A Rather Long Short Story 17

I watched her keenly as she said those words with a facetious smile. But there was something sad behind that puckish smile. She was directing it at herself with a self-reflexive irony which I found rather painful in that moment.
"That would be a wrong option if you are thinking of it as a desperate choice," I said, trying not to look too solicitous about her future which after all ought not to have been a cause for worry for me.
She looked at me fencing off any further scrutiny from me.
It suddenly struck me that I ought to ask her why she had left abruptly after the discovery that I belonged to armed forces.
I had a vague feeling that in some enigmatic code of expectations I had betrayed an implicit trust. Did that revelation suddenly make me unreal to her?  
    At that moment, I found Charles looking at me with eagerness and urgency. I didn't quite notice how grown up he looked after the last meeting,  I took his hand in mine and pulled him closer to me. He seemed to like the closeness and I could feel him breathing softly , inhaling perhaps the smell of my woolens.
I said softly and gently in his ears, "Let's talk. Oh yeah, will you show me the photograph of your dad once again?"
From Emma's expressions I could guess that Charles had silently sought her permission. Emma smiled as if in consent.

The Death Of The Queen

Dec 22, 2015

The Death Of The Queen: Rani Laxmi of Jhansi

And her bloodied horse,
embattled, loyal to her till the last,
carried her slumped body on his back,
her grip on the saddle still firm,
though her hands had slackened the hold
on the reins that needed no signal to guide.
The horse and the master were one.
And that was no mere submission on the part of the horse
to his master's command.
It was a bond of love and strength.
He knew her mind like an open land
and carried her to her last resort.
Away from the battle, away from the hounding killers,
the horse trudged now silently
to the abandoned cottage standing in the forest
and gave a gentle knock.
The hermit came, saw and knew who she was.
There in that solitude she breathed her last.
The hermit had no logs to build a pyre.
There was no time to lose,
the foe was on her trail.
The hermit set the cottage on fire.
He and the horse stood still
as the fire accomplished the task

A Rather long Short Story 3rd installment

On the rostrum, seated in three compact rows of auditorium chairs were about twenty children, mostly girls, ranging in age from about seven to thirteen. At the first signal given to them by their instructor who looked all-pervasive because of her imposing manners and strident voice, the children looked at one another in bewilderment. Some of them opened their mouth, but were still afraid to articulate the sound, not sure if the others were ready to share the effort. Some of them tried to be clever and just put on an ingratiating smile. With exhortation from the coach to start and be audible they mouthed the words without the necessary feeling. The coach now thought it best not waste time on further exhortation, blew a note on her pipe and the children raised their hymn—books above their heads and started singing in unison. They sang with the unsentimental innocence natural to their age. I had never heard the hymn, but it had a soothing quality and a healing effect; I wished it not to end soon.

Listening, I drifted in thoughts and scanned those young faces absent-mindedly. The child nearest me was in the front row of the group. Well, not exactly a child; she looked about somewhere between fourteen and sixteen, with straight black hair cut to shoulder length, which stuck around her forehead because wet, making her face look unglamorous and common. But as I continued to listen, I noticed that her voice was distinctly superior to others. It was sweet--sounding, and because it was the surest, it naturally led the others.

However, the young lady seemed to be indifferent to the activity she was engaged in at the time because I saw her controlling an overpowering yawn once. It was a closed- mouth, lady-like yawn, but her nostrils gave it away. Her eyes had no expression at all except perhaps that of being unimpressed because of over-familiarity. Once or twice she seemed to scan the people in the audience with a casual interest that did not amount to curiosity, except as if she was counting the heads.

From Inside My Conceited Brain

 From Inside My Conceited Brain

Fiercely compassionate,
compassionately fierce,
a flaming smoke and
a smoking flame,
beware, beware,
when a Man is present
she can be both,
a flame that sears and the smoke that smothers.

Beware when you tread the same ground,
remember to concede a grain of doubt,
or may be a slight disbelief,
but let there always be a line
between what you feel and what you reveal.

She has that uncanny gift to see way ahead
from the vantage point where she stands
and where you have not yet begun to tread.
A loom, a harp, and if she gives you a lead as to how you play,
and it won't be a choice between a loom and a harp;
you have to be a master of both;
You will have to weave her in inside the game
and keep the strings of the harp in tune
with the strings of her heart as well .

