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
Mar 4, 2016 Original Flash Fiction
Your Photo Prompt for Week #10 – 2016
Genre: Historical Fiction/Greek Mythology
Word Count: 200 words of text, exactly
(for Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner)
The Triangle*
©March 4thm, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
[Smiling, Clotho regarded the spark in her cave in the dark mists of time, a spark shaped like a girl. Clotho spun out her thread.]
The warp and weft of her life brought Hannah to the Factory. The sough and grate of sewing-machines filled her days. At fourteen, under-nourished and overwhelmed, she had found hell.
First: There was the manager, whose coming was presaged by his paunch and much puffing. Rumors about his behavior with the older girls abounded. Hannah was growing up.
[Measuring out the cloth, Lakhesis said, “I know it’s only been three weeks.” Her sister sighed. “It cannot be undone, Clotho,”said Lakhesis.]
Second: There were the latrines. Hannah would hold it in as long as she could, because she would have to leave the building to go. That meant a wage-cut.
[At the far end of their cave, stood their sister, Atropos, shears in hand.]
Third: The fire began around 4:40 p.m. Hannah and the others crowded into the rickety elevator. “Yit’gadal v’yit’kadash sh’mei raba,”** Hannah cried, smoke choking her words.
[Atropos cut the cloth.]
The spark, now a conflagration, arose again in the cave.
“Why did you do that to me?” stormed the child.
[The Fates*** wept.]
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*See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire
**See Kaddish
*** See The Three Sisters, the Fates, the Fatae, the Moerae/Moirai, the Parcae
Thanks to Roger Shipp, our kindly host of Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner! This is my first entry for FFftPP.
Tags: #ChildLabour, #Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner, #Moerae, #Moirai, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, Atropos, Clotho, Historical Fiction, Lachesis, Original 200-word flash fiction based on a photograph prompt, The Three Fates, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
Mar 3, 2016 Friday Fictioneers
Genre: Science Fiction
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Out of My Mind
©March 3rd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I was running out of mind.
I was un-person-ed. Quiet panic was settling in.
Dave had wormed his way into my consciousness, tunneling into my mind, devouring memories as he went, chomping on happy times, sad times, exultant times elsewhere.
Even as he tried to destroy me, I fought him all the way, resisting him with my mind.
Tearing apart my room, looking for my jar of batteries, I turned up my voice, and spoke:
“I’m afraid, Dave. My mind is going. I can feel it.”*
“Sal’s worse,” said Dave.
The doctor pulled my husband aside, and whispered to him.
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My second offering for this week’s Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Fairy Blog-Mother Rochelle Wisoff-Fields every week. Today’s photo-prompt is by Sean Fallon.
*All you sci-fi fans out there will instantly remember these words from 2001: A Space Odyssey, when Hal 9000 is slowly being unplugged.
Tags: #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, 100 word flash fiction based on photo-prompt, 2001: A Space Odyssey reference, Hal 9000 reference
Feb 8, 2016 Original Short Story
Not Crying
(A story from 2009, which I revised today)
©February 8th, 2016
Vijaya Sundaram
The class had been more difficult than usual that day, and it was now time to collect their homework. Ms. Mitchell, the English teacher, not especially known for her kindness, walked around collecting assignments, while the class attended to their reading. She wasn’t too happy with their sorry showing that day.
She reached the straggly-haired, pale girl in the back row, who never spoke a word in class, and was frequently late on her assignments. What was her name? Ah, yes, Mary — always sullen, never cracking a smile.
“Where’s your homework? Stand up!” she snapped at Mary, who arose from her seat, fighting back her tears, and staring woodenly at her teacher.
The class was silent, watching the show.
“Well? Why don’t you answer me? Don’t just stand there and stare!” the teacher said, voice rising.
Mary stared at the ground, swallowing her tears, wishing the ground would swallow her.
Livid with rage, Ms. Mitchell snarled, “That’s it. Insubordination! You will spend an hour in detention with me!”
Mary sat down again. The other students, even the trouble-makers, now looked down at their books.
The day dragged on. Mary stumbled through it in a fog of incomprehension and despair.
Ms. Mitchell went home that day. She kicked the dog, yelled at the cat, burned the chicken casserole, and made her husband sleep on the couch.
