Aug 9, 2016 Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story, The Daily Post
The Merchant and the Mendicant
©August 9th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
A merchant clad in fine silk came stumbling along the mountain path. Dust covered his clothing, and so were his feet, though he was shod in good sandals. His brown eyes were stark and staring, his neatly trimmed hair and beard were dusty, and his breathing labored.
“I cannot walk any more,” Rajat thought. “This heat is killing me.”
He reached into his cloth bag, and took out a container of nuts and dried fruit and a stoppered metal container filled with water.
“At least, I have food,” he said aloud, to no one.
Someone answered from behind a tree. “Yes, you are fortunate. Could you share some with me? I have eaten only bugs and jamun for two weeks, and I would be grateful for some food.”
Rajat started visibly, but contained himself. His instinct was to cling to his food, but looking at the emaciated man who emerged from behind the tree and stood before him, dressed in dusty orange rags, with a rough growth of beard and matted locks, his selfishness wavered. He noticed that the man held a begging bowl in one hand, and a gnarled walking stick in the other.
“Yes, come join me,” said Rajat, and tipped a handful of nuts and dried fruit into a cloth handkerchief that he pulled out from his bag. He also took out two chappatis and two oranges, and offered one of each to the emaciated man, who refused the bread, but took the orange.
As the mendicant came forward and squatted beside Rajat, he could not help but notice the man’s radiant calmness. There was a stillness in his golden eyes. It perturbed Rajat. Watching the poor man eat slowly, Rajat was unaccountably touched by the trembling slowness of his movements. Rajat had never before paid any attention to the poor. He had spent his life making money, and tending to his family’s needs. When he’d passed the poor, he’d tossed a coin or two into their tin cups, but had never thought of them as people. Now, seeing this starved man, he was struck with a strange wonder, and a rising curiosity.
They did not converse while they ate. After eating, they took turns drinking from the stoppered tin bottle of water he carried. Rajat drank, passed the other his bottle, and was glad to see the mendicant holding the bottle away from his lips. Quietly, they passed the bottle to each other. A few drops fell to the ground when the mendicant drank with slightly shaky hands. The thirsty earth swallowed it up and left no trace.
And still, they said nothing.
Silence prevailed. Little lizards crept out from under the shade of boulders, and scampered across, making little puffs of dust. A staccato sound of a woodpecker broke the silence. Somewhere, they heard the almost-sweet call of an osprey. The earth panted in the heat, and the only cloud in the sky was loose and fluffy, like poorly carded white wool.
“Where are you going?” asked the mendicant.
“I don’t know,” said Rajat, staring into the distance. “I left my home, my wife, my brother, my son, my aging mother, my business. I’m just going, but not sure where.”
He sighed, and felt a stab of pain somewhere in his stomach. Perhaps, it was the food.
He realized that the mendicant was looking at him, waiting. There was a question in his eyes.
“‘Why did I leave,’ you want to ask? Because I’m sure my younger brother slept with my wife. I’ve seen how familiar he is with her, and I see how easy she is with him. Now, I’m not even sure that my son is my own. I couldn’t bear to be around them. I was afraid I’d kill him – or her. So, I said some harsh things, but controlled myself after that. My wife wept and denied it. My brother cursed me for being a suspicious and heartless beast. I didn’t believe either of them. I took my horse, my share of whatever money we had, bid my mother goodbye, and left. I grateful that my mother cannot see or hear very well, and that she doesn’t know what happened.”
The mendicant glanced at him, and was quiet for a time. Then, he spoke. “What about your son?” he asked.
“My son cried, and begged me to take him with me, so how could I not? But then, after the sun beat down on us, he cried again, and said he wanted to go home. What could I do? I set him on the horse, and told my horse to take him home. He knows the way. He’ll be all right.” Rajat tried to summon up indifference, but his voice shook a little.
To make up for this lapse, he reached in again into his bag, and offered him some flat bread again. “Want some?”
“No, thank you. I am content. This food was a luxury. I thank you for your kindness and your company,” replied the mendicant. His formality seemed incongruous, and didn’t suit his attire. His ribs moved as he spoke, and his eyes were hollows. Still, his words of contentment rang like a bell in the silence.
Silence fell again. The merchant laid a cloth on the ground under a tree, and lay down. The mendicant still squatted in the dust, now tracing patterns on the ground with a stick. Raj opened an eye, and said to the mendicant, “You can lie down, too. I don’t mind. What have I to lose? I have already lost everything of value. I am truly poor now. There is nothing left to live for. Perhaps, I should become a mendicant, like you.”
“Are you poor? And is this what you want? What you really want? Sometimes, I think men are fools, fools!” said the mendicant sharply. His eyes were bright in the sun, and his look stopped the merchant’s flood of self-pity.
Rajat was taken aback by this outburst. “What about you? he asked the mendicant. “What are you running from?
“The question is: What am I walking towards? I have given up this world, but I do not despair, like you do. I have no one and nothing to hold me back. I seek contentment. Rage does not fuel me,” replied the mendicant. “I was once a man of means. Then, I was ruined. I didn’t mind. It helped me see clearly for the first time. Still, I wish I had a family or children. I’d have liked that.” His tone was wistful.
“Well, you can have mine!” quipped Rajat bitterly, but stopped laughing when he saw the mendicant’s calm look. “Well, I’m going to sleep You may lie down on this mat with me, if you wish. You’re a strange one, but I like you.” He closed his eyes.
The mendicant said nothing, but quietly laid himself down at the far end of the cloth. The sun beat down less fiercely as a few hours passed. The hot, sticky afternoon wrung itself dry into evening. Purple patches appeared before Rajat’s closed eyes. Green ones followed. He couldn’t sleep, but lay still, hardly moving a muscle. He was sore all the way down to his soul.
Little scampering noises added to the oppressive stillness. A squirrel sat on its haunches, and nibbled a groundnut they had dropped. Its tail flashed in the sun, like a semaphore. Rajat didn’t see it. He had fallen into a swound.
The stars were bright in the sky when Rajat came to with a start. The night air was cool. It came to him in a flash that he had met a mendicant, and spoken with him. He turned to his side to see if the fellow was asleep.
There was no one there. A smell of sandalwood hovered about the place.
Where the mendicant had lain was a pattern of shaved sticks of wood. The sticks pointed to the direction from which Rajat had come. Near it, in the dust was a picture of a house. A little boy and a woman stood beside the house, waving. Beside them stood an old woman. She seemed to be crying. On her other side was a distraught young man. He seemed to be calling out to Rajat.
Rajat stood up, shocked, staring at the pictures on the ground. He looked around, and began to call out for the mendicant, but stopped. He hadn’t even asked him his name.
Heart beating faster, he packed his ground-cloth, and his food and water in his cloth bag. He knew he was wanted at home. He reached down, and looked again at the picture. Underneath it, was a single printed word. It read: Luxury.
And Rajat started back down the path that would lead to homewards.
As he receded from view, a new picture seemed to emerge from the dust. It showed a man walking homewards, towards love.
Just then, a sudden gust of wind rose up out of nowhere. It blew away the sticks, and the pictures in the dust. Nothing remained, not even a footprint. A patter of raindrops fell.
In the distance, an emaciated mendicant walked away, his begging bowl in his hand. No one saw him walk into the gathering clouds. In moments,the horizon swallowed him up.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Luxury, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost