Sep 22, 2015 Original Short Story, Writing 101
Bidi, Bibi
©September 22nd, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Suresh sat on a little box under the makeshift shade of his fruit stand-shack. The sun burned high overhead, and the air was thick with yellow dust and smoke. Fumes from the diesel trucks and rickshaws plunged his senses into a nightmare of asthmatic cloudedness. From his greying blue cloth bag, he dug out the inhaler the doctor had prescribed, and took two puffs.
After replacing the inhaler in the bag, he reached under his shirt, and pulled out a small bidi, which was in a little pack he had wrapped in a grungy handkerchief. This would soothe him, he thought. Then, remembering how his wife, Meena, berated him when he smoked it (it stank to high heaven, and burned a hole in his earnings), he paused, then shrugged. A man had to have something to ease the mindless monotony of the day. He took out a stick of agarbatti from a wooden box, where he kept his money, and lit it in front of a small Ganesha he always had in his store for good luck. Immediately, the fragrance of sandalwood and amber filled the air, and made his spirits rise a little. Ah, that would make things better! Then, he lit his bidi, and took a deep, satisfying whiff.
Who cared if his asthma would overpower him again shortly? Who cared if the diesel fumes killed him? He had his bidi, and was at peace with the world for the nonce.
He forgot his mother, who had coughed all day and all night long, and then given up the struggle a month ago — he was too beaten by her struggle towards the end to grieve. He forgot his twelve-year old son who had been getting into trouble at school. He didn’t care if the rich housewives, from the fancy apartments nearby, haggled with him over the price of mangoes or apples, or custard apples or bananas. He didn’t care if any dreams he had once had, had disappeared in a puff of smoke. He could ignore the nagging pain in his gut. He could focus on the here and now of the world before him.
With interest, he watched the pretty teenaged girls go by in their churidar-kurtas, chattering like parrots, and as gaily bedecked in beautiful colors. He shook his head when he saw them holding hands surreptitiously with their boyfriends, but a part of him envied them their freedom. He had had no such luck. Married at twenty-one to a village girl, he had no idea what romance was — sex, yes, but romance? He saw it in movies, and wondered at it. Would he ever weep over a lost love? Would he care? He was numb within. The bidis helped. The agarbatti helped too.
He stuck the bidi in a pot of earth near him, and turned to adjust the beautifully arranged towers of fruit arrayed in pyramids behind him. He liked doing this. To him, this was a sort of meditation, an art.
Suddenly, he heard a footstep in front of him, and turned back. His heart did a double-take. In front of him stood a golden apparition. It took him a minute to recognize her — Meena, his wife. Her hair shone like a raven’s wing, and her large, limpid black eyes, always expressive, but usually only registering tiredness, irritation or worry, were shining. She was wearing her wedding sari, a gold-edged red sari, with shiny spangles of gold. She looked happy (when was the last time she’d looked happy? Oh yes, at the birth of their son.).
She didn’t even notice the bidi stuck in the pot of earth (thank Ganesha, he’d stuck it in there).
“What are you doing here?” Suresh asked stupidly. A strange feeling was flooding him. He had no idea what it was. It could have been love. He was happy to see her — something he didn’t often feel, because of her constant tiredness and lack of interest in him.
Meena opened her fist and showed him the paper she was holding.
Suresh took a look at it, and the fruit-stand shack revolved around him.
A real-estate developer was willing to pay them fifty lakhs for their little plot of ancestral land on the outskirts of town — the land of his fathers, his forefathers, not much to boast of, but something that was theirs. He stared unseeingly into the crowds of people passing by, not saying anything for a minute.
Meena looked anxiously at him. “Aren’t you happy? Why don’t you speak? We’ll be rich. You won’t have to be here all day, and smoke that nasty stuff. Our son can go to a better school than the municipal school. You won’t have to haggle with those fat housewives who think they’re better than you and I are.”
He looked at her then, saw her shining eyes, and the strange feeling swelled inside him. And yet … the land, his land!
“Let me think,” he said.
With exquisite instinct, she knew not to press him. Together, they sat and watched the crowds go by. No one bought any fruits from him that afternoon. The sun beat down ruthlessly upon his little shack-stand. The agarbatti died, and was replaced by another. They ate the roti, dal and sabji that she’d brought for him and for herself. He drank some coconut water, which he bought from a nearby vendor, and offered her half of it.
And through all this, he was silent. Then, he pulled out the bidi he had stuck in the pot of earth, lit it, and smoked. Meena said nothing, nothing at all. She just looked at him. He made up his mind. He had fallen in love.
“Okay,” he said.
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Glossary:
Bidi: A thin, Indian cigarette filled with tobacco, and wrapped in a leaf. There is much more nicotine and risk of oral cancer in bidis than in cigarettes.
Bibi / Biwi: Wife in Hindi
Agarbatti: Incense sticks.
Churidar-Kurta: Leggings and long tunic worn by girls in Northern India.
Roti: Whole-ground wheat-flour flatbread (resembles a tortilla)
Dal: In this case, cooked lentils, usually moong dal.
Sabji: Curried vegetables
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(Note: The photograph featured here is from The Deccan Chronicle article: http://archives.deccanchronicle.com/130716/news-current-affairs/gallery/ap-and-south-india-pictures-16th-july-2013)
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Tags: #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, acceptance, Bidis, Fruit vendors in India, love story, poverty
Sep 10, 2015 Original Short Story
A Love Story And A Canoe-Trip
©September 10th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Every night, Jacob cleaned his hoe, his rakes, his pitchfork and his trowel, and put them away. He’d take out his fiddle, and play a slow tune on his back porch. His Bernese Mountain Dog, Buckminster, lay at his feet. The sunset stretched into infinity. The corn-stalks were ripening. The rain had been good this year, and the lake nearby was full of fish. He felt he should be happy.
He stopped playing, went inside, put the kettle on the stove, cracked open two eggs, made an omelette with onions, fresh-picked tomatoes and green peppers, and ate it with brown bread, smeared with yellow butter. He heated up coffee, sloshed in some rum, and drank deep and fully.
Then, he washed himself noisily at the large kitchen sink, and towelled himself off, humming tonelessly all the while. Something moved at the corners of his vision — a shadow, perhaps. He turned and looked. There was nothing, nothing at all. Disappointed, he went on towelling.
He had been born mute. He was not deaf, though. Everyone but his wife had thought he was a loser. Josie had been beautiful, dark-eyed and adoring — and he had loved her deeply during the ten years they’d been married. Then, one day, after the rains failed to come for three years in a row, she had left him, quietly, without awakening him, at dawn.
He had awoken to the sound of her car hitting a tree.
They say he was never the same after that, but he thought he was. Here he was, playing his fiddle, with his dog at his feet, working the fields, eating normally, sleeping at 10:00 every night. Here he was, sowing, tending, reaping the corn, with a few hired men and women. Here he was, playing at the local coffee-houses with the local Old-Time group cobbled together from old friends and school-mates, who’d come to see him for who he was — a strong, unspeaking, gentle giant of a man, with music pouring out his being, and with love for all things that grew. With grace, he had dealt with everything that was handed to him, even this, the most devastating blow of all.
Of course, he was fine. Wasn’t he?
He went upstairs, changed into his night-clothes, and took out the photograph of Josie. He looked at it carefully for a little while, then put it away, after wiping both the photograph and his eyes with a rough face-cloth.
Then, he got into bed, flipped open Robinson Crusoe, a book that Josie had loved, and read for a few minutes. Reading was always difficult for him, but he loved it, carefully mouthing the words to himself, loving the words, as his wife had taught him to do. He came to a description of a canoe, and paused in his reading.
Somehow, this canoe brought him pleasure as no other boat had before. He loved rowing, loved going onto the glassy stretch of water on the lake near his fields, loved seeing the reflections on it, the darting fish, the languidly waving fronds below, the rocks that slipped past his vision into unfathomable depths. His eyes closed, and the book slipped from his hands, and he was asleep.
And he was rowing, rowing, rowing onto a faraway lake on a canoe that gleamed silver and black in the moonlight. And at the prow of it sat his wife, smiling, holding out her hands to him, and gleaming silver and black in the moonlight. And his dog, Buckminster, sat proudly at the stern of the canoe limned in light, his tongue hanging out gladly. And Jacob sat in the middle, resting his paddles, smiling back at Josie, his eyes shining black and silver in the moonlight. His heart was filled with song, and he reached out to hold her hands.
In the morning, when the sunlight streamed in, and illuminated the room with gold, washing out the paler gold of the reading light, it found Jacob asleep, with a smile on his face, and the dog at his feet.