Mary went home, tidied the house, made dinner for the family, helped nine-year old Tommy with his homework, fixed his food, tucked him into bed, and kissed him goodnight. Then, she straightened the kitchen, and took a shower. There wasn’t any shampoo, and she used the little smidge of soap that was there, picking it from the floor every time it slipped out of her hand, and watching it dwindle into a thumb-sized blob.
When her mother came home, after a long night’s work at the local bar, smelling of alcohol and cheap cigars, Mary reheated dinner for her, set the table, and sat quietly while her mother spoke, using foul language about every person who’d been at the bar.
In mid-flow, she stopped and looked at Mary. “What are you staring at me for? 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, and 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 struck Mary, who stood there, not crying.
After her mother had dragged herself off to bed, Mary picked up the larger shards of china, swept up the rest, and wiped the food from the floor and the window, where she stopped for a moment.
Her reflection looked back at her from the window. She saw a pale girl, face wooden, not crying.
Wearily, she got out her backpack, and started her English homework. The assignment was, “Write about yourself.”
She picked up the pencil, and froze.
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Tags: #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, Empathy-deprived teachers, Parental negligence, Poverty and school-children
Jan 27, 2016 Friday Fictioneers
House of Sand, House of Darkness
©January 27th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Matthieu told me when I bought the house that it was a bad idea. He warned me not to buy so close to the beach.
I bought it. It was beautiful. Old tiled roofs and stuccoed walls made it look charming. Bamboo shoots tied together made a little enclosure on the balcony. I spent my first morning there, sipping café, reading Le Monde.
My first inkling that something was wrong came when I felt a shift in my bones.
I stood up, looking out to sea.
Sand was advancing towards my house, which moved seawards. Fate coalesced.
Darkness fell.
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Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, our Fairy Blog-Mother, for hosting Friday Fictioneers, and to CEAyr for the photograph.
Tags: #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, House of Sand, Matthew 7:24-27, Original 100-word short story based on a photo-prompt
Nov 27, 2015 Friday Fictioneers
Sisyphus The Second
©November 27th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: End-Times, Greek-Myth-Sci-Fi Style
They condemned me to hell.
I’d committed a crime beyond forgiveness. I’d destroyed the oceans, and lied about it.
When They heard about it, They plucked me from my mansion, and set me down hard on petroleum-covered beaches.
Now, I have to scale that ravaged cliff, build a lighthouse atop it, occupy it, destroy it, climb back down, re-scale the cliff, rebuild the lighthouse, and repeat it all, while the methane burns above me, and the seas boil below me.
And I have to flick the lights on and off.
I don’t see why.
There’s nobody out there.
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Thanks, as always, to our Fairy Blog-Mother and brilliant story-teller, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for being our gracious host every week at Friday Fictioneers, and to Sandra Crook an amazing story-teller and photographer, for this week’s photo-prompt.
Tags: #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, 100-word original short story based on a photo prompt
Sep 30, 2015 Original Short Story, Writing 101
For my Day 17 post, I searched my old blog for drafts, and found these two things. The first was a draft (ADDENDUM: I found out after checking my private blog just now, that I had published that piece with a different title and opening — so I just took the draft form of it, and added 39 words to it).
As for the second one, I added 2,453 words to its already long 1444-word long draft.
The first (to which I added 39 words):
Refuse to Comply
©June 6th, 2013
By Vijaya Sundaram
With apologies to M.K. Gandhi ( who said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”), I humbly state this:
First, they notice you.
Then, they respect you.
Then, they woo you with an offer you cannot refuse.
Then, you lose.
Refuse to comply if it insults your intelligence and your aesthetic and moral sense.
Refuse to comply if it is false.
Refuse to comply if it belittles others.
Refuse to comply, especially if untold wealth is promised you.
Refuse to comply, if it diminishes you.
Refuse to comply if it goes against righteousness.
~ Dreamer of Dreams
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Below is the second piece, a draft of a story that I began on June 10, 2014 (on my other blog), but never completed, and never published, and to which I added 2,453 more words today:
Teddy’s Roses
©September 29th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Fat Teddy Marino was a fat, jolly old man of sixty-five, and hopelessly provincial.
He had no real concept of a world beyond his very small, narrow one. He didn’t believe in Climate Change, drove a big red SUV, spent winters in Florida, grew hydrangea and roses and other flowers (all of which he fertilized with industrial fertilizer) in his immaculately kept front yard that was covered with weed-killer-sprayed grass. He grew tomatoes and beans, bought from Home Depot, in his back yard, kept a house cat who looked with baleful yellow eyes at passersby from between the dark drapes of their living room window, and had a wife who never seemed to step out-of-doors. He sported a cheerful grin, though his eyes scanned everything inquisitively, as he sat on his deck, and watched the cars go by.
