Nov 22, 2017 Original Poetry

Tags: #Loneliness, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Jul 27, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story

PHOTO PROMPT © Janet Webb

Word Count:  100 words of text, exactly
Genre:  Realistic Fiction

Drowning
©July 27th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Leila stood in a corner, sipping water, wondering why she’d attended the party.

It’s not that I’m ugly, she thought.  I’m … boring.  And I hate small talk. 

Well, I won’t stick around, she decided, setting the glass down.  She moved towards the door, waving a vague goodbye. 

A beautiful woman who had glanced over a few times, detached herself from a group of attractive hipsters and came over.

“Hi, I’m Rona.  Want to join us?”

“I’ve got to catch a taxi home.”

“I’ll drive you home.  What’s your name?”

“Leila,” she answered.  She locked eyes with Rona.  Her heart lurched.

_________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, our much-admired Fairy Blog-Mother, for hosting us tirelessly at her Friday Fictioneers Salon, and to Janet Webb, for the evocative photograph.

Tags: #FridayFictioneers, #Loneliness, #Love, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt

Jan 19, 2014 Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on, Music

… And I had no idea that I was going to write a song.  These words below flowed  easily, as I put some chords together, and the melody came with the words.

You may not know this, Gentle Reader, but the last time I wrote a song was in the late 1990s.

Perhaps this will stay, perhaps it might not, but I liked it today.  I plan to record a rudimentary version of it tonight on my MacBookPro’sPhotoBooth, so as to keep a record of it.  Whether I will post the recording or not, only time will tell.  Meanwhile, here it is, raw.  And no, nothing at all prompted this.  It’s just a story.

_________________________________________________________

School-Girl with Smart-Phone
(OR: Perhaps it Doesn’t Really Matter)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
January 19th, 2014

The crystal face she peers into clouds right up.
Not a glimpse of clear sky,
Not a glimpse of hope.

She looks within, no messages pop right up.
No one to miss her,
No way to cope.

Should I stay or should I go?
Should I do my best to know?
Would it be the way for me,
To spread my wings, and to be truly free?

They don’t see her standing here alone so long.
They don’t see all her scars.
They cannot see her.

In the halls, as she walks by invisible,
People seem to stand so far,
They do not stir.

Should I stay or should I go?
Should I do my best to know?
Would it be the way for me,
To cut my wings, and then be so truly free?

Every empty canyon calls,
Every stretch of waterfall,
Every mountaintop so tall,
To each of these she starts to crawl.

Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.

A new sun will rise again
With me here or without.
Morning birds will fly again
With me here or without.

Trees will make their coat of green,
I will try to not be seen.

I will grow these roots and leaves,
And I will plant myself in earth.
I will find a face that’s undeceived,
And find it all to be of worth.

Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
She turns to her phone
She turn to her phone
Call me.

___________________________ The End ________________________

Tags: #Loneliness, #Original Poetry, Girl with SmartPhone, original song, school

Apr 4, 2013 Original Poetry, Teaching and Learning

Teacher: A Glimpse As I Passed By
(For Val)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 4, 2013

Almost in the abyss,
A young boy howls in
Soul-agony, a torment
That he cannot understand.
He sobs, beast-desolate
In the hallway, uncluttered
By others.  

I approach,
And see this:
Kindly teacher,
Clad in blue
Pats him gently,
Inexpressibly kind.

“It’ll be all right.
You’ll be fine.”
Her voice like soothing
Balm in Gilead,
Pours solace on his
Strange, wounded mind.
(For he is undeniably
Different from the others.)

Her goodness, a candle
Steady in his darkness,
Completely undoes him.
I walk by, heading elsewhere,
And try not to intrude.

He howls louder,
Lurches against her.
She hugs him with such love —
A well-spring
Of love, she is
An angel of beauty
An angel of warmth
Goodness glowing golden,
Like an energy-field
Around her.

All the comfort he needs
He finds right here,
In her enveloping frame
All the goodness nestled
In the encircling warmth
Of her motherly embrace.

And no matter what this child
Suffered today, whatever else
Torments, grips and twists
His grief-stricken heart,
He will remember this:

When he was most
Desolate and undone,
When he was most
Alone and abyssal,
There was someone.

And she leaned
Over the abyss
Plucked him up,
And brought him back
From the brink.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #kindness, #Loneliness, #Love, #NaPoWriMo, Abyss, Autistic Spectrum, Brink, Comfort, Education with soul, Goodness, grief, Misery, Saving, Special Education Student, teacher, Teaching the young

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