A Rather Long Short Story Installment 16

As they settled around the table Emma saw the quick glance that came from me and rested for a moment on her empty wrist where the watch used to be. But she did not seem to be in a mood to encourage questions. I sensed that a lot had happened silently which both of us were not prepared to acknowledge. Signs of sleepless nights were written rather deeply under her eyes. I was touched. I was touched by the raw simplicity and the guileless nature of the phenomenon of love. In my heart I silently prayed that God , whoever he was, may ward off all the ominous storms of love from this inexperienced, candid young girl, and let me alone be the bearer of the torment of the passion.
We sat for a while without saying anything, Emma and me glancing at each other surreptitiously once or twice and Charles amusing himself watching the people occupying the other tables.
The question on my mind was not just the watch. There were a lot of things which could have been said, which were struggling to find a way, but which were better left unsaid.
Emma looked at me with a note of apology in her eyes. She knew. Then she looked at her empty wrist.
I went to the counter and returned with coffee and muffins for the three of us. Emma looked at me and tried to smile as she picked up the coffee from the tray.
"How was the day?" I asked.
"Routine!" she said.
Then Emma said a bit hesitantly," I will finish high school this year."
I looked at her carefully and asked, "What are you planning to do then? A career in music, or university education?"
She kept staring at the flow of traffic outside and after a moment's silence ventured to say, "I don't know. Everything is unplanned as yet."
I remembered how passionate she was about pursuing her lessons in piano when she had talked to me in our first meeting.
Then she said capriciously and abruptly, " I might as well get married." 
    

A Rather Long Short Story Installment 15

 
I felt her nonchalant looks as she was singing in the choir and the way she stored away the significance of what she noted in a casual glance. Indeed, her awareness of me was far deeper and comprehensive even before I understood the girl I watched on the platform where she stood as just one member of the choir.
I had never felt such a poignant longing before as what I felt then, sitting alone in the coffee-shop. Would I see the girl and her brother once before I left this land to be a part of the ocean again?   I looked at the watch. It was around this time, a few days back, I had chanced to meet Emma and Charles on their way back home from school. I kept looking at the road outside, not allowing the traffic of people inside the shop to distract me even for a moment from my intense search. For a fraction of a second my eyes turned to the watch to note the time and again back to the patch of the road visible from the window. There in the smoke-screen and the mist, they emerged, floating like lilies in a stream. Yes, That's how my eyes saw them in those forlorn moments.
I sat transfixed, unable to decide whether I should hasten to catch up with them or just sit there and waste the moment.
It was just then, as if by a strong call of telepathy, Charles looked up and his eyes wandered as if in search of me to pause exactly at the place where I was sitting. Emma as usual was walking ahead of him engrossed in her own thoughts.
He stopped, spellbound, as if he heard me calling. As on the other day he tugged at Emma's skirt and drew her attention to me. Emma turned and looked in my direction. For a moment or two she stood motionless, perhaps she did not trust herself enough to believe that I would be waiting at that spot just to catch a glimpse of her. Afraid that she would hastily disappear in the traffic, I quickly got up from my seat and waved at them to indicate that I would be glad to share their company for a while. Charles looked up at Emma urging her to respond. They came in, but I missed the impetuosity of that first encounter as she had got up and covered the distance between us to reach my table despite the forbidding presence of her aunt.
As we sat at the table I noticed that the military watch that I had seen on her wrist earlier was missing. Did she sell it?Was she in need of money? Or did she just become aware that I had noticed it? Many absurd fears and questions surged in my mind.
 
    

A Rather Long Short Sory Installment 14

It was yet another foggy day. My stay in Vancouver was coming to an end and with it also the brief association with Emma and Charles.
 In the afternoon I went past the coffee-shop where I was with Emma and Charles, with that misty memory of the photograph they had cherished and carried with them hidden away in Charles's school-bag, Emma walking away in the rain with Charles trailing behind her and looking back at me as Emma held his hand and walked away resolutely without saying  a formal good-bye.  There was something stirring under the roots of that walk-away. I could guess it but could not confirm what I felt.
Such fragile ties as those which were coming into being in those brief and short-lived meetings had best be forgotten. Young and inexperienced though she was, Emma had shored away the wisdom and carried it on her young shoulders with the awareness that she  must sacrifice sentiments in the interest of herself and Charles.
I viewed the coffee-shop from a distance, trying to relive those moments with detachment.
On that day, I chose to sit in the coffee-shop alone and allowed my mind to relish those moments. There was a sad kind of indulgence and peace in it. I recalled that the mention of my being in the armed forces had brought her suddenly to the brink of the memory of the greatest loss of her life. It was also a signal for her that she was investing her feelings with a precarious balance. It was as though she suddenly realized how close she had moved towards me. I saw the force of the irony in how she  had reacted with revulsion at my inadvertent and inept remark that I saw a potential nun, a celibate woman in her.
The mist around this enigmatic girl-woman was clearing slowly.

Add a comment...