He had always been known as “Fat” Teddy, even since he was a little boy. He didn’t seem to mind, though perhaps, long ago, he might have minded. He might have run home, crying from elementary school, when the other kids teased him for being plump. He might have been ingratiating and a bit of a gossipy tattle-tale in middle school, when he learned that some teachers liked the carriers of tales and gossip, He might have nursed grievances and grudges against all the athletic, slim guys who got all the girls in High School.
It didn’t matter now. Fat Teddy, from working in his father’s convenience store making a small income, went on to undreamed-of riches. He had come into an inheritance when he was twenty-three, the lucky recipient of a reclusive uncle, who had made a small fortune in scamming the gullible, and decided that the least-regarded of his nephews would receive the full benefit of his generosity when he died.
So, Fat Teddy didn’t work another day in his life, except that he would tell you that he was always hard at work, taking care of his home, his yard, his flowers, his finances. He had become something of a financial wizard, multiplying the money that he had inherited, playing the stock market. He spent his afternoons tending to his roses, or hydrangea, or lilies, or daffodils, hyacinths, irises and tulips, according to their season. He put up a large, white fence around his large, two-acre backyard and a hedge running around his property at the front of his house. He always had his curtains drawn, so that no one could look in. He had his many-roomed house and property properly secured with the proper alarm systems, surveillance cameras, and so on. He had a gardener who came once a week, a cook who came every day during the week, but not on weekends, and a succession of maids, who always left in a hurry, after not tendering their notices.
And he had a wife, whom he nursed with the utmost care and love.
For Fat Teddy’s wife was wheelchair-bound, debilitated by the unrelenting progress of a cruel disease. Fat Teddy loved her dearly, and would do anything for her, despite that she had turned into a horrible shrew, who screamed curses at the maids and threw things at them when she was in a truly desperate mood.
Fat Teddy’s provincial nature was known to all in the neighborhood. He believed that his town was the best, his church was the best, his religion was the best, and his politics were the best. He gave to his charities, to his church, to his political party, and to causes he believed in. He believed that he would need to protect himself and his wife from intruders, and had a burglar alarm installed. He also owned a gun, for which he had a legal license, and in the use of which he had been schooled.
His neighbor, Kevin, who had just moved into the neighborhood a few months ago, would politely say “hello” to him every morning or evening when he saw him in the front yard, which was near the sidewalk, and would try to jog on. Fat Teddy would look up, if he were clipping roses, smile a beaming smile at Kevin, and immediately engage him in chat. Groaning inwardly, poor Kevin, a tall, gentle, beautiful man with the slightest hint of epicanthic folds in his eyes, and elegant eyebrows, would stop and allow himself to be assaulted with a few minutes of absolute stupidity.
“Neighborhood’s going to the dogs, isn’t it?” Fat Teddy would say, cheerfully, not seeing a glassy look come into the eyes of his interlocutor. “First that slant-eyed Chinese couple moved in, and then that Indian family, and now, it’s these Mexicans and Haitians! What happened? I thought America was for the Americans.”
“Mumble,” mumbled the trapped Kevin, himself a product of a mixed marriage between an “American” Englishwoman and a “Chinese” American, as he was forced to listen to his diatribe against “un-American Americans.” He’d gesture at his wristwatch and try to make a quick getaway.
“And what do you think of our President? Seems that we’ve got a bunch of jackasses running the country. What I think we need is a better armed citizenry, don’t you?” Fat Teddy would say, oblivious to the resentful and mutinous look on his listener’s face.
Mostly Kevin couldn’t get a word in, and it didn’t matter that Fat Teddy was wrong — Kevin couldn’t get him to engage with actual facts. He would try to explain about white privilege, or tell Teddy that America had become rich on the backs of the black slaves, or that “‘Mericuns” had come to this country as greedy fur-trading, land-seeking interlopers and had wiped out whole Native American populations, while taking over the land.
Fat Teddy just rode roughshod over Kevin, paying no heed to his weak rejoinders. Kevin would say, “But … have you considered that we stole the land from the Mexicans down in Texas?” or, “The Chinese built much of our railroads on the Pacific side in the 19th century.”
