My Childhood Home

Alone beneath the shadows © Lalarukh

 

With her back leaning against the wall, she sits down on the ground. It feels cold to her palms. Despite the fact that it is really hot out there, with sun at its peak in the noon, and with almost forty five degrees temperature, there is a row of trees behind this wall that keeps the passage way where she sits a bit cool with their shadows. And she has her history with deep shadows and darkness.

It’s ironic. Right in front of her, with the opposite wall she used to make a home with long sheets and pillows in her childhood. She’d make a kitchen with small plastic utensils and some snacks and then invite her little brothers to have tea. And she had this pink box with small clippings of extra cloth drops and pieces of laces and threads and a needle and she’d sew these things together to make random designs and what not. And she’d sit there all day busy in her little chores. It felt amazing.

The pink box is gone along with her childhood. Her brothers are grown up and living far away places. Those tiny plastic utensils, her mother safely placed at the shelf in her room along side other useless items she used to play with. Her mother dusts these daily but never ever thinks of throwing or giving away. Mothers. They have their own ways.

A bird chirps from the trees above. Their is a mud pot placed right beside her, filled with water for the birds to drink. It is really hot out there. This house, it used to be filled with laughter and shouting and excitement where a strange kind of silence and sadness resides now. Her mother and father, they have grown old. They look tired when they smile.

Tear, a tear rolls down her cheek and falls on the ground, cold enough in the presence of summer’s bright sun. May be its the tree’s. It’s their way of grieving. Over beautiful lost memories and a cheerless future. Or may be it’s the coldness from inside of her heart. It’s dead, after putting up with so much pain and faking happiness for so long, it’s finally dead. She is scared, this home with all it’s memories and charm, what if it wakes up her heart again? But then dead can’t be woken up, can they?

She thinks of her room. It feels haunted to her. She remembers when she was little, she had an art wall in her room. She would make drawings,paintings,scribbles and art and then stick those to the wall. Her drawings and art work improved as she grew up and it was all there at the wall which she was proud of. And then once while the house had to get painted, she had to remove her art from the wall with her own hands. She was sad. She was a teenager at that time. A long cupboard with lots of shelves was then placed alongside her wall. That cupboard now contains fragments of her childhood and they get dusted daily by her mother.

Those albums with her baby photos, school functions and their family day outs, that car which saw her and her siblings grow up from children to teenagers and then adults, that same TV they used to watch cartoons on, the fans the ceilings the walls, nothing’s changed, everything haunts her. The memories are beautiful. It’s the fact that nothing like this can happen in future that wrings the heart and wrinkles the soul.

She weeps. Head in her lap, hands wrapped around the knees she weeps. Her shadowed self, this mud pot, all these trees and those countless memories that crowded in her mind and flowed through her veins while sitting here, this scene, it would freeze in her eyes and would be a valuable treasure for the rest of her life to come, away from her home.

That day, she buried herself right there, in the passage way, beneath the shadows and under the weight of good old childhood memories to live inside them forever.

 

 

 

Black Heavy Boots

With sewed lips and glued eyes she’d put her first quivering step on the stairs of cellar. Before climbing down, she’d leave her mortified ‘self’ on a shelf beside the cellar door. Her exhausted 10 years old corpse would soon drag itself down to the cold ground where sinful darkness would cloak her.

A pair of black heavy boots would instantly follow her down. The sound of their hammering knocks matches the rhythm of her thumping heart. As it reaches more close, her frightened heart rips apart her chest and falls right in the middle of his feet. The bleeding that follows would be far less than the one that happens just before he leaves her there.

His hands reach for her clothes. Her body turns to a rock. Her heart would squirm like a fish out of water, lying right beside her as the water in her stone eyes dry out. Her teeth would bite hard into the flesh of her rosy lips.

A tough blow from one of his boots makes her alive again.

She draws a long burning breath in, in a desperate hope of it to be the last one. Hope laughs. She falls into the arms of despair yet once again.

On the way back, she never forgets to take back her ‘self’ from the shelf beside the cellar door…

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She helps her mother cook food for her father. It is time for her mother to go to her teaching job. She want to beg her not to go but she can’t.

As she serves food to her father, she could feel a burning sensation on her skin where he stares. She looks down on his feet.

His black heavy boots are covered in blood…

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Almost 90,000 cases of child sexual abuse are reported each year. Out of which, 96% are known to their victims and 20% are fathers. (Advocates for Youth, 1995)

 

 

Dark Mornings, Sunlit nights

As the sunlight shines through the sky, night falls.

She would open her big black eyes with no eye-lashes and try to listen closely to the mesmerizing music of ear-piercing cries. It soothes the grayish red stone in her chest.

She balances her heavy sobs with the rhythm of pain stricken shrieks that originate from her drumming heart and reflects through her eyes while flowing through her veins. Oh the melodious song that forms, so dramatic.

Her soul, a black shade of white light, punches the walls of body around it so hard that it cracks open and let it out to dance with the music of pain. The music of pain laughs out loud at the soul and holds it in it’s arms while whirling round and round like a dervish.

Vanished hopes, unheard prayers, unfulfilled wishes and broken dreams tightens their orbit and grabs her throat. The music of pain inside her starts evacuating itself through her mouth which she covers tightly with her own crooked hands.

Hours pass as she tries to fight this battle. She could feel poisonous snakes biting her face with sharp teeth. She smiles with fear, as she is tired of crying already.

Her heavy eye-lids start dropping down. It is dark outside when sleep blankets her. Morning’s here.

She looks Beautiful while sleeping. She is Happy… Yes she is.

 

 

Wounds That Turned To Wisdom

Credits : This is no dream by Alessio Radice

There was a time when things were different.

At that time, I wasn’t aware how life’d treat me. I was in school when I came home with my first hole. After repressing the pain while I had lunch with my family, I locked myself inside my room and bled for too long.

Then, the next day, I came home with two more holes. One on my upper thigh and the other one on my shoulder. A stinging pain sprout out of them that made my whole body, a wound.

The next day, after returning back home, I left my mother shouting and hustled towards my room while leaving a trail of blood on the white carpet. I slammed my bag on the bed and lifted my shirt in front of the mirror. Half a dozen holes were revealed that dotted my stomach and chest. It was hard, bleeding for hours that day. I needed someone to treat my wounds with gauze. Instead, they were left open. It took half the night to stem the flow of blood and I was exhausted. Excruciating pain was the price of healing.

In the morning my mom made my favorite pancakes for breakfast. I wished she’d have kissed me on the forehead instead of stuffing me with those delicious pancakes.

I returned home that day, more battered than usual, covered with holes from head to toe. I gazed inside my mother’s brown eyes, longing to see the reflection of my holes. Instead, they were filled with every other dilemma our family endured.

I locked my room that day, and stood beside the mirror with blood pit-pattering on the linoleum. The holes looked like tiny flickering tongues. A sucking wound on my back, square between my shoulder blades was hurting me the most. It was too wide, too deep and a gentle touch brought back the memory of my best friend at school. May be that’s why the wound was the worst.

I stood there for too long, dribbling blood on the surface of clean mirror and staring at my face. The taste of loneliness mixed with the sleepless night was bitter. I heard my family talking, my brothers fighting over stupid things. My mother knocked at my room’s door. She waited for an answer but silence was all she could hear while I struggled with my cries, cupping my mouth firmly with both hands. She screamed and called my dad.

I got up, wiped my eyes brutally with one hand while holding a knife in the other. After hiding it under the bed I slammed the door open. My eyes saw fierce expressions on their faces and their lips moved angrily but my ears heard nothing. A shrill sound as if a drill was making a hole in the wood echoed in my head.

After it was all over, I shook my head and locked the door, again. My steps felt heavy as I motioned towards the mirror. The two days old wounds sprang open. Blood spilled out of the crusty scabs that were peeled off.

In the morning, I left the bloodied bed sheets as they were and headed towards school with my head cast towards the ground. I came back that day with more holes but they didn’t hurt that much as they did before. Because, I made dozens of holes that mustered over my torso, to avoid pain from the ones given by others.

“Soon these holes will all turn into scars and they’d be the reminders of how tough I’m“, I thought. The light had started entering inside me, through my wounds.

I bled that day on my bed but the door was wide open. My parents passed by as I lay there, un-noticed, for they had their own monsters to fight with -and I had my own.

“She was not quite what you would call refined.
She was not quite what you would call unrefined.
She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.”

That was the day I promised myself, that I’ll try to fix my daughter’s holes with gauze, made with love and care. But as they say, life is what happens to you while you are busy making ‘plans’.

Every one of us has to unfold one’s own myths.

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This 695 word story is written for Speak Easy. The task this time was to use “There was a time when things were different” as the first line and to give a reference to a photo that was of parrots. I should admit that, while writing this story, my mind started wandering in my own past and when I read my story now, it seems more like my real life story than fiction. I have decided to leave it unchanged, as it reminds me of my ‘fresh’ old wounds.

This story can be an end, or a new beginning of my writing career. I am getting married this coming Friday and life had been hard on me, lately.

Meet you after my wedding ! Miss me and pray for me, Please. Love you all.

Waiting For A Dead Promise

Credits : This

It starts with a heavy pinpoint, sharp, deep in the middle of my heart. As I read Mic’s letter, it swells and blooms, licks like fire through my veins.

It’s a cold windy day and I’m at the window table trying to read the first letter he sent me. At least that is what I should be doing but I spend more time watching the dry leaves clattering across the sidewalk.

I sat here daily, for twenty years with a shotgun in hand. That shotgun is replaced by letters now.

He said, “I’d come back to you no matter what happens”.

I promised him, “I’ll wait for you, forever”

It’s growing dark and the streets are already empty. It has been a chilly, depressing day. I could hear howling wind and one long, repeated call — a bird perhaps.

The feeling I felt then, was love underneath, but it was wrapped in something hard and cold and perpetual.

Death.

Death has followed me for 40 years. Death came for my father first, it sputtered him out like a spent candle. I was seven then. 10 years later it took my mother. Everything I ever loved was gone with the tilt and flare of a scented candle against a curtain. Since then, I resolved never to put myself in a situation that could shatter the way my childhood did. The only way to avoid death was to run.

It worked perfectly for nine years until I met Mic. I felt life exuding from him, surging and bright. For a moment I was certain Death must be looking elsewhere. It stirred at my shoulder, tickled my ear, reminded me it was watching, waiting, poised to poison anyone I opened my heart to.

Everyday little letters from Mic, yellow envelopes addressed in green pen, would wait for me. I replied back, I told him about my father, my mother. About Death on my shoulder.

That day, I was woken from a lay-in by a tentative knock at the door. It was Mic. I was overwhelmed, frozen. He dived at me, wrapped his arms around me. My heartbeats were so golden and warm Death didn’t stand a chance.

You can’t keep him… Death whispered, nervous. Run, before it hurts.

It offered me it’s most enthusiastic ‘contrafibularities‘ that could never be defined just as death could never be defined.

I smiled. And said yes to Mic’s proposal. Because I thought Death couldn’t catch either of us if we’d run together.

The shrill call comes again, thin, high, and mournful. What kind of bird calls like that? Something is out there.

The wind is tapping branches against the window. I look out but see nothing. Dusk is falling but the street lamps are not on yet. Then I see a tiny movement right under my window. Something is crouching below the marigold bushes. A hurt bird, perhaps?

After they reported Mic dead, I began to keep the shotgun next to the front door.

I’d sit for hours beside my window table staring outside, thinking that the day he’d return, reeking of decay, I’d run a finger down the barrel of the shotgun, propped beside me.

“Thank you for coming. I waited for you” I’d say.

“I promised.” He’d smile under the bullet hole they would have put through his forehead. Dried blood would flake off of his eyelid when he’d blink.

“I’m not coming with you,” I’d say.

“Death has done us part. Let it join us together once again.” He’d say.

“I have decided to fight against it” I’d tell him.

I drape myself in a warm brown shawl and open the door to see what that thing is.

A small bundle of grey fur, a tiny kitten, hope ? almost lost in the gloom. It meows, a thin, desperate sound.

When I pick it up, it is ice cold and I can feel every vertebrae. It’s nothing but a skeleton. I look out for any scratches or bites, she was safe. I take it into the warmth and give her milk. It opens great green eyes and looks at me. It rumbles in an attempt to purr. After a while it curls up in my lap.

Some people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them, he can’t blame me for breaking mine. Before moving on, for twenty years, with a shotgun in my hand, I sat there and waited, but he never came back.

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Okay I’m in love with the zombie apocalypse, the idea fascinates me so much. I’m sorry if it disgusts you 😉 The story is written about the time when zombies would be somehow sensible, they’d actually remember things rather than just “Brains”.

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More or less 740 words story written for speakeasy. The challenge this time was to use, “I sat there and waited, but he never came back” as the last line and give some kind of reference to  a scene from the British comedy show,  Blackadder the Third. Hope you enjoyed. Click on the badge to see detailed rules and other entries on Tuesday.

Shadows

Credits: This

He was with me like shadow under the Moonlit skies since I was a baby who’d been in this world for not more than a week. I was certain then, that walls of my room were blue and Lucy, the white cat hated me. And I knew that I shouldn’t cry when my Mom was already crying because she’d not pick me up.

When Mom’d hold me in her folded arms to feed me in the morning, I’d gaze at blue scars beneath her starlit eyes. Those scars’d change their colors and places daily and when I’d try to reach them she’d hold my tiny fingers in her soft hand and tears’d fall on my forehead. She’d whisper in my ear that we’d leave this place soon.

My dad’d smell like medicine when he’d hold me while he’d cut my Mom down with his words. He never left his habits and mom never left this place.

He’d sit beside me with a wooden face, covering my ears with his hands to block the shouts; blades with tiny bayonet pointed firmly at my heart.

I’d laugh when he’d tease me that I broke my head when I was thrown from the sky into the world. Mom never liked him and whenever I’d tell her about him she’d not answer. I’d start talking to him and Mom’d start crying.

We celebrated my 18 birthdays together and he was with me that day when dad brought some quaint people in our house. I heard shouts, dad’s cries were a pitcher of bitterness and mom’s quivering voice tasted of sacrifice.

Dad clamped his hand onto my wrist and pulled me through the lounge where Mom sat squeezed in a corner, mouth covered with hands and tears brimming through her opaque eyes.

Pain paralyzes my mind when doctors pierce needles in my arm and I see his shadow fading into the light of nothingness.

We all have to fade, as we all are shadows on the wall of time.

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This is my 333 words response to Trifecta Challenge. This weeks word was Quaint and we have to use its third definition ( unusual or different in character or appearance : ODD ) in our response. Feedback is always appreciated. Click on the badge to see other entries.

Love, Coffee And Lavender Truffles

Credit:: THIS

“I’ve spent years chasing the tail of my darkness; the same darkness that has once again blurred my vision”, Harry thought, as he lay the phone in its cradle. He’d been expecting this news in quite the same way you expect winter to follow autumn. But just as you can never prepare yourself for bone-chilling winds, you can never prepare your heart for the loss. Poor Ron. His voice had been shaking as he gave Harry the news that Hermione was gone.

Harry cupped his mug of coffee in both hands and sunk into the chair trying to distract his thoughts.The warmth of coffee mug seeped into his fingers as he clutched it and gazed at the deep brown liquid. He wished Ginny had made this coffee. She always had a way of choosing just the right amount of ground coffee beans to use. Since Ginny died after thirty years of passing out from Hogwarts, he never had been to that coffee shop they used to visit together. The coffee shop smelled of musk with a hint of cinnamon that was too close to Ginny’s essence.

He squinted out the window and caught a glimpse of the sun.  He felt a vague sense of whiplash witnessing a sunny day knowing that the earth travels at thirty kilometers per second in its daily trek around the sun and spins zero point five kilometers around its own axis. He remembered Ginny teasing him with all those magic spells when he would spout the mathematical trivia.

Shifting in his chair, he tried to focus his eyes on  Paul Cézanne’s painting ‘The Card Players’ that Ginny had hung on the wall of their lounge three years ago.  The painting looked like it was drowning as his tears welled.  His mind kept straying back to Ron’s call.

Hermione. Her presence on the planet had always been enough for him; it didn’t matter that they weren’t together. They spent her birthdays together every year and he had fulfilled her every wish silently in the form of birthday gifts. Six years in Hogwarts and six birthdays, one year for every day it takes the moon to orbit the earth with a speed of 3680 km/hr.

He recalled one of her birthdays when he took her to The Wonderland following the footsteps of Alice. He had allowed himself to swim, just for a few minutes, in the depths of her azure eyes making a straight angle of 180 degrees that day. They wandered there all day meeting the king and queen of hearts, Mother bird, Mary Ann and white rabbit, all her favorite characters and they celebrated her birthday with special lavender truffles that were made of rich dark chocolate infused with lavender and cardamom and some flavors of hot chocolate.

Even though she only glanced over her shoulder when he took her back to Hogwarts, he waited. And hoped, like the forever unknown ‘x’.  But two months later, Hermione and Ron announced their engagement and Harry knew he waited in vain.  He mustered his strength to achieve an escape velocity. With time as he settled into his new trajectory around Ginny, he felt Hermione’s gravitational pull for long.

But now Hermione had succumbed to the cancer that had been wreaking havoc on her for five years. Memories:  that’s all he would have of her now.  Maybe that’s all he ever had.

He pushed his chair away from the table and decided to get ready. He had to meet Miss J. K Rowling to make a quick apology and he was sure that she’d forgive him.

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Note: The characters Harry, Ron and Hermione are JUST characters. I took these names because their background history was already clear to you. You can take them as characters of Harry Potter OR some other people who studied in Hogwarts, choice is your’s but please don’t read this story as a continuity to the Harry Potter stories.

This is my 598 words response to the Speakeasy weekly writing prompt, which is to write a piece in 750 or less words  (1) using “I have spent years chasing the tail of my darkness.” as the first sentence, and (2) make some reference to the art prompt, The Card Players, one of a series of paintings by Paul Cézanne.

The challenge is open to anyone, so if you’re inspired, click the badge below to check out the challenge details!

 

The Magnificent Woman

Source

I am in love with that wonderful women who performs on the stage and people hold their breaths, their hearts skip the beats and magic of her glory en-wraps them in ecstatic joys — People say that she knows spell of bewitchment and she makes people unconscious by casting it but I don’t believe this, her magical beauty is mysterious enough to get entranced in.

She has booked a room that was abandoned for forty years, the room that is well known by a story that a woman burnt herself and her child here, forty years ago.

I can hear my own foot steps as I walk towards her room, my heart beats in my ears and I feel shivers while walking through that dead silent corridor but my fear is invaded over by excitement to meet that magnificent lady.

The door opens with an unfamiliar noise, tearing apart the intense silence — There lies a coffin in the center of an empty room and I am in a trance of that glowing beauty again as I open the cover.

I try to pull her out wondering who may have imprisoned my love inside the coffin, when I feel my leg clutched by tiny hands — I turn around and see a small child looking towards me with pain in eyes… Everything went dark.

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A Flash fiction written for Lillie McFerrin Writes : Five Sentence Fiction – Clutch. We have to include the word “clutch” in our story and take inspiration from the photo given. Five sentences is what this challenge requires, no word limit. Click on the link if you want to participate.

Cannibal

Source: Joycreations.

His sharp knife pierced through the flesh and cut it to pieces at a single jerk. It was the lower part of a leg. Upper part was already cut. A head smoothly cut apart from the neck was laying at a corner of the table. Small pieces about the size of 3 inches each were arranged along the sides. After cutting the leg into similar pieces he put them along with the others.

Then he leaned towards the head and pulled out the eyes, one by one with the tip of his knife. He saved the eyes in a small glass bowl and licked the stains on his fingers.

After that,he pulled in some air, grabbed a big bucket in both his hands and started pouring a viscous red fluid into the bottles, one by one. When all the bottles got filled, he closed the lids tightly and put them one by one in the lower shelf of his almost empty fridge, a single half filled bottle of this red fluid was already lying there. Head was placed on the first shelf and finely cut meat pieces went on the middle ones.

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He opened his eyes while laying under the blue sky and green grass midst a row of long trees. After his blur vision got clear he realized that he was present in an alien place. Wiping off his hands he stood up.

The last thing that was saved in his vivid memory was a fight with her mom and he ran away from home after that. “It’s been two days, she must be worried for me” He thought to himself, setting the school bag on his shoulder.

He gazed for a while at a light shining far away at the end of the long road and followed it. It was coming out from a bulb hung on the roof of a small wood house. He knocked at the door and pushed it inside.

The door opened with a sharp squeak. He glanced inside, a man was sitting on a chair. A glass half filled with a red viscous fluid was lying on the table in front of him. “Can I come inside?”

An evil smile occupied his face. “Yes kid, come in !” He said in a heavy voice and locked the door behind him.

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Daily Prompt:show us CLOSE.

This story is written for Write on Edge. This challenge gives us two options, whether to write about the quote or about the photo. I chose the photo. Click on the badge to see complete guidelines and to participate.

‘Mornings’

With every sunrise, sparkling sun-rays tear up the dark night and initiate a ray of hope in my heart’s plant moist with dew drops. It grows everyday, it has formed a big tree now. A tree that stopped giving fruits 30 years ago.

30 years of marriage and 3 beautiful children, What can be more perfect than that?

A hollowness grows inside me. Questions remain unanswered.

Mornings, a new chance, a new life — It was never for me.

I am still standing on the same spot where I stood 30 years ago — empty handed, When life snatched him from my hands.

And Life continues……

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This 100 words fiction (Not really) is written for Friday Fictioneers which demands a 100 word fiction inspired by the given photo. Check out the link if you want to participate.

Twinkle Twinkle O’ Little Star

A story dedicated to my family where the number of mentally abnormal children is increasing due to the trend of Cousin marriages. Story is inspired by my cousin, a girl who is 20 year’s old physically but her mind is like a small child’s mind. Scenes pictured here are fictional but the facts discussed are real.

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Image Source : This.

“Colors – red, green and blue mixing with each other. Green color is at the top of red now. Red is busy mixing with blue”

“How can you guarantee that in future your daughter’s children would be normal when her own sister is abnormal?”

Silence – followed by tears.

“Sorry we can’t allow the relationship of my son with your daughter. He will find someone else”

“Colors – Red is at the top now. It has dissolved blue and green in it”

Sound of a slap followed by mournful cries.

“Colors transformed to black . Painful black”

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“She slapped me yesterday, My own sister. I won’t talk to her now. She thinks I can’t feel the pain but it hurts. She is not good and oh the cat finally ate the mouse” She thought to herself and giggled.

Her sister who was siting right beside her, eyes on TV and mind strolling somewhere else glanced at her, giggling. She felt a volcano of love bursting in her heart and a sense of regret mixed with embarrassment seized her.

“What was I thinking while slapping her yesterday? She is innocent, that’s not her fault that no one wants to Marry me” She dragged herself closer to her and kissed her on the cheek softly.

“I am sorry my love. You can’t speak but I know you are angry at me” She hugged her and burst into tears.

“I love my sister, she is so sweet. She loves me so much” She thought to herself while enjoying the cartoons again.

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“A heavy burden on my heart don’t let me sleep at nights”

“What burden Mom?”

“You know sweetheart your sister is a special child. Our society don’t accept her as a normal child. People think she is crazy and she should be in a mental hospital. How can I send my innocent girl to a mental hospital?”

Each tear falling from her Mother’s eyes was dropping in her own heart – her eyes flooded with tears.

“Some things can’t be forgotten and this very thought keep spooking me all the time that What will happen to my daughter when me and your dad will be no more in this world”

“Please don’t Mom. Please stop” She begged her and the room reverberated with the sound of their sobs.

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“Colors – butterflies – stars – lights – children, beautiful children – I want to play”

With this thought she ran towards small children playing in the kids area in a fast food restaurant while her Mom was buying Ice cream for her.

She looked around, her daughter was standing beside some children who were gathered in a corner with expressions of fear and anger on their faces.

She ran towards her. A woman said “I don’t mean to offend you but please make sure she stays home. Our children just got scared”

She grabbed her hand and took her to the car without saying anything, eyes directed downward with embarrassment.

Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes

And she’s gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Music was blending with her sobs.

She put her head on her Mother’s shoulder and spoke in a soft voice, “Ma ! Sor-r-ry”

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Many beautiful special children in colorful dresses were standing on the stage in a circle. She was there too laughing, sitting inside the circle wearing a fancy fish dress. A wheel chair was lying at one corner of the stage with a small cute girl sitting in it.

Hall was filled with people. Parents of special children occupied the front rows.

The girl in the wheel chair spoke:

“We are like a fish in the tank. The sun heats the glass to boiling, setting us on fire. The moon freezes it to ice, trapping us in unbearable cold. Tapping vibrates the glass, tearing at our ears and flesh. It is agonizing and exhilarating and enthralling. Don’t be like the sun and the Moon people. Be like the glass that protects us and like the water that keeps us alive…….We feel joy and pain equally like you feel. Your words and actions hurt us people. Treat us with care. We need your love”

And the hall echoed with the sound of applause. People stood on their chairs, tears shining in their eyes.

“I wish my daughter gets a chance to live a normal life like everyone else here” She thought to herself while wiping her tears.

Image Source : This.

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This 720 words story is written for The Speak Easy Challenge. If you like this story, Don’t forget to come back on Thursday to vote. Click on this image to read other entries and detailed guidelines.

Moon, Moon on the sky…….Watch Me Die

“Moon, Moon on the sky,

Hold me up, take me high

Clench your sigh, watch me die”

A morbid smile conquered her calm face. Calmness that escalates after a big storm passes, or when one is about to come.

“Have you ever talked to the moon?” Without glancing at me nodding head in negation, she continued.

“I have, It is my only companion since I was 5. It was my hero, a mysterious bewitching radiant ball of light. I played with it, told my secrets to it and slept in it’s shadow. And then…. and then it started playing with me” Her voice turned quivery.

“I got tangled up in it’s myth. In the full moon nights I feel supernatural. A nice sharp feeling starts cutting inside me and my hollowness grows. Instead of blood, loneliness comes out and I swear, It is more horrendous,  dreadful. It pierces my soul….It aches, It hurts !”  I felt tears mixing with her voice.

“Today’s a full moon night” I thought to myself. Shifting my eyes from the moon towards her, I realized – She was gone.

