Mar 13, 2019 Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story
Just wrote this. This story came to me entirely. There’s been no editing.
Painted Ladies
©March 13th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
The butterflies arose in a cloud of gold and black from fields of cheeseweed and hollyhock, and startled the air into flickering light.
The rain, which had fallen the night before, dripped off leaves and grass in pearlescent drops, and chilled the skin of the lone child, who stood there.
She had run away from a place where she’d been kept with other children, and she had been hurt in secret places. All she knew was that she had to run. And so, when the back of the scary guards were turned, she had inched away from the cages, crawling whenever she could, putting a finger to her lips, so that the other children inside the cages made no sound, but watched her curiously.
And she somehow got out into the twilight away from the hellhole. She had run and run, stifling her sobs, swift as a hunted hare, not sure where she was going. Then, she slowed down and stopped, for she was out of breath.
She didn’t know where to go. She saw a parked pickup truck on the side of the highway, and quickly hauled herself up, clinging to the sacks of potatoes that were in it. The driver, who had been off peeing behind a bush, returned, and pulled out of the emergency lane. He drove through the night, occasionally stopping at a rest stop. Once, he stopped to poo on the roadside, and she quickly hopped down from the back, and climbed into the passenger’s seat, desperately hunting around for something. She found some packets of chips, an old apple, and some peanuts, and a bottle of water. Stuffing these insdie her shirt, she hopped out again, shut the door quietly, and climbed back into the back of the truck. She lay back among the sacks, looking up at the stars, eating chips, drinking a little water, keeping the peanuts and apple for later. She had no plan but one: Not to be detected.
Then, the tires began to grind, and truck stopped abruptly. They were on a highway, and it was deep night. The man cursed, and jumped out. He ran into the bushes, and stayed there a while, grunting. He must have eaten something that disagreed with him.
She heard him finishing up, and walking towards the truck. She heard his footsteps come around the side. And she cowered down behind some of the sacks, making herself still.
He was checking something. What it was, she couldn’t tell, but she stayed motionless. He returned to the front of the truck.
That was when she knew she couldn’t be there any more. He would most certainly see her if she stayed.
So, quietly, very quietly, grabbing an empty sack, she slid off the back of the truck, and raced, bare-footed and frantic, into the bushes. Once she was clear of the truck, she looked. He was looking at a flat tire, back turned to her, and he was holding some sort of implement, clearly intending to fix it.
Her heart beat loudly in her little chest. She couldn’t feel the cold, not with the terror within her which made her burn.
She waited and waited. Finally, he was done fixing his flat. And he pulled away, with a horrible screech of tires.
Now, she relaxed, and sobbed dry, heaving sobs. She called aloud for her mother, and for her elder sister. Her father had died in the desert when they’d come over, and they’d had to leave his body to the coyotes. She’d been separated from her mother and sister, and taken by the scary men in uniforms. Her mother had cried out, as had she and her sister, but they they were beaten into silence by the scary men whose cold, pale blue eyes, pig-skin, and horrible leering faces had frightened her. And she never saw her mother and sister again.
Suddenly, she noticed that her feet were hands were bleeding – she must have cut herself getting off the truck. She barely felt it. It wasn’t life and death, anyway. She began to walk on the side of the road, the city-lights on the horizon making the night seem less terrifying. There was no one on the road, but she didn’t want to take any more chances. She went back into the tangled bushes on the side of the road, and soon found herself under a tree. She laid her stolen sack on the ground, intending to lie on it, but suddenly, with no warning, there was a flash of lightning, then thunder, then a huge downpour. Quickly, she covered herself with the sack, instead, and huddled under the tree, shaking with fear and cold.
She wept while the rain fell. And then, before she knew it, it stopped. She looked fearfully around, but saw nothing and no one. Exhaustion overcame her. Her eyes closed in spite of themselves. In no time, she was asleep.
When she woke up, the sun was up, and the sky was beautiful, bright blue, and shot through with gold. She almost felt joy, then.
Realizing that she didn’t know what she was going to do next, she sat back down, while the sun warmed her bones and skin, and her thin shirt began to dry, too. The skirt she was wearing was wet, though, so she took it off, and hung it on a bush, along with the sack.
So, here she was, alone, at age nine, with two packets of chips, an apple, and a packet of peanuts, and a bottle of water. She could make it last for a couple of days, she thought. What would she do after that?
But here she was, inexplicably in a field filled with flowers, and the butterflies arose in a cloud of gold and black all around her. She had always loved butterflies. Seeing something like this, she might have been delighted a year ago, back in her country, with her parents and sister close by, but now, she stood there blankly, gazing around her.
She sat on a smooth rock near her tree. Maybe I can make a shelter here, under this tree, she thought. There are flowers here, maybe a little pool of water, a tree, no one close by. I could catch a rabbit, and eat birds’ eggs. Maybe, I could live here. And suddenly, she began to laugh hysterically.
One of the butterflies settled on her hand. She calmed down, and thought.
I will go down this road, keeping to these fields and meadows. I will find someone. I will ask for help. I will keep away from men. I will find the women. Maybe, they will know my language. Yes, I will do this. I will grow up, I will remember, I will live.
The day was still new. Her skirt was still drying. The butterflies ruffled the air. She ate her apple, and some peanuts. She poured a little water down her throat, and a little bit over her cut feet and hands. She washed her face, and turned it skywards.
The butterflies appeared to rise up forever.
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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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Jan 17, 2018 Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story
The Shadow Who Wouldn’t Be King
(Edited with some additions and subtractions, and corrections – because I wasn’t satisfied)
(Edited with some additions and subtractions, and corrections – because I wasn’t satisfied)
(A Story Response to Laura Packer’s Prompt on Facebook)
©January 17th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
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(Laura‘s prompt: #storyseeds: The king considers her advisor. “But sir—” says the Minister of Pebbles. The king waves him to silence and watches the shadows skitter across the floor.)
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My response:
The shadows have come, unbidden, into her kingdom, and followed the sounds of people’s heartbeats until they’ve found the main one, and are drawn to the royal heart, whose artery reached all its subjects, and pulsed evenly and calmly through the flurry of daily activity.
The Minister of Pebbles is incensed. *His* heart beats more rapidly these days than usual, and visions of love from before have given way to visions of power which have held him in their thrall more than once in his sleeping and waking hours. He has seen the king, a stately man to whom he had sworn allegiance, go from being a man to a woman, and the transformation is shameful to him, for somewhere there is a large knot of love crushed by shame. He still insists on calling her, “Sir,” and the King doesn’t object. Nor does she object to being called the King.
At the moment, she is spellbound by the shadows.
“Look at this one,” she says, laughing, and points.
The Shadow skitter-dancing across the floor stops and looks at her, then turns, and looks at the Minister of Pebbles.
A cold hand steals across his heart, when he sees the face of the Shadow.
“Stop it from looking at me!” he exclaims.
The King, a sudden knowledge growing inside her, says, “Stop looking at him, Shadow.”
The Shadow looks away, and resumes skitter-dancing across the floor, but it seems to be larger, a little less harmless, a little more imposing.
The Minister of Pebbles says, “Sir, I have misgivings about these Shadows. We know not whence they’ve come, and we know not their purpose. If you have the power to bid them begone, please exercise it. The Pebbles await me. If you will excuse me.” And he backs away from the royal presence.
The King watches him thoughtfully, as he strides off after the correct amount of backing away from her royal presence.
The King calls the main Shadow to her, and it approaches.
“Follow the Minister,” she whispers.
The Shadow nods, and calls the others. They skitter away in the direction of the Minister’s departure.
The Minister has gone to the seashore, and is collecting pebbles, as well as ordering others to collect pebbles, because that is his job which the new she-King has bestowed upon him like a dubious honor.
If he collects enough pebbles, he is to be promoted to Minister of Stones, and after that to Minister of Boulders.
The King had had to create this job to keep him busy. Their land lies lower the the rising seas, and she has told him that he has to ensure the safety of their people by building levees all along the seashore. He’s assembled a task force of thousands. He enjoys lording it over them.
The King has known what he’s been planning ever since she ascended the throne, and, using all of her cleverness, she has distracted him from his fell purpose, which is to ascend the throne.
Now, as he collects pebbles, and shouts to his minions to keep up the hard work, he thinks to himself, “All I have to do is to make these men loyal to me. Then, I shall take over the throne.”
The Shadow comes up to him just as he thinks this.
“Drop that thought,” says the Shadow in his mind.
“Who speaks? Get away from me!” shouts the Minister, spinning away wildly from it, his face contorted in dread.
The men around him pause in their work, and stare, horror-struck.
“I cannot. You know I cannot,” whispers the Shadow, “You brought me and the others into existence.”
“I didn’t intend for you to come alive! I just thought of you – how did you emerge into the daylight? Can’t a man have his thoughts?” said the Minister.
“Yes, you did, but in the process, and we do not know how, you created us, and brought us before the King. We have seen the King’s heart, and it is pure. We have seen yours, and it is not. Yes, we are from you, but you have to be wiped out, for you do not toil for your people – you do everything with another motive. We are ashamed to be of your essence. We need to die, and you need to die with us.”
The Minister, drowning in terror, lashes out at the Shadows. He flails at them, yelling incomprehensible words. His workers look at him, thunder-struck. All they can see is a man shouting at Shadows, but they cannot hear anything except the shouts of the Minister of Pebbles.
The shadows shoot out ropes of light, and hold him tight, and march him down the street into the presence of the King.
Seeing them approach, the King says, “Ah, yes! It is as I thought, is it not?”
“Yes,” says the wretched man, hanging his head.
“You intended to assassinate me, and ascend the throne?” she asks coldly, quietly.
“Yes.”
“Why?” she asks. There is no anger in her expression. For she is, above all, curious about men and their motives.
“Because, because …” he splutters, and the King’s Courtiers sit still, waiting.
“Because you changed!”
“Because I went from being a man to a woman?” she asks.
Her heart is heavy. He lowers his head, shakes it, mute.
The King approaches the man. The Shadows, which have been holding him, release him.
“Do you see you couldn’t have done what you desired?” she asks, tenderly.
The Minister is still mute.
The King turns to the Shadows. The resume their skittering, their dancing. She raises her hands, and they stop. The main Shadow goes up to her, and bows. The others follow. Her face is impassive, carved from stone.
The Minister falls to the ground, weeping. Then, rising, he bows. The shadows turn, walk up to him, and lead him away to the shores of the sea. The people of the kingdom do not see him again. They assume he has died. No one grieves him. The King does not mention him again, but her heart is sore.
The years roll by, and she rules over her people with a calm assurance, and they accept her whole-heartedly. No one gives the Minister of Pebbles another thought, because of his treachery.
Sometimes, though, if the night-clouds are just right, and the shadows lengthen when the full moon’s light strikes the land, and if you happen to stand silently between two silver shafts of moonlight, you will see him there, still, collecting pebbles. He pauses in his labours, and falls to the ground in a paroxysm of sorrow and regret. A single Shadow lifts him up, and commands him to keep working.
And behind a large boulder, you will see the King standing still, tears glittering in her eyes.
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Jan 16, 2018 Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story
Fifteen-minute short story by Yours Truly
(With thanks to my story-teller friend Laura Packer for the prompt):
The Spirit Who Grew A Heart For A Boy
©January 16th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
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Laura’s prompt:
#storyseeds There was once a boy whose heart was made of glass. In his pocket he found twine, a pebble with no sides, and seven seeds. He knew the time had come.)
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My response:
His glass heart was hard, but fragile, and somehow it keep him alive, because what animated him was Spirit. So, one day, when an accidental harsh remark flew straight at his chest, and cracked his heart, his Spirit flew out, collected the twine, the Pebble With No Sides and seven seeds, and went looking for a way to make him a new heart, while he lay there outside his hut, his glass heart bleeding sand into the dust, his eyes filming over.
His Spirit roamed the world, and found itself on the shores of an Ancient Sea, which was lined with strangely shaped pebbles. The Ancient Sea was troubled and restless, and it threatened to swallow the shore. The Boy’s Spirit laid the Pebble With No Sides down amongst the rest, said a word, and went away. The Sea grew calm and still.
Time flowed quietly, while the Spirit of the boy with the glass heart wandered the world, a sense of urgency growing inside its smoky self. On a cliff overlooking a vast emptiness, it saw a dog clinging to a plant right off the edge. The Spirit made a lasso with the twine, flung it over the dog’s body, secured it, and pulled the dog to safety. The dog gazed at It, wagged its tail, and ran away.
The Spirit smiled, and moved on.
Time flew by.
The Spirit came to a forest where all the trees had been burned by a man-made fire.
Dread clutched at It.
It looked at the seven seeds it carried, and knelt down. Clearing the burnt brush and trees, the Spirit planted the seven seeds in the shape of the Big Dipper.
The forest exhaled a sigh of thanks. Small saplings began to spring up. Overhead, the stars of the Big Dipper glowed brighter. A bear awoke from her hibernation, and emerged into the new forest.
The Spirit returned to the Boy, who was nearly dead. He saw his Spirit, and his eyes widened. He held out his hands. The Spirit slipped back into him, and slowly, where once had been a glass heart, there was now a living, breathing, beating heart.
