Friendship – Short Stories

Not a Lore: Part 3 of 3

Posted on May 4, 2026Apr 29, 2026 by Shaily Agrawal

Author’s note: This is the third and final installment of a Twisted Fairytale from my fifth short-story compilation, Ugly: Twisted fairytales. It is a spinoff of the old Grimm’s tale, The Sleeping Beauty.

It is almost dawn when we finally find the princess in an antechamber. The room is immaculate, clearly magical.

The princess is breathtaking. She sleeps with both her hands on her heart and a peaceful smile on her face, oblivious of the century she has left behind. Her face is alight with the glow of the dawn, her long golden hair braided with fresh flowers, looking as if she has been frozen in time since the day she turned sixteen.

All that is left to be done is to kiss her. I feel blood leave my face as I consider what I am supposed to do.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Reese is concerned but his heart is drumming louder than mine, and I hear a hint of jealousy again. Does he want to kiss her? Should I let him?

The thought pushes a dagger through my heart. I straighten my back and walk up to the sleeping princess and kiss her, first tentatively, then anxiously, over and over again. I shake her, desperate for her to wake up. But nothing happens! The princess stays fast asleep blissfully unaware of my existence.

Reese lets out a breath of relief and says meaningfully, “She needs true love’s kiss!”

It’s no use pretending anymore. I slump down on the floor next to the bed in defeat, “I just needed to try. If the world’s most beautiful woman can’t make me fall in love with her…”

“It’s alright!” Hesitating, he adds, “We can report back to the king that the princess is already dead. Nobody would know.”

“I would know,” I wish the ground would swallow me!

Reese looks concerned as he offers me his hand, “Come, we must get out before the dragon comes looking for breakfast.”

“And go back where? To my parents who sent me on the quest to become dragon fodder? They know I can never marry her.”

Twenty‑eight years of walls I had built carefully around me are crumbling. I hate myself for not being strong enough. Once I return, the world would know for sure. The whispers would become louder and clearer, shaming my parents even further. “They’ll never love me. I have failed them yet again by failing to die.”

Reese’s face is a mask of pain mirroring mine, as if someone has stabbed him in the heart. He is opening and closing his fists like he wants to punch a wall or kill someone. But when he finally looks at me, his eyes are not angry—they hold strength. He offers hesitatingly, “If you don’t want to go back, nobody needs to know we survived the quest. The soldiers have their orders to leave for home if we don’t return in three days.”

He sits down next to me and holds my hand tenderly, erasing the past eleven years in one touch, “We can go away together; sell the armour to buy a farm; run it together like my parents did. It will be a difficult life though—one with a lot of hard work and sparce meals.”

As I look at our joined hands, I can finally breathe again, “I don’t care about luxury. I will have you.”

“Me too!”

END

Author’s note: If you would rather read it all together in the book, Ugly: Twisted Fairytales is available for free download here: Link

Photo by Sean Thomas on Unsplash

Fiction, Published, Twisted fairytales

Not a Lore: Part 2 of 3

Posted on May 3, 2026Apr 29, 2026 by Shaily Agrawal

Author’s note: This is first installment of a Twisted Fairytale from my fifth short-story compilation, Ugly: Twisted fairytales. It is a spinoff of the old Grimm’s tale, The Sleeping Beauty.

Even now Rese is risking his life yet again, standing outside the castle grounds with me without the army. I had proposed to come alone but Reese wouldn’t hear of it. The dragon’s smoke is thicker here. I survey the scene quietly, trying to hide my emotions. Of course, I am having second thoughts. Reese’s face is a kaleidoscope of emotions, and I wonder what he is thinking when he finally speaks, “Your Majesty! This whole thing is an exercise in futility.”

“Are you questioning my plan?”

“No! I think the plan is excellent. Since there is no way to kill the dragon, there is no point bringing all the men to the castle. Their noise would inform the dragon of our presence, and its fire can melt their armour easily. So why risk their lives? Only you need to kiss the princess to wake her up while I watch your back. What I am questioning is the worth of this quest—the folklore is at least a century old, which means that the princess is either already dead of old age or at least 116 years old. Do you think, you would like to kiss someone who is the age of your great‑grandmother?”

It is nice to see his sense of humour returning. Smiling, I counter, “You are forgetting the last part of the folklore—that the princess is sixteen and she’ll wake with a prince’s kiss. Since the part of the lore about the dragon and silver castle is true, she must still be alive and young enough to be kissed.”