A werewolf was standing right beside me.

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A post written in response to Daily Prompt: Heroic and also for Five Sentence Fiction – Moon.

Enchanted Illusion

Copyright-Dawn Q. Landau

She lives at a place far away. Perspiring sun rays of hope caress her face to welcome her mornings. She opens her home’s door and walk through the stairs like a queen. Butterflies take her to the seraphic valleys. She dances in ecstasy. Tickling winds make her giggle. Her laughs are loathed in euphoria. She opens her wings and flies with the birds. Sparkling sea water washes her feet. She sings with mermaids and fall asleep in ethereal embrace.

And yet in this monstrous world, resides her body void of soul – indulged in the weightless mysteries of naked truths.

The Red Letter

“No-way, this is not possible !” She screamed…..

Her soft breaths gradually converted to heavy fast storms. Her heart beats were drumming in her ears as if they’ll tear apart her ribs. She could feel uncountable needles stabbing in her head. She fell down……

“Not again, No” She was crying and shrieking hysterically.

“What happened Mama?” Her 7 years old son, Ali, came running towards her.

She looked at his face, she couldn’t. Grabbing his hand she pulled him towards herself and embraced him in her arms.

“Nothing My Love, I won’t let anything happen to you” Gazing at the red letter in her hand, she sighed.

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Rachael was drowned in the valley of thoughts while Ali was sleeping right beside her. Windows were closed and the room was dark and silent. Sometimes a gust of frosted wind would scatter the silence with its whispers.

They were a happily-ever-after family 7 years ago. Ali wasn’t born by that time. Her two sons and beloved husband shared the same house where today, silence regulates.

When Rachael received this red letter for the first time, she was unknown of the consequences. She came to know when the very next day, her husband met an accident and he passed away.

She was scattered. She would never have related the death to that letter if one by one, both her sons wouldn’t have passed away in the same mysterious manner.

She was sure there was ‘something’ behind all this. Something esoteric, something inexplicable.

And now she had received that red letter again. Her baffled mind started freezing with the weather.

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A sound woke her up. She felt like she had heard a whisper. She checked Ali, he was sleeping. She checked the time, it was 2 o’ clock at night.

A sudden sharp cracking sound outside the window startled her. Her heart beat and pulse rate were at a race. She slipped towards the window slowly and peeked through the glass. She couldn’t see anything. It was dark and calm.

She took a long sigh.

She turned back. A panic-stricken scream welled up and burst out of her mouth. Her eyes bulged out with shock and dark condensed clouds blocked her mind.

The bed was vacant, Ali was gone.

A furiously loud knock at the door drummed in her ears……

To Be Continued……….

On Her Birthday

“‘Whatever’ was the reaction of your Mom when I first proposed her, but I didn’t stop trying” Speaking in a soft low voice he seemed to be lost in thick layers of mist while travelling down the memory lane.

“My heart will go on……“ The song was playing in the background. She was working as usual, I was looking at her as usual. It was the third time when I planned to propose her, I was serious this time.

It was the same day, the day of her birthday. I asked her to come out, she did. It was raining. Rain drops were shimmering on her glowing skin. I came closer and took out a diamond ring from red velvet box. Her face expressions changed. I sat on my knee, moved up my hand with the diamond ring and said, “Marry Me M’Love“.

She leaned some steps backward. The shine on her face turned pale. I got worried. She never reacted like that. She was nodding her head sideways and she started walking, turning her back on me. She wanted to hide her tears, I noticed them dissolving in the rain drops.

I ran after her, grabbed her hand from behind and pulled her towards myself.

“Why? You have to give me a reason today“.

She looked into my eyes for some seconds and her voice quivered as she spoke, “I am at the last stage of cancer”

The world paused. My heart forgot beating. My breaths were stuck in my throat.

She gave a dull smile and said, “I expected the same“.

I stepped forward, pulled out the ring, slipped it into her finger and said, “My Love for you is beyond any expectations“.

She died on her birthday two years after our marriage.

Sometimes she’d say to me, “You are my pride. Your Love gives me strength. I can die peacefully in your Love’s embrace”

His tears fell on the birthday cake in his hands as he blew off the candle.

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This 333 words story is written for Trifecta Challenge. This week’s task was to use the third definition of WHATEVER in a story of words between 33 and 333. Voting here starts on Friday, so if you liked my story don’t forget to vote.

Story Of A One-Eared Theif

There was a loud crash in the hallway. My thumping heart missed a beat. By the time I had collected enough gold jewelry while they were still snoring.

My name is Jim and I am a renowned thief. I have earned quite a fame by the name of one-eared man. This is the story of how I lost my ear.

With the idea of taking a break from stealing, I once decided to tuck away in some place afar. I took my belongings and hid in a truck that was leaving for an unknown location. I dozed off and when opened my eyes, I was laying at a place that was alien to me but very beautiful, with greenery all around. Beautiful flowers were smiling and the sun embraced me with its light. Chilled wind tickled me and I started roaming.

Wandering in this beautiful valley, I saw a small house. My thief-nerves gave me an alarm and I headed towards it. I broke in from the rear door and cloaked myself behind the curtains in one of the rooms. The moment I decided to come out, a bulky woman entered the room.

She was wearing a white shining silk dress with white gloves on her hands. Big gold ear-rings were hanging down from her ears and a gold pendant was caressing her neck. The thing that terrified me wasn’t the dress, but the voices she was making. She sat on the bed and started crying hysterically. She was swinging her arms in wide arcs and stretching out her own hair with her hands. The dry skin on her hands was tanned like leather. She was speaking loudly in a language that I wasn’t able to comprehend.