Neither of them stirred, even as the sun rose high overhead.
Somewhere, a beautiful shadow detached itself from the wall, and walked towards them. Golden dust-motes danced into the room.
The air was still. Outside, a fly buzzed outside on the window-sill, and a lone loon called across the lake for its mate.
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Tags: #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, canoe, love story
Sep 10, 2015 Original Short Story, Writing 101
The Attic Window
©September 9th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
The day that Shelby laid eyes on the old house to which she had to move with her parents and brother, she hated everything about it — the peeling paint on the cedar siding, its old roof shingles, its crookedly leaning pine tree in the back yard and oak tree in the front, its straggly, overgrown front-yard, the brick path leading to the house, and the old bird bath that looked like it had survived a few centuries of weathering.
Tears filled her eyes, and she brushed them away surreptitiously. Her father put down their bags, his voice sounding false and hearty, “All this needs is a lick of paint, some work on the roof, some weeding and watering, and it’ll be great!”
The truth was that they could not afford much of anything. Her father had come into a small inheritance, and he used it to buy this place from a slick realtor, who seemed very eager to sell it at half the going rate for a house this historic (it had been built in 1875).
Her father added, “At least we will have a roof over our heads. Think about that! And we’ll plant a vegetable garden. You can have your own flower-garden, Shelbs! What say?”
“That sounds … lovely, Dad!” she replied, looking around, not seeing how anything beautiful could grow on that messy, weedy patch of front-yard.
Her brother, three years old, and curious about everything, ran about happily, chattering at top speed, excited to be in a new place. “Stop it!” Shelby said loudly, suddenly, and he stopped short, eyes round and puzzled; she wasn’t usually so brusque and bossy. Then, he shrugged it off, and went around the side of the house, to see what lurked there. Shelby’s father went after him.
Her mother, tired from all the packing and moving, but seeing her daughter’s distress, said, “Shelby, come! Let me show you where your room is. You’ll be thrilled.”
Shelby picked up her two large duffel bags, and followed her mother through the door. She looked around, and was intrigued, in spite of herself. There was a large fireplace with a white mantel over it, and a bay window that looked out into the small stretch of woods on the left of the house. At the back was a sunny kitchen, and next to it, the ornate dining room. Shelby wondered cynically how they would furnish all these old rooms, when they had nothing more than a small kitchen table, four rickety kitchen chairs, an old, squashy sofa for the living room, plus their beds, small dressers and night-tables for the bedrooms. They did have a huge red rug, though, so that might cheer things up a bit in the living room, she mused, and the thought cheered her up.
Her mother pointed up their staircase. “Your room is above ours. Why don’t you go on up, and check it out?”
Shelby shrugged, and dragged her duffel bags up the staircase. On the next floor were two rooms and a large W.C. Above that, she presumed, was her room, so, after a quick glance around (it didn’t seem so bad here, after all), she went to the next floor.
Her bags fell to the floor with a soft thud, raising a sudden swirl of dust.
This was her room — it was meant for her. There was pretty wallpaper with roses and green leaves repeating themselves, and a little door that probably led to the eaves-storage space. There was a large clothes-closet with its own door. There was a built-in shelf, where she could put her books. And a tiny bathroom of her own!
But best of all was the window.
It stood there, at the end of the dormer, throwing light onto the floor, flooding the room with a golden glow.
Shelby was hypnotized by it. She found herself being drawn to it, drawn to its spare outline, as if it were some sort of window in a dream.
But as she walked towards it, a voice said Don’t do that! That’s my window! What are you doing in my room?”
She whirled around.
There was no one there.
I must be imagining it, she thought.
Still, it wouldn’t do to annoy whoever it was who’d spoken, real or not, so she said, to no one in particular, “It’s MY room, and I have a right to be here. And I will!”
An exclamation at the door made her turn around. Her mother, who was standing in the doorway, looked nonplussed, and said, “Of course, it is your room. And of course you have a right to be here.”
“Mom! Did you hear that voice?”
“There’s no voice, silly! How do you like your room?”
“I loved it, until I heard the voice. Mom, I don’t like it here. It’s … spooky.”
“Don’t be silly, Shelby! Look, why don’t you put some of your things from your duffel into your closet, and follow me to the kitchen. I need some help downstairs.” And, with that, her mother tap-tapped down the stairs.