Reese’s face falls for a second but he persists, “Come on! She may not even be beautiful. I mean, these folklores tend to exaggerate things. She could be any commonplace princess who was glorified in stories. Not to forget, she has been sleeping for a hundred years—she could be smelly and drooling over herself; her hair and dress could be in cobwebs. She may not even be your true love, you know.”

He is trying hard to sound objective, but I hear the tiniest hint of jealousy. Who is he jealous of? It’s not like I am going to come out of it a hero. I am just a sacrificial lamb. Gah! These princesses have it so easy. They just have to wait in their castle for their true love to arrive while princes die fighting dragons.

Honestly, Reese is reflecting the same thoughts that I have had since the beginning of the quest. But why now—after two years? Not that it changes anything.

“Father’s orders were clear enough—I have to marry her or die trying.”

“He is just trying to get rid of you—sending you on a quest that could mean a lifetime of search and failure. He didn’t even know if the princess existed. It was just an easy way to exile you.”

Is Reese reading my mind? And where is his loyalty to the king? “Reese! You are overstepping.”

“Please don’t try to shut me out. I have maintained my silence so far. But this may be the last day of our lives—our last day together. You know I’d walk on hot coals for you. You can at least hear me. Your father makes no secret that he detests your decision to stay a celibate. But you are his eldest son and the heir to the throne by birthright. So, he just wants you out of the way for an excuse to hand over the kingdom to one of your younger brothers.”

Though I had known it forever, the truth cut deeply, “I don’t care about the throne anyway.”

“True, but that doesn’t change the fact that your parents have sent you here to die. Dying for them won’t make them love you.”

“You are crossing the line!”

“I care for you. I don’t want you to die for someone who doesn’t love you alive.”

“Silence, Squire! We are going in now.”

*****

We have hidden the bulky armour outside the castle walls since it makes a lot of noise and dragon fire can melt armour anyway. Together, we scale the walls easily—there are too many footholds in the stones cracking by exposure to the elements—and enter undetected in the castle backyard.

A massive dragon sleeps fretfully at a distance in front of the main gate. A cloud of smoke rises from its nostrils. It looks weak from hunger—skin stretched over bones—after a century of imprisonment in this forsaken place. No wonder it is irritable and inhospitable to any armies that venture in.

The massive wooden gates on the door leading to the hall are hanging open on their hinges, but we enter through a broken window on the side wall, giving the dragon a wide berth. The place reeks of death. Walls are charred in places and broken human bones litter the place. The castle feels haunted. The hallways glimmer eerily in the low light wherever the metal armour of countless soldiers has melted and become one with the stone path. We avoid stepping on it for the fear of making a noise. We take a torch from a metal bracket and light it up with a flint—it will take all night.

Author’s note: To be continued…

If you would rather read it all together in the book, Ugly: Twisted fairytales is available for free download here: Link

Photo by Sean Thomas on Unsplash

Fiction, Published, Twisted fairytales

Not a Lore: Part 1 of 3

Posted on May 2, 2026Apr 29, 2026 by Shaily Agrawal

Author’s note: This is first installment of a Twisted Fairytale from my fifth short story compilation, Ugly: Twisted fairytales. It is a spinoff of the old Grimm’s tale, The Sleeping Beauty.

The King’s orders were clear, “Marry the princess or die trying.” By ‘the princess’, the King was referring to an old folklore that said:

“There lays a princess of sixteen,

Fair as the winter sun and hair made of gold,

Cursed by a witch to sleep for years untold,

In a silver castle guarded by a dragon.

When the century sets in the horizon,

Her prince shall arrive then,

To wake her with true love’s first kiss

And rule the world with her as his.”

Why the king wanted me, his eldest son and crown prince, to lay down my life for a princess who was at least a century older than me was anybody’s guess. But I am not the one to fight back my father’s whims. So, I had set off instantly on the quest along with two hundred soldiers. My men and I had searched the world for the elusive silver castle hiding the cursed princess, knowing too well that magic and dragons were creatures of myths. The folklore had come ‘somewhere from the north’, so we had started towards north and searched through many kingdoms and fought many unwanted battles to find this very old and, apparently, very desirable princess.

*****

After two years of constant walking and fighting and half of my men dying for nobody’s cause, I have finally found the place.