My legs started trembling and I was covered in sweat from head to toe. I was cursing the time when I decided to take a break, when a girl entered the room. She sat beside the woman and put a pot filled with smoke in front of her. Within seconds, the woman’s voices started lowering down gradually. She was calm now.

“We should prepare the lunch” The girl spoke in a creamy voice and the woman nodded her head.

I caught a glimpse of the girl. She was young, wearing a red velvet long dress and her black hair were tied in a pin. She was wearing gold bangles and ear-rings too. I was charmed by her beauty.

The circumstances convinced me that the woman was under a magic spell. After some time my fear was conquered by greed. The luster of gold jewelry they were wearing blind folded me and I decided to leave this house at night along with  jewelry.

“Stealing from two bare handed women can’t be that difficult”, I thought to myself.

I peeked into the hallway. It was dark. The woman’s snores were piercing the silence. I entered the room after making sure that they both are under the influence of deep sleep. I started removing slowly, the gold pendant and then both the gold ear-rings from the woman’s ears. Her ears were thin and brown as coffee beans. After putting them in my bag, I went closer to the girl, an innocent beauty. My hands shivered while removing her bangles and other jewelry.

As I finished, A loud crash in the hallway destroyed the peaceful silence. I ran towards the hallway to stop the sound. My eyes bulged out and a scream was stuck in my throat, as the vision became clear. A gigantic man with black long mustache like tail of an elephant was standing right in front of me.

He came closer and the bag of jewelry fell down from my hand. He grabbed my neck in one hand and my ear in the other. I smelled the scent of death. He pulled out my ear forcefully and with in a moment my ear was in his hand. A burning sensation filled my head. My screams woke up the women. They stood in the doorway with expressions of shock on their faces.

“RETURN THIS” he growled pointing his finger towards the bag. I grabbed the bag, handed it to the girl and ran out of their front door.

That was my last theft, the first unsuccessful one.

That giant man was the women’s son. That woman was sick. And that beautiful girl is my wife now….

Sometimes weirdest things in life turns out to be the best ones and weird people, the best mates !

Truth That Consumed Her -A Short Story

Who am I ? Where am I ? Many questions bubbled onto the surface her mind as she opened her eyes. At first she couldn’t see anything, her vision was blurred with a thin white sheet of mist.

She was laying in a small room. A dim yellow light was trying to make her vision clear but it couldn’t. She tried to move her arms and after struggling for a while, they were in a position to let her sit with her back resting along the headboard.

A bouquet of withered old flowers was resting on the side table along with a tray of tablets. A fan was running slowly on the ceiling which could produce no air but only an unpleasant noise. Her bed was white colored, made of steel. Soon she figured out that she was in a hospital. But why ? What happened to her ? She searched for wounds on her body but couldn’t find any. She tried to move her body off the bed but she wasn’t able to move it. She tried to call out, words stuck in her throat.

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“Yes my darling I will take you both to the zoo in the evening” She spoke in her soft voice wrapped in love while driving the car.

“But we want to go now Mama” Both her twin kids who were the world to her were insisting.

“Today is your first day at school my Love, you can’t skip it. Mama promises you that she’ll take you to the zoo”

“Okay pinky promise?” They both forwarded their tiny hands with cute smiles on their faces.

She smiled and touched their fingers with her’s and kissed them both on their foreheads. She had tears in her eyes while watching them enter the school gate….Tears that are precious like white pearls in the ocean….like a mother’s love….like the first rain…..pure !

She turned back and was crossing the road when suddenly she felt herself in the air….the ground beneath her feet was gone and her mind blacked out.

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“How the hell am I supposed to let her live in my home?”

“She is still my wife, why can’t you understand that? Doctors said there are 1% chances of her coming out of the coma and that 1% chance saved her like a miracle.Where the hell is she supposed to go now?”

“I don’t know anything. I have given my 15 years to this home. I have been taking care of her kids for 15 years and now she is here to take control of my home? I can’t let this happen ever”

“She is not in a position of taking control of your house. She is on the wheel chair for God’s sake!! Let her live in a corner of our house. She won’t interfere in your matters, I guarantee that ! I know her……”

She heard a loud sound like someone has thrown a plate on the ground…..And she heard the rest of that too.

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“Ali?“

“Yes my love“

“Can we be more happier and satisfied than we are now? Can life be better than this?” She was staring at the countless stars on the dark black sky, glittering and glowing like her eyes.

“I don’t think so” He kissed her hand while looking at her and smiled.

“But it can be if you make me a cup of coffee right now?” she stared at his face where a naughty smile and pure love was gleaming.

“Okay but this is the last time”

“My darling wife I love you” He cried and She giggled.

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“Why is she here brother I don’t like her. You know mom told me that she was bad and she was never there for us when we needed her. I hate her”

“She was in a coma for 15 years ! She need us now”

She didn’t listen to her brother.

While leaving the room she saw her pulling the wheelchair towards her room holding a plate with two burgers in her hands.

She recalled, they loved burgers when they were kids.