The Boy’s healing had begun.
Aug 10, 2017 Friday Fictioneers, Original Short Story
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Depressingly realistic fiction
I Don’t Want To …
©May 10th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
I try to avoid that stone when I go visit that clearing. I don’t want to remember.
I don’t want to remember I was once that fourteen-year old, running through tall grass.
I don’t want to remember who was chasing after me.
I don’t want to remember my breath coming in quick bursts.
I don’t want to remember how he caught up with me.
I don’t want to remember how I fell, how I grabbed a stone.
I don’t want to remember where he lies.
The clearing calls to me, every year.
I don’t want to go, but I do.
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Trying to make up for months of silence on the Friday Fictioneers front. Many thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting us, cheerfully, thoughtfully, and generously.
Aug 10, 2017 Friday Fictioneers, Original Short Story
PHOTO PROMPT© CEAyr
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Geological-astronomical anthropomorphic rock-fiction
Never Water
©August 10th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Out of the soil, slowly emerging, out of the dirt, into the air, fault-lines converging, purging itself of all memory, all melodies of another time, another place, another birth, another face, I push aside what was, and raise my eyes to what is.
Once, I remember flying through space like a winged God, particles of me racing, spinning, then joining, then forming into larger and larger particles. I was fire and joy, born in the heart of a nebula.
Now, I am a mere thing, small, cooled, reduced.
Fire and earth, but never water.
I am athirst. I am athirst.
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Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, our Fairy Blog-Mother, who tirelessly and steadfastly hosts Friday Fictioneers for all of us. I was out for a long time in this space, but I’m back!
Sep 17, 2016 Original Short Story, The Daily Post
Slog
©September 17th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Jonah stood at the window, and looked out at the harvest moon. Tears glittered in his eyes, and he brushed them away absently.
“Come back,” he whispered into the night. No one answered. A night bird called somewhere. A breeze ruffled his hair, made him look vulnerable and younger than his thirty-three years.
Jonah hadn’t expected to live that long.
Nothing was ever easy for Jonah. He burned with an incandescent rage, and anyone who came close to him shied away from the sheer force of it.
As a young teen in a body crippled by spina bifida, he saw the handsome, strapping teenage boys around him, and wanted to strike out at something, anything to rid himself of the rage and sorrow, and bitterness that ate away at his base of his soul, which was raw like the tip of his spine.
It didn’t matter to him that he was capable of great humor, or talent in art, or eloquent in his use of words. He didn’t see the value in what he had, and craved what he couldn’t have. Looking at the beautiful, nymph-like girls in school made him want to spit. They would never look at him, would they? No, they’d go for tall, blond David, or muscular Jonathan, whose cool gaze made the girls giggle in high school. He didn’t consider his pale, haunted face, with the piercing hazel eyes, the slim cheekbones, the sharp chin, the mop of unruly hair to be attractive.
He would gaze up at the ceiling of his bedroom at night, trying to quench his desire for what he could not have, throttling his urges with contempt and curses.
His mother had grieved when he was born, and grew steadily distant from him as he turned into a mulish and angry teenager. His father, grieving equally, didn’t give up on him. Instead, having read about how marijuana could ease certain kinds of pain, he introduced his son to the joys of dope.
Jonah took to it instantly. Somehow, he passed his eighth grade, scraping by, giving his female teachers the finger and much grief, because they knew he could do so much better than that.
Jonah spent his high school years in a haze of smoke. His glassy gaze alerted his teachers to his drug use, and he was repeatedly called into the main office, and had his locker searched. He was too bright for them. They never saw where he hid his stash.
Time marched on, as it does. Somehow, he passed high school, went to community college, then to art college, and landed a job in a copy shop, all of this in a haze of pain and smoke. Then, he met Nina. Grey-eyed and dark-haired, she combined talent and beauty and was kind to him. Against all expectations they fell in love, and he loved her with a passion that scared both of them, but was exciting for her. Then, his rages began.
And now, the one woman he had ever loved had handed him the ring he’d given her, and told him she would never see him again, and that he didn’t know what it meant to have respect for women. The bruises on her face had stood out starkly in the harsh overhead light right outside the door, while she’d made harsh remarks about his grotesque body with the tears running down her face, slurring her mascara, and making her look garish and racoon-ish. He was tempted to tell her so, to hurt her. Before he could, she turned, and was gone.