On the top of a hill, the ominous grey castle shines like silver and casts long shadows in the dying winter sun. The cloud of smoke that rises from the castle grounds is visible from the valley. I wish it is a huge bonfire, even if it means that the castle is now inhabited by an army of bandits or even a cannibal tribe. Anything is better than facing a dragon that can create smoke of that size without trying. But the villagers have spotted the dragon fly above the castle in circles too many times in the past century. Its roar is heart‑stopping even from such a distance. But it never leaves the castle to hunt, which meant that we are about to face a very hungry and frustrated dragon itching for a fight. The villagers have also told us of the many princes—fair, brave and strong—who came to rescue the princess in the past century. They all entered the castle accompanied with their entire armies and never returned—nobody ever did.

There is no way to kill a dragon—you can only avoid it. I am about to face it though. But do my men need to die as well?

*****

I embarked on this journey to die trying—to prove myself to my father and to the world that does not consider me man enough. I am a skilled warrior with a hulking frame and body sculpted from many years of rough living in constant battles that plague our kingdom’s borders. I have put my life on the line too many times for my king. But I’m the next in line to the throne and my lack of interest in women and marriage at 28 years of age is a cause of whispered suspicions across the kingdom and my father’s shame. My younger brothers make fun of my ‘chaste’ ways. Many wannabe‑princesses have tried to seduce me, and when they failed, they crushed my dignity underfoot by moving to my younger brothers’ bed chambers. My mother has even gone farther and found a woman who is ready to marry me ‘without expecting a child’. But how can I take the vows knowing they are lies?

I have tried to love someone…anyone…but failed. And with that, I have failed my parents, crushed their expectations and earned this banishment. Because no matter the excuse my father has used, it is banishment. They know well that no woman will ever wake from my kiss.

May be if I die trying, they would finally be proud of me. Not that anyone would care if I died, except Reese.

*****

Reese is my constant companion for twenty‑two years—playmate, best friend, sparring partner and now my Squire. Earlier, we had spent many years together planning pranks, facing my father’s backlash, fighting with wooden swords and dreaming of the day I would become the king, and Reese would be my general. He knew my moods and made me laugh. He cared.

But, at seventeen, my father had raised concerns about the closeness of our friendship. Soon after, Reese was sent with a battalion stationed at the far end of the kingdom and I was left alone in a world that did not care. It took me a long time to put my pieces together and become the ‘strong royal’ my father expected me to be. When Reese finally returned after two years, I realised it was better to stay aloof rather than face another separation. Now Reese is just my Squire, a subordinate who does as he is asked to. Reese still knows my moods and makes me laugh. He still cares. He has always stuck by my side during fights, never more than a few feet apart, watching my back and saving my neck too many times to count.

Author’s note: To be continued…

If you would rather read it all together in the book, Ugly: Twisted fairytales is available for free download here: Link

Photo by Sean Thomas on Unsplash

Fiction, Published, Twisted fairytales

Doors: Part 2 of 2

Posted on Apr 26, 2026Apr 24, 2026 by Shaily Agrawal

Author’s note: This is second and final installment of a Twisted Fairytale from my fifth short story compilation, Ugly: Twisted fairytales.

Tonight, on Halloween, we came to this village to collect the last tooth for the next five years. The next kid in line is just one year old, so it will be some time before he loses his teeth. All day long, Nui had been alternating between being lost, excited and jumpy. Every time I asked, she behaved too innocently. So, of course, I told her, “I won’t let you enter those magical doors. We have no idea where they lead and whether they let you return.”

Her reply was, “What doors?” Obviously, I never let her out of my sight all day.

When we finally reached this kid’s house, there was a storm outside. We entered the house through a crack in the window. I started the process of retrieving the tooth, while Nui stood guard at the windowsill. A newly acquired cat jumped on me. For a quarter of an hour, I hide inside a closet worried out of my head about this girl until I realised the truth. There was no way the cat could outwit her. She left before the cat came in…

…which means she entered one of the doors.

So, after I managed to dodge the cat, I now stand in front of all these doors, trying to guess which one she took and come up blank. Her spell‑phone is not reachable. I have called out her name several times but, I’m afraid, she can’t hear me. I have called her boyfriend to check if she had discussed the door that she’d prefer…But he’s as dumb as ever, “You let that vile cat eat her!” As if a cat could ever catch her. She would tie its hands and legs and roast it on a spit before it could blink. She’s my guard for that very reason—she’s a Fighter!