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He is standing on a freshly made grave covered with red roses. He is crying hard with his hands stretched in the air. Why Allah? Why did you do that to my mother? No one needed her but I did. Why did you snatch the only happiness I had after 15 years? Why? Tears were flowing down his cheeks and collecting on his neck as he continued……

Here lies a wife and a mother who was best of both at one time. She returned to the world to have a second chance but cold truth and cruel realities didn’t let her avail it. Here lies a girl consumed by nothing but truth…Truth that can be like roses at one time and like thorns for the other. As they say,”Truth is rarely pure and never simple”.

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Related:

The Daily Prompt: TRUTH.

Friday Fictioneers – The World Out There Is Cruel.

She was playing with doggy when he climbed up the tree.

“What can you sh-ee doggy ?” She asked in her soft voice.

“I can see a fairy land” The dog replied.

“Tell me more” She giggled.

“There are houses made of candies and a river of your favorite chocolate milk! Everyone is so happy” He continued.

“Wow can you take me up with you? I want to sh-ee the world” She insisted.

“You are too little to handle the reality of this cruel world my friend” Come play with me.

And she ran after doggy to play again.

While Taking A Photograph -A Moment Of Clarity

Me and my uncle share a special connection. We’d meet at holidays once a year and that time proves to be a crucial time for me. He has three kids who are no different than the chipmunks, I be the Alvin. They turn my house upside down in front of my eyes and I could do nothing but change my positions sitting on my couch, trying to control my anger. While at the same time my uncle cleans out every eatable in my fridge.

I remember an incident from the last time he visited me. He needed a photograph for his passport and asked me to help him. I knew my life is in danger as it was his utmost duty to ruin family group photos every time. Even though, I agreed. I had to.

I take a glance of him through the lens of my camera. He is sitting on a chair with a broken leg (thanks to his kids) and looking right towards me. I notice some gradual changes in his appearance. His face turns more red and his eye-brows move some more towards his head and closer to his nose. His jaws seems like coming out of his skin. A thin red vein is visible on his neck and it feels stretched like a rubber band. His eyes bulge out even more as if he has seen a zombie coming towards him. He is still – I feel like he’d give a sound of  ‘tunn – tunn’ if I hit him with a stick.

I was horrified. Before I could pull out my head and ask him, I hear a strange sound. Like someone has made a hole in a Tyre and air is blowing out with pressure.

I figured out, he just had his moment of clarity. Do you had ?

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A post written in response to Daily Prompt: Moment of Clarity

Credits: 

Idea taken from a lesson in my Urdu book of 6th or 7th grade, I don’t remember now exactly.

Image: Imagesss.com

Pages From Diary Of A School Girl

Ghosts Of December

December 23rd, 2005

Dear Diary,

Today was a bright day, partly because the sun was bright and partly because I got my results today. My class teacher who is the sweetest person I’ve ever met, gave me the certificate and first prize. She kissed my cheek in front of the whole class and said, “Congrats sweetheart”. I blushed and smiled. My friends were happy for me. Everyone loves me.

My mom gave me my favorite chocolate brownie for lunch today and after eating that, I played hide and seek with my friends. It was the best day ever.

December 23rd, 2007

Dear Diary,

I am taking the final exams of my fifth grade in school so I have to study hard. My mom says I am a grown up girl now so I should behave well in public but I don’t know how to behave well. I still love running away after ringing the door bells of houses and telling stupid jokes to my friends and laughing out loud.

I sometimes feel awkward when my friends keep admiring me because of my beauty and looks. But this is fine I guess. They are my best friends. Life is good.

December 23rd, 2009

Dear Diary,

Tears have blocked my throat as I write this. I am alone in this dark silent room scared of my own shadow. My friends don’t talk to me and people around me hate me. My smiles are abandoned and my life is a living hell.

It all started when last month, on my way back home my car met an accident. My face was injured badly. I heard doctors saying that these big black scars will fade away in some years. When I saw my face in the mirror I hated it and smashed the mirror into pieces. After that I cried hysterically scratching my face with my nails.

My mom has removed all mirrors from my room now. Doctor says that I am in depression and I should not look at my face. I am tired of listening heartbreaking comments from people. They HURT me. I feel like I am dying.

December 23rd, 2011

Dear Diary,

Life has become cruel. Are LOOKS everything ? I keep wondering in my lonely December nights sobbing in my bed but I don’t find answers. I never caused any harm to anyone nor did I think about anyone negatively then why do people hate me ? Just because I am not beautiful anymore? Why don’t they see my heart ? It is the SAME.

My vision just got blurred with tears but there is no one to wipe them. No one to pat me on my back and say, “You are beautiful, I see your beauty”. But I have decided to be strong. What if I look ugly, I am not ugly from inside and I will make people see my heart.

December 23rd, 2013

Dear Diary,

A new flower blossomed in my heart today and I am filled with its fragrance. Today was my best friend’s birthday who was not talking to me since my accident. I made a card for her with my own hands last night and in the morning when she got it laying on her chair and read it, I saw her crying. She came to me and gave me a hug saying “I am sorry !”. I smiled.

I made 10 birthday cards with my hands this year and now all of my friends love me again. One of my class fellows got sick for weeks. I gave her my notebooks so that she can complete her work. Her smile has filled my heart with calmness and peace.

I have never felt that happiness before that I feel now by making people smile. Every time a person smiles because of me, a flower of peace and happiness blossoms in my heart and I pass on its fragrance to others. I have learnt a lesson, living for others is the real way to live life.

After all, Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.

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Image credits: Google.

A post written for Weekly Writing Challenge: Ghosts of December 23rds Past