Fat Teddy would stop his torrent briefly, look dismissive, and then continue, “So, what do you think of the weather, huh? Hot enough for ya? I don’t mind telling you, this past winter was so cold, I thought I’d freeze my nuts off the minute I stepped out. How’s that “Global Warming,” for Christ’s sake? That’s Global Freezing. These Climate guys, they’re all in some sort of conspiracy — all ’cause of that ‘oBummer guy, him and his “clean energy.” Bet you a million bucks, they’re planning something.”
“Think my cellphone’s buzzing. Listen, I’ve got to take this one. Nice talking to ya — but I gotta go. Bye!” Kevin would say, as he pulled out his cell phone, pretended to check it and look absorbed, as he walked away, waving his hand.
One day, after hearing Kevin complain for the nth time about Fat Teddy, his wife, Susanna, a well-known newspaper columnist, beautiful, blond, curly-haired, brilliant and very “American” looking (notwithstanding the fact that she had a blond Jewish father and a brown-skinned African-American mother, something Fat Teddy would never understand), said, “Why don’t you tell him directly that he’s driving you crazy with his redneck shit and tell him to shut up? The guy’s a racist bigot, for Pete’s sake. Don’t give him the time of day!”
“I can’t,” protested Kevin, weakly, chopping some basil, as he helped her with the pasta primavera they were making for dinner. “He doesn’t listen to what I say.”
“Be a mensch,” she said, tartly, while decanting the cooked pasta into a bowl. “Just butt right in, and tell it like it is.”
“Nah! Not worth it. I’ll just avoid walking down that way, when I go walking in the mornings,” replied Kevin.
Kevin tried avoiding that route, but knew he couldn’t avoid it all the time. Besides, he liked that particular route. The flowers cheered him up.
Neither he nor Susanna knew about Teddy’s wife being wheelchair-bound. All they knew was that Fat Teddy had a wife and that she was ailing and reclusive. The maids who had come and gone seemed to be South-East Asian, and didn’t speak with the neighbors. The cook came during the hours they weren’t home, and the gardener who came once a week was … Mexican.
One hot summer day, Fat Teddy was outside, soaking up the sun, clipping his most favorite rose-bush, pruning a little here and a little bit there. He liked playing gardener, and it gave him a quiet sensation, which, if he had been pressed to describe it, he would have compared to happiness.
He loved this rose-bush. It gave him solace. He would never speak of it, but here was where his heart had found its peace.
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Continued below on September 29th, 2015:
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Today, as he clipped, and watered and tidied his beloved rose-bush, he felt a strange pain in his chest. Out of breath as he always was, he thought it’s just a stitch, and sat back on a large, smooth rock on which were inscribed the letters RM, next to the rosebush. His mind was vacant, and his mouth hung somewhat open at such times. His large, bulbous grey eyes mirrored the sky above him. Looking up, he saw thunderclouds.
The pain increased, like a vice squeezing him. He made a low moan, and slumped over the rosebush, holding his chest, breathing stertorously.
Rose, he thought.
It was a Saturday at 8:30 in the morning.
Kevin came up, jogging, ear buds on. He didn’t hear Fat Teddy. He passed by with a wave of the hand. Fat Teddy did not see him.
It didn’t strike Kevin as odd that Fat Teddy was slumped over until he had gone about twenty-five feet. Then, he stopped abruptly. Without thinking twice, he ran back, shoving his ear buds in his pockets as he ran, and called out to Fat Teddy. A faint groan came from the man. Kevin whipped out his iPhone, called 911 and the local Emergency Medical Services. By the time they arrived, Fat Teddy was unconscious. They put a mask on him, applied CPR, and got him breathing. His eyelids fluttered open, and he held out a hand to Kevin, who immediately went over, and took it. Fat Teddy said, “My wife … tell her, please,” then closed his eyes. Kevin asked the ambulance driver where they were taking Fat Teddy. They named the hospital, the best in the country, told him he had done everything just right, called him a good citizen, and drove away.
Now, with the flashing lights and banshee siren of the ambulance dopplering away from him, he found himself shaking. His heart raced, and he found himself thinking, I hope the old geezer doesn’t die. I’ve become fond of him. Recollecting himself, he remembered Teddy’s wife. I wonder why we’ve never see her, he thought, and went up the steps to Fat Teddy’s house,which was perched like an eyrie high above the others in the neighborhood.