Shelby looked around slowly. A strange palm print had appeared on the wall. The voice said, “I told you — this is my room. No one uses my room, and lives to tell the tale.”
Shelby could not even scream. She turned, and hurtled down the stairs, tripping and falling as she did so. Her voice could be heard, high and trembling, as she told her mother that she would never, ever, ever live in that house, and if they forced her to live there, she was going to run away to her grandparents’ home in Milton now, and nothing would change her mind, ever.
Upstairs, a swirl of dust shaped like a young girl smiled to itself, and held one of Shelby’s shoes which had fallen off when she’d hurtled out of the room.
Another one bites the dust, the dust-girl susurrated to herself, and looked out the window. A hysterically crying Shelby was walking out of the house, followed by her mother, and her father, who was holding her little brother’s hand.
Why did you do that, idiot? said another swirl of dust, as it materialized beside her, and watched the family leave. She’s just a young girl.
Shut up, Tom! You’re just my baby brother! said the dust-girl, and she slapped at him. He sank back into the floor, frowning.
The dust-swirl-girl went back to the window, and looked down. The hateful car that had driven up was now driving off.
Good!
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#writing101
Sep 9, 2015 Friday Fictioneers, Original Short Story
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Word Count: 100 words
Charon-Me
©September 9th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
The canoe was beautiful — cedar jointed together snug and tight, it curved gracefully like a swan that could slice the waters.
Inhaling deeply, letting the scent of the wood drift into my bones, ignoring the cancerous pain in them (my everyday reality), I pushed the canoe into my beloved glacial lake which mirrored the blue bowl of sky above, finely hammered into hot blue steel.
I did not wear my life-vest. I could not swim.
I rowed energetically to the middle of the lake, and looked down. Something swirling in the ninety-foot depths invited me in.
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Thanks, as always to our Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting Friday Fictioneers, and to Jennifer Pendergast, for that lovely photo-prompt!
Aug 21, 2015 Original Short Story, The Daily Post
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Red Pill, Blue Pill.
Choose! (A Short Story)
©August 21st, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
On Tuesday morning last week, I awoke with a hammering heart. I had waited for this day all my life. After showering, I buttoned my white, poet’s blouse with shaking fingers, pulled on a pair of stylish, deep red slacks, tied a dark blue ribbon in my long braid that swung down my back, and pulled on silk stockings. I stepped into my red pumps, and shouldered my long-strapped dark-blue mailman’s bag.
I surveyed myself in the mirror. Sea-blue eyes stared back at me, shining brown hair caught the sunshine of a bright June day. I applied lipstick lovingly, lavishly, then, smacking my lips, I stepped back, and admired myself. Not bad, I mouthed to my reflection. Perhaps, my eyes needed a touch of shadow? Liner? No, I don’t do well with those — I tend to rub the corners of my eyes (lack of sleep), and they would get smeared if I did. I looked closer at my reflection, and frowned — there was a shadow above my lip. Damn! Well, Sally Hansen could take care of that … and she did.
I took care to feed my cat, Jazzy, who looked a little startled. Usually, I look like me, not a stylishly dressed lady. Now be good, I telepathed to her, and she stared back haughtily. What do you think I am, a dog?
I soothed her hurt feelings, assured her that I’d be back for supper, and left, clattering unevenly down the stairs. I’m unused to pumps, you see.
I took the Number 77 bus all the way into Cambridge, switched to another bus, and made my way to a dingy building somewhere in Boston. I won’t reveal it, for fear of causing trouble, so don’t bother to find out where it is, all right?
I pushed open the door to No. ____, and went in. The place was enshrouded in darkness. Nervousness returned.
“Anybody there?” I said in a false, higher-pitched voice, the better for … him to hear me.
A light came on. I saw a dingy couch, a threadbare Oriental carpet, some tattered armchairs, and pictures on the walls of beautiful women posing in various alluring attitudes.
A man in a long, purple cloak (A cloak? Where in the world was I?) emerged from another room, whose doorway had resembled a bookshelf.
He surveyed me with distaste, and said in a deep, low voice which dripped with disdain, “Yes? May I help you?”
“I … er… answered the advertisement — it said something about switching, um …” I trailed off, feeling awkward and flat-footed in my high-heels.
“Oh,” he said, comprehension dawning on his face.