Jonah thought she would return. He waited in his dark living room. He called her cell phone. He dragged himself to the window on his crutches. He looked out at the harvest moon from his second floor window. The moon seemed to beckon to him. A river of milk flowed from the sky. Inexplicably, he thought of his mother. “Mom,” he whispered, and wept.
Then, he pulled himself up on the table near the window, and stood on the narrow sill, swaying a little. It wasn’t easy.
He stood, moon-silhouetted against the darkness.
I want to jump, he thought. And waited. Many minutes passed.
After an eternity, he climbed back down, slowly and painfully. Then, he slid to the floor, and passed out, amongst the bottles of beer that were strewn around him.
Rage had seen him through thirty-three years. Perhaps, sadness would see him through the next three decades.
A long slog awaited him. Nothing had ever been easy for Jonah. Nothing would ever be so.
As he dozed in a beer-haze, the moon poured down her milk over him.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #LoveandLoss, #OriginalShortStory, #Postaday, #Spina bifida, #TheDailyPost
Sep 8, 2016 Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story, Uncategorized
Dark-Side Priest
©September 8th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
It was the night of the lunar eclipse, and the earth had come to a stillness that boded no good. All living things had gone into their dens, or lairs, and nothing was abroad. The ocean struggled in vain with the wind, and all humans were within their little caves, sensing Change, but not knowing what it was.
As the eclipse began, a collective cry arose from the cave-dwellers, a cry of alarm and despair. What would they do without the moon?
Then, one man stood up, tall and heavy-browed, his club over his shoulder, and his animal skins hanging down his emaciated shoulder. He strode to the mouth of the large cave, where several of his family and tribe members sat huddled. As they watched him, a muttering arose.
He saw the shadow get larger, and guessed that it would cover the whole moon. Still, he reasoned, if it were a moving shadow, then it would move on, away from the moon. Of course, he had no real words for this, but his logic led him there.
And with that, came an idea.
He needed an animal.
He found one with his unerring spear. He dragged its thrashing body back to the cave. The muttering of his tribe became louder, but also appreciative.
He motioned them to stand back.
He needed a fire.
They had a small one going inside the cave. He strode in with an broken branch, strode out with a glowing stick, and fanned it into flame.
The others watched, pushing and shoving, wondering what he was going to do.
He stood over the fire, placed the carcass of the dead animal, turned it this way and that, and muttered unheard syllables, gazing up at the now-blacked out full moon in the sky.
Then, he paced around the fire, waving his arms one way, then repeating the motion the other way. His face took on an eerie glow, and his voice was harsh.
A delicious smell arose. The animal was cooking well. It smelled tantalizing. His family and others of his tribe felt their mouths watering. Some tried to approach him, but he waved them back with warning shrieks.
After taking some blackened bits of wood and making marks on his face, he began dancing around the fire.
His tribe watched, mouths agape. They were now both befuddled and afraid.
The man looked up, and saw that the shadow on the moon’s surface had been shifting steadily, and that some of the her silver glow was returning. His tribe members noticed this, as well, and their fear and bewilderment turned to awe.
The man stamped out the fire, and picked up the charred animal, and waved it at his people. They roared in approbation.
Then, he put it down, knelt, as if offering it to the moon. A gasp of admiration swept through his people. After this, he tore apart some of the deer’s flesh, and ceremoniously ate his first cooked venison.
Thus, the first Priest of the Tribe was born.
And he always got the best meat.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Eclipse, #OriginalShortStory, #Postaday, #PrehistoricTale, #TheDailyPost
Sep 7, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story
Photograph©Sandra Crook
Word Press: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Fantasy / Fairy-Tale
Treadle and Thread
©September 7th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Lyra sat weaving at her loom. Behind her was a strange device.
Cursed to dwell there eternally, Lyra dreamt of freedom. Food was brought to her, and mead. Through the shuttered window of the stone castle, she glimpsed a silver river weaving through the woods.
How I wish I could be there! she yearned.
The sun played about her fingers, impelling her towards the machine behind her.
Placing her just-woven silver cloak on the strange device, Lyra worked the treadle, enspelled and ensnared.
A heartbeat later, something unravelled out the window, a cry spinning wood-ward.
Silver threads joined the river.
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Thanks to Fairy Blog-Mother Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, as always, for hosting Friday Fictioneers. Thanks to the inimitable Sandra Crook for the photograph!
Tags: #Fantasy-FairyTale, #FridayFictioneers, #Loom, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt, #Treadle