Every evening when I go out to forage for food, I see her returning home. The last of the sun glints through her brown glossy feather as she glides through the air in all her regal glory.
She lives on the tallest tower in front of my humble tree and I have worshipped her for all the three years of my existence.
But as a creature of night with wiry, featherless body and jerky flying skills, I wish I was worth her.
I don’t think she knows I exist…
She had run to the park like a crazy woman where Britishers had opened fire on a peaceful gathering. “But surely, they would spare a four-year old”, she had thought.
Now she stood petrified, looking with glazed eyes at the mountains of dead bodies and wondering which one search first.
He was just one sip away from freedom but his hands felt too heavy; they wouldn’t lift the bottle to his lips.
He stood there for a long time until the bottle slipped from his hands and he began to cry.
After the divorce was finalised, she posted the picture of a gold hair clip on FB with the message, “Why I divorced him? Found this in his pocket. It isn’t mine! He refused to tell me whose it is. 😡”
He commented, “It is yours. Bought it for your birthday. Good riddance though! 😜”
Stirred by the burning sensation, she had come back from her grief-filled fog. She realised her clothes were dripping with oil; and she was burning on her dead husband’s pyre.
She tried to escape but her relatives pushed her back in until she stopped moving, all on the pretext of reuniting her with her husband.
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Daughter: Mommy, would you please read a story for me? I can’t sleep.
After 70 years
Mom: Honey, would you please read the letter for me? I can’t find my glasses.
The loneliness had become too much. Every one told him that he should move to a new city and start over again. He could, then, meet new people, and may be, even find love again…
He looked at his children: five and eight. Would they mind moving? Of course, they would! Their lives were here with their grandparents, their school and friends. He couldn’t uproot them at a whim!
He couldn’t hurt them, so he let the memories hurt him.
People were beginning to give me funny looks. I couldn’t stand outside any longer and opened the door. It felt like accepting defeat… as if I am a traitor. But after so many years of disappointments and heartbreaks, I had run out of options.
So, I entered the saloon and requested them to shave off my nearly non-existent hair.
Brown skin: Hi, Are you from the USA?
White skin: No, UK.
Brown: Aren’t they the same?
White (with exasperated sigh): Are you from Pakistan?
Brown: No, india.
White: Aren’t they the same?
The cuckoo looked intently at the crow’s nest. The baby was making hungry noises while the dedicated parents took turns to feed it with their beaks.
She sighed. It was a little too late to regret…
Short Stories | Fish-eye Perspective 