“I thought it would be, like, a clinic, with a surgeon, and all …” I finished, lamely. Internally, I was slapping my forehead. Why did I answer this advertisement? It was a hoax, wasn’t it?
No, it wasn’t, said a voice in my head.
I looked up. Another cloaked man had joined this one, and obviously had more authority over him. His cloak was a royal purple, edged with blue-gold and red-gold threads.
And yes, it was I who spoke, he added in an amused tone.
“So, what should I do? Do I need to be examined? How long will it take?” By now, my heart was hammering in a strange blend of excitement and fear. What if everything went horribly wrong?
“Come into the other room with me,” he said, now speaking aloud. The other man curled his lip, and went back into the recesses of the room beyond, and the one in authority went in behind him.
I followed.
The room beyond was clinically bare, except for two pictures on the wall — one of a man, looking quite handsome, and one of … his twin, a woman, looking stunning.
Below the man’s picture was a blue pill. Below the woman’s was a red one.
“The order in which you choose will determine the outcome,” said the man in the blue-and-red-gold-threaded purple cloak.
He asked me a few questions. I answered them. He wrote them all down, created a copy, asked me to sign both, gave me the copy, and told me to choose.
Panic suddenly flooded me. What if I didn’t like what I got? But it was too late to back out now.
I chose.
An hour later, when I stepped out into the street, the door which I’d shut behind me vanished. There was nothing there.
I, however, was changed. The panic was gone, replaced by calm joy.
I was All-Woman.
I was free to be me.
I hoped Jazzy the cat wouldn’t mind.
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Tags: Gender-reassignment, Magic, Transformations
Aug 17, 2015 Original Short Story, The Daily Post
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Through the Window.”
Through the Window, Darkly … (Short Story Response)
©August 17th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
It was autumn, and the pre-dawn darkness was absolute. A skunk crept on silver-dark feet outside. Looking up from my physics textbook, I stared at it, fascinated, as I always am, by nocturnal creatures.
I left my book and notes, and wandered towards through the window. I’d been up all night, preparing for an exam the next day. One of my failings is that I suffer from insomnia and a hyperactive imagination. This is great for doing work, and for studying when one is on overdrive, as I was, but not quite so nice when one crashes and burns after a binge of sleeplessness three nights in a row, as I’ve done frequently.
So, perhaps that is why I could swear I saw two hands scrabbling about in the grass outside my window — just two pale, expressive hands, decked with gleaming rings and brightly tipped with red-polish, wandering about in the bright light spilling out of my living room into the darkness beyond.
I froze. A scream gathered itself into a tight fist and jammed into my gullet. A strangulated “meep” squeaked out. Momentarily paralyzed, I came to myself, turned, skidded into the kitchen, armed myself with my biggest knife, and returned to the living room. Standing at the French windows which led into the yard, I bared my teeth in what I hoped was a menacing snarl. A horrible, guttural noise emerged from somewhere, and I realized it was from my throat.
The hands scrabbling in the dirt paused. The fingers waved in my direction, then walked crab-wise towards me. The fingers looked … friendly?
My heart, which had been beating one hundred and fifty beats a minute now slowed to a nice, round hundred. Still too fast, but more from adrenaline now, than from fear — still, I didn’t let my guard down. One never knows. Strange hands in one’s yard, glimpsed through a window in the pre-dawn dark, cannot be fully trusted.
I watched them approach me, and unconsciously, my grip on the knife tightened. One cannot undo billennia of fear in the human organism in a matter of minutes — and fear translates into violence, if not into flight. (Perhaps, that’s why aliens leave our planet alone. “Don’t go to Earth. They have humans there, and you know what that means, right?”)
The hands, having found two small July 4th-type American flags on the dirt directly outside my window (How, you ask? Beats me! I had no idea how any of this made sense) semaphored, “We come in peace.”
At least, that’s what I thought it semaphored. How was I to know otherwise? I thought, Perhaps they are aliens. Two of them, by the looks of it. Maybe, they do come in peace.
I patted the area where my heart beat a steady drum, and opened the window …
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*******town Police Bulletin:
A newspaper delivery man found a young man dead at the open door of his house on Main Street. He had appeared to have crawled to the door. His eyes were open. There was no sign of violence. Strangely, there were two small American flags stuck in both his hands, which were clenched shut. Two fingers were found on the scene. Investigation is in progress.
Tags: Original Short Story based on prompt "Through the Window"