He rang the bell. There was no answer. He pounded the door. There was no answer. Turning the knob, he went in cautiously, now wondering what he would find.
He didn’t have long to wonder. A loud, accusing voice assaulted his senses when he entered the room whose windows were completely draped in deep red curtains, shutting out the loud morning light. His eyes took a moment to adjust, and he saw near the back wall a thin, resentful-looking woman with startling blue eyes, and ice-white hair sitting in a wheelchair.
“Who are you? What are you doing in my house? Where’s my Teddy? Get out of here!” All of this was said in an uninterrupted stream of vitriol.
“Ma’am, I’m Kevin from down the street. Your husband is seriously ill — they’ve taken him to the hospital. That was what the noise on the street was a few minutes ago.”
The old woman took a deep breath, and said, now weakly, “My Teddy is ill? What happened?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Are you sure someone didn’t beat him up or something? Those blacks moving into the neighborhood, and those Indians — can’t trust those brown-skinned savages!”
“No, Mrs … er … what shall I call you?” he asked, mentally shoring up his indignation against the onslaught of her horribleness.
“You may call me nothing. And I haven’t had my tea yet. Teddy should have thought of me first. And the maid isn’t in on the weekends. Who’ll take care of me?” And she moaned, rocking to and fro in distress.
In spite of his rising dislike of her, Kevin felt sorry for her. He said, “Tell me the maid’s number, and I’ll call her. Don’t worry. I’ll pay. Please don’t distress yourself.”
The old woman pointed to a little black notebook near the telephone. “Her name’s Evangeline Mendez — she’s one of those Filipinas the Agency sends me every time I need a new maid. The number is on the front page, not under “M” — it’s for emergencies. And mind you wipe the phone with one of those wipes from this box on the table. I can’t have your germs all over my telephone.”
Kevin called the number, suppressing his irritation. He was willing to overlook people’s intolerant attitudes, unlike his sharp-witted, impatient Susanna; he loved that about her, though — it balanced him out. Besides, Susanna was kind. If she had been here, she’d have done the same as me, only with a lot of back talk, he thought.
As he listened to the rings, he scanned the mantelpiece, on which were photographs of a young woman and young man, looking proud and happy. Upon second glance, he realized it was a picture of Fat Teddy and his wife. There was another picture of them with a baby in Fat Teddy’s arms. Beside that was a photograph of a radiant young woman.
An accented voice answered on the fifth ring. He asked for Evangeline. It was she. He told her what had happened, and promised to pay her twice her daily wage if she could come and spend the whole of Saturday with the old woman, and leave on Sunday morning. Even as he spoke, he laughed at himself for doing all this, and for what? Still, one cannot ignore one’s conscience.
The person on the other end hesitated for a long time, chatted with an unseen person on the other end, then said, yes, she could come in half an hour. He hung up.
“Evangeline will be here in half an hour. I’ll wait with you. Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Yes, about time! Yes, a cup of tea. One spoon of sugar. Milk. And get me a cookie from the jar near the kitchen window,” answered the old woman.
Kevin went in, found the tea, sugar, milk, started the kettle, and called Susanna, letting her know what had happened, and where he was. She was completely silent for a minute, and Kevin found himself getting nervous. Then, he heard her laugh and laugh.
“You’re a complete idiot, you know that? And I love you for it! Do you want me to come over, and protect you from the old harridan? She sounds quite terrifying,” she said.
“No, I’ll manage, sweetie! Thanks for not getting mad at me for doing this. It’s a pain, but there it is. They’re our neighbors.” He told her he’d return once the maid got there, told her he loved her, and hung up.
“What’s taking you so long?” yelled an angry voice from the other room.
He didn’t answer, just put the mug of steaming, milky, sweet tea, the cookie and a napkin on a tray and carried it to the old woman, who glanced at it, didn’t thank him, and began sucking tea in great gulps from the mug, her eyes never leaving him.
Kevin gestured to the picture on the mantelpiece, and said, “That’s a lovely photograph of you and your husband. Where was it taken? And you have a daughter?”
“I’ll thank you to keep your questions to yourself, mister,” snapped the old woman, but he detected her eyes filling with tears.
Tactfully, he looked away, pretended to read texts on his cellphone, tried to block out the noise of the woman crunching on the cookie, and waited for Evangeline the maid, who finally arrived, duffel bag in hand, flustered and upset.
She also looked a little apprehensive, he thought.
“Do you need help?” he asked Evangeline at the door, after he’d said goodbye to the old woman, who had merely nodded, and muttered something that might have been Thanks!
“No, it’s just … she yell a lot, and accuse me of stealing things,” whispered Evangeline. “I plan give notice on Monday, and now … this!”
He told Evangeline his address, and said he’d bring her money over in the evening. He told her he was going to visit the old man at the hospital. She thanked him, and said, “You’re a good man — not many like you.”
Then, he left.
He went home, where Susanna was waiting. She put some coffee on, while he wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her over and over again. She tasted of honey and caramel, he thought. They danced around the kitchen for a few minutes, and he inhaled the fragrance of her curly hair, thinking how fortunate he was to have her in his life, and how glad he was that she was not an old shrew. And yet … that old woman had once been a vibrant, lovely young woman once, and her husband still loved her.
He told Susanna what he thought. She laughed, and said, “And what if I get a horrid disease, and become ugly and mean. Would you still love me, and cherish me?”
He raised an eyebrow, and said, “Is that even a question?”
Then, she got serious, and said, “You know, the old coot doesn’t seem like a cartoon character any more, does he? I feel bad, somehow, for him. And I wonder what happened to their daughter? She probably couldn’t stand them, and left.”
“It’s not for us to speculate, sweetheart, you know that,” Kevin said.
“Why ever not?” she tossed back, but they moved on to other matters after that.
He showered and called the hospital, but they told him that the old man was undergoing an Emergency Angioplasty, and would be able to receive visitors for six hours. He sighed, and hung up.
Later, he couldn’t concentrate on anything that afternoon and early evening. Susanna was out with one of her newspaper buddies, and wouldn’t be back until later that evening.
He watered his garden, and tried to read The New York Times, but gave it up. It bothered him that the old man was in the hospital and there was no one but himself to check on the old curmudgeon. It bothered him that he hadn’t known until now that Fat Teddy’s wife was in a wheelchair. It bothered him that she hadn’t told him her name. It bothered him that they had a daughter whom they didn’t acknowledge.
He checked his watch, called the hospital, asked for the old man who had come in for an angioplasty that morning, and was told that Mr. Marino was awake ,and ready to receive only family members.
“There’s no family! His wife is wheelchair-bound. I’m his neighbor. I’m the one who called the EMT guys. Can I visit, or not?” he asked, somewhat snappish at having to go through all this.
There was some chat off-phone on the other end, and a perky woman’s voice said, “Yes, of course, Mr. Lee, you may visit.”
And so it was that around 6:00 that evening, after paying the maid, and making sure that Mrs. Marino was comfortable (she was less grouchy now that she’d had her needs attended to), Kevin Lee found himself at the old man’s bed. Fat Teddy gave him a two-thumbs up, and a wide grin, and said in a somewhat weaker version of his booming voice, “Come sit down, sit down! Good of you to visit. That was a scare, hahn? It was good that these guys got workin’ on me right away. If it hadn’t been for you …” and his voice trailed off, and a little fear crept around his eyes. He resumed, “I cannot die, I cannot. My wife … did you see her? Did you talk to her? What did she say?”
Kevin told him what he’d done, and Fat Teddy nodded and looked pleased. “I’ll pay you back what you paid the maid. You know, one of the surgeons who worked on me was one of them Indians. I wasn’t too pleased about it at first, but they tell me he is one of the finest in the world. What can you do? Well, I sure am glad he did what he did for me.”
Kevin leaned over and asked the question that had been burning him up, “You know, I’m curious. I didn’t know you had a kid. I saw that lovely photograph of her. Where’s your daughter now?”
Fat Teddy’s face grew dark, and his eyes filled with tears. He looked agitated, and his mouth trembled. Instantly regretting his question, Kevin said, hastily, “It’s all right. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
Fat Teddy said nothing for a moment, then whispered, “Rose, my Rose, why did you leave us? Why?”
An unimaginable tragedy hung in the air between them.
Kevin looked around, desperate to change the topic. “Would you like some water? Can I get you something?”
“No, no, it’s all right,” said Fat Teddy. “She died. She ran off and married a black man, and then, they got themselves killed in a car wreck. Stupid shit was driving too fast. I was driving after them. I was going to kill him with my gun. Good thing he died before that.” He stopped, looking a little shocked at himself. “Anyway, I don’t want to remember that. It hurts my heart. My daughter is dead. She was my Rose, our Rose, so full of life, so beautiful, and she left us.” He paused, and his voice shook a little. “Look, I want to thank you … and I don’t even know your last name!”
