner, and made her husband sleep on the couch.
The girl went home, cleaned up the house, made dinner for her family, helped her little brother with his homework, fixed his food, tucked him into bed, and kissed him goodnight. Then, she tidied up the kitchen, and took a shower.
When her mother came home, after a long night’s work at the local bar, smelling of alcohol and cheap cigars, the girl reheated dinner for her mother, set the table, and sat quietly while her mother spoke, using foul language about every person who’d come to the bar.
She looked at her daughter. “What are you staring at me for? And why do you look so dull? You could smile! Why should I work so hard, just to come home and have you stare at me? Hanh?”
She took her first forkful of food. She spat it out in rage. “What do you call this mess? Looks like something the cat dragged in.” She threw the food on the floor, and hit the girl, who stood there, not crying.
Later, after her mother had dragged herself off to bed, the girl cleaned up the mess, wiped the floor, picked up the shards of china from the broken plate, and wiped the window, where some food had spattered.
Looking back at her in the glass of the window, she saw herself, a young girl, face wooden, not crying.
She went back, got out her book bag, and started her homework. Her assignment was, “Write about yourself.”
She picked up the pencil, and froze.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: dysfunctional family, Short story, teachers and students, verbal abuse