When I tell him about the magical doors, he comes up blank. Did she never talk to him about them? All he has to say is, “You are trying to frame her for breaking the magical rules!”

Seriously! I understand he disbelieves me, but does he even know her? She never follows rules. “I’m going after her. Do you want to join me? Together we can cover more doors.”

Suddenly, his voice changes, guarded, “We aren’t sure where those doors lead. It is too dangerous for us…”.

After a few seconds’ hesitation, he sounds braver, “Anyway, we aren’t sure that she took the doors at all. Even if she did, we don’t know which one. You just said, there are too many doors, right? What if she isn’t in the door either of us take? We’ll never find her that way. I guess, we should report her to the authorities. They will send a search party. Meanwhile, we should just wait here for her to return.”

“Come on! Authorities will wait for twenty‑four hours. That could be too late.”

“It’s probably already too late. She could already be de…” He could not complete his sentence though—because I hexed his spell‑phone to shove up his ass. He will stay busy with it until another Spellman creates a counter‑spell.

But now, he can’t help me. So, I have to take a wild guess at the door she took. In my mind, I picture her fighting fantastic creatures and living her dreams. I’m scared. I am no Fighter, just a Spellman who knows a few magic tricks. But I want to be by her side when she wins the world. Most of all, I just want to be with her. I can’t stand the thought of never seeing her smile again.

I have only one chance to guess the right door. There is no guarantee that once I am in, it will ever let me out. If I choose the wrong one, I might be stuck without her forever. The thought scares me even more. So, I try my hardest to guess.

I decide to guess the doors she’ll never take—she hates the red‑, purple‑ and yellow‑coloured doors. She finds them too girly. She’ll never take the green one—it’s too small. If she wants to break the rules, she’ll do something grand. This leaves the two huge blue doors. I approach the bigger one with burns and scratches the size of a dragon’s nails. My hands shake at the thought of facing whatever is on the other side…

She could be fighting it alone!

With that scary thought, I gather all my courage, wave my wand and pull the door with all my magic. The door wouldn’t budge. I can’t even create a crack to peep in and see if I can spot Nui anywhere. The thought of losing her forever is driving me crazy. I move in front of the next door to see if I can find her there.

But before I can do anything, a small crevice opens in the first door and Nui falls out. My heart jumps into my throat as I fly to her, worried that I am too late. But she pulls me in a bear hug instead! “What took you so long?”

“Well, you didn’t exactly leave a forwarding address. Did you?” I’m too relieved to care that I’m shouting at her.

Ideally, this is when she kicks me, but she just smiles and says, “I knew you’d know where to find me.”

I don’t want to be placated. But how could I not be? She’s fine and back, speaking of which, “Why did you come back out? You could have just pulled me in. Now I have to try opening the damned door again.”

“Naah! They left without us. Anyway, I’m not sure I’m welcome anymore—I hit the doorman,” she shrugs. My brows rise up to my hairline, so she adds, “Well! I entered the door and was waiting for you in the lobby on the other side and heard you call my name. I shouted back but I guess you couldn’t hear me from the inside. Then I heard you call my guy. I was afraid he would want to come too, so I stayed quiet. I was cheering when you hexed him, when the doorman announced that we were leaving and the next flight would not be until Halloween next year.

So, I tried reopening the door to call you in, but he stopped me, quoting some guideline that the door mustn’t be opened from the inside. I could hear you trying to open the door with magic. You could have just pulled the handle, you know! I was worried that we’d leave you behind and the doorman still won’t let me open the door.

I decided it wasn’t worth it without you. So, I punched him and let myself out.” Blushing furiously, she entwined our fingers as we flew away to our next assignment.

Author’s note: To be continued…

If you would rather read it all together in the book, Ugly: Twisted fairytales is available for free download here: Link

Photo by Ranurte on Unsplash

Fiction, Published, Twisted fairytales

Doors: Part 1 of 2

Posted on Apr 25, 2026Apr 24, 2026 by Shaily Agrawal

Author’s note: This is first installment of a Twisted Fairytale from my fifth short story compilation, Ugly: Twisted fairytales.

Not sure which one she took—there are too many doors on this wall. Ever since the day we found this little nook in this village a couple of years back, Nui had been burning with curiosity. We come here often to collect the occasional teeth from under the pillow and look at these doors, but not as often as Nui would like to. With people having fewer children, there are fewer teeth to collect.

Okay, just in case you are confused, we are tooth faeries. She is a four‑and‑a‑quarter‑inch Fighter and I am a five‑inch Spellman. We are a team and we collect teeth together. Why?

Because, to pry out broken teeth from under the pillow, I have to cast the spells to prop up the child, move the pillow, place the coin and grab the tooth and then place the pillow and child back in place. (Not sure why they don’t just keep the tooth on the side‑table. It would be so convenient for us.) So, while I am using all my concentration for the spells, Nui stands guard to look out for any pet animals and keep them at bay.

Cats are especially nasty—stealthy, vicious and quick. Once, when my partner was out sick (a serious case of bird flu—her wings kept twitching like hummingbird’s and her voice sounded like a crow’s), a cat sneaked up on me. I found myself inside the cat’s stomach and it’s not a pretty sight. I had to tickle its intestine so that it would spit me out. Later, I had to shower for almost an hour to take off the muck from my hair. So, you get the drift…

So, all tooth fairies work in pairs to avoid such situations.

Between her and me, we have fifty‑seven villages to cover. You would think that we would be dying of overwork. But children are getting so rare now that there aren’t enough teeth to go around. In fact, most of the tooth fairies are forced to take up smithery or animal‑guard roles for smaller beings, like rats (desperate times!). Most of the teeth forges are now going out of commission too.

For any novices out there, teeth forges are where new human teeth are forged on order. Every end of the day, we submit the acquired teeth at the teeth forge. The teeth smith takes the measurements and DNA print and then forges new teeth to replace the old ones. The old teeth are recycled, of course. A delivery elf, then, submits the new teeth to the Great Guy on the seventh cloud to be dispersed as needed. All that is beyond our job role, of course.

Anyway, Nui and I are best friends, even though it is rather difficult. She has an adventurous spirit and a knack for getting into dangerous situations—like the day she decided to adopt a lost pup. He’s a Great Dane who loves catching anything that flies too close. It took us a couple of weeks and several trips to its stomach before it learnt not to catch faeries.

Her boyfriend—another Fighter fairy—doesn’t approve of the Dane. On second thought, he doesn’t approve of me either. He thinks I’m hitting on her. Initially, I told him, “Mate, I gave up on the day we became partners 93 years back.”

I had made a move on her on the first day at work and she gave me a black eye. Ever since then, I’ve stuck to being friends. But I keep that piece of information to myself. No need to humiliate myself when he doesn’t believe me anyway.

Well, his loss! Every now and then, he tells her to dump me, and she gives him the black eye instead.

Nui is the reason for being a tooth fairy worth it—it gives us an excuse to stick together all day. I think the Great Guy on the seventh cloud knows about it too and, hence, he hasn’t changed our pairing in all these 93 years—a rarity in our field.

That’s why, I let her drag me to look at these doors every time we’re in the village. They are inside an old building that belonged to a bunch of humans named ‘Karpenters’ once upon a time. They used to build things out of wood here. But a couple of decades ago, when a fire crashed a couple of walls and the roof, they deserted the place. Now, they say the place is haunted and no one visits it anymore, which suits us just fine. Every time we have an assignment in this village, we sit here for hours and look at these magical wooden doors.

How are we so sure they are magical?

Well, why would anyone place so many doors on the same wall, unless they all lead to different places? Deductive reasoning, you see.

Also, they are all different colours and sizes—some of them too small for grown up humans—and all of them are well‑worn. Some of them have claw marks all over them (Werewolves?) while one looks severely burnt (Dragons?). Nui loves to contemplate about where each door would lead us. Many times, she has asked me to come with her so that we could enter them together. I’m curious too but not crazy enough to try. With magic, you could never be sure where they would take us.

Author’s note: To be continued…

If you would rather read it all together in the book, Ugly: Twisted fairytales is available for free download here: Link

Photo by Ranurte on Unsplash

My life

Matters of Heart: Act 7

Posted on Sep 11, 2025Jan 15, 2026 by Shaily Agrawal

As discussed in the previous Matters of Heart post, my close friend X was having difficulty in decoding the language of Indian love. Of course, you need to learn Morse code to understand the language that relies completely on reading body language and crooked pick-up lines. (“What a wonderful weather for a long drive!” means “Will you join me for a long drive and go to places unknown so your family can’t catch us snuggling?”)

So, even after I happily supplied the explanation (a rare accomplishment), she remained incredulous. She was