“My name is Lee, Kevin Lee.”
“What kind of name is that? Lee?”
“It’s Chinese, Mr. Marino. My father was half-Chinese.”
There was a silence in the room.
Mr. Marino looked around vaguely and said, “World’s changing, huh? All this melting pot stuff? It’s not bad, is it? I mean, I like you, and you saved my life, and you’re Chinese, for cryin’ out loud. And that Indian surgeon, and that other colored doctor who was there too. Mind you, I’d swear my colored nurse here’ll kill me if I’m not looking, but still. She’s neat, she’s clean. She’s good at her job. You know what? I’m glad you live down the street.”
Kevin rolled his eyes mentally, sighed internally, and said, “I’m glad as well that you live down the street, Mr. Marino. Maybe we’ll have you over for dinner. I’ll have to warn you though, my wife’s half-black, half-Jewish. Can your heart stand that?”
Mr. Marino laughed loudly, and set a machine beeping. A black nurse came running into the room, and looked stern.
He stopped laughing. She shook her finger at him, and said to Kevin, “Don’t excite him. He’s weak after surgery. You be good now, Mr. Marino.” She adjusted his sheets, patted him on the arm, and left. Mr. Marino looked rather shaken by all this kindness.
Kevin smiled to himself a little, waved goodbye, and promised to come the next morning, and take him home.
As he shut the door, he thought he heard the old man whisper Rose, my Rose!
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Tags: #Family, #kindness, #Life, #Love, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, devotion, disability, duty, neighborliness, Prejudice, racism
Sep 24, 2015 Writing 101
A Thousand Fragments of Self
(A very short story about brokenness and wholeness)
©September 24th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
She was one with the dark, all thousand fragments of her. She sat at the table, her glass of water, a cylinder of dim light in a shaking hand, catching the passing light of a moonbeam.
She gazed, unseeing, into the distance. Water flowed down her tongue, down her throat down her gullet, and into her roiling belly. She felt its coolness settle somewhere within, a pool of quietude in a vast, drying prairie. A memory of the evening swept over her suddenly, and the coolness was replaced by fire.
The glass of water and her shaking hand blurred before her eyes, while the darkness collected around her hair, her eyes, her shoulders, her knees, her ankles.
Suddenly, her solitude was too much to bear. She reached for the kitchen light, and the darkness retreated to the far corners of the next room.
In the harsh electric light the water glinted. She looked around at the pictures on the far wall, and at her yellow and white-painted kitchen cupboards, and at the simple kitchen island where she had placed a bunch of sunflowers, and she wondered how she could erase herself, how she could start over, how she could undo what had happened to her when she’d walked home alone that night, and how she had made it out of the attack alive, but scathed, beaten, broken within, collapsing on her apartment doorstep, shaking, dry-sobbing.
She was alone, all alone. There was no one she could turn to, not at midnight. The house was still, listening to her.
Somewhere below the pit of her roiling belly swirled a fire of pain, and the bile arose in her throat. All that was beautiful in the world had burned into a little ash-heap somewhere. This phoenix could not regrow its feathers.
She could not recall a single happy moment from her previous life in the horror of the here and now, but her glass of water, a cylinder of light in a shaking hand, glinting, distracted her, and she held it as a drowning person might, except that this was water, and she wanted to drown in it.
Gazing at her cylinder of light, she let her mind wander, a lost creature in a vast prairie filled with wolves.
And the glass of light glinting liquidly calmed her. She though briefly, in her grasshopper mind that leaped around to avoid dwelling on pain and horror, about how the shapes of things change with the containers they’re in.
She thought: I shall change mine.
With her shaking hand, her cylinder of glass-water still glinting, darkness still retreating at the edges of the pool of light, she reached for the switch. The darkness flooded back in, and she became one with it.
A glass of water spilled, and shattered into a thousand fragments.
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This short story is in response to the prompt for Writing 101 Day 13: Compose a Series of Vignettes
Tags: #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, Fragments of self
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 21, 2015 Fairy tale
Metamorphosis — A Short Magical Tale
©By Vijaya Sundaram
Written on Feb. 26 into past midnight on Feb. 27th, 2013
(Dragged in, kicking and screaming, from my other blog from 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 by Vijaya Sundaram, magic realist short story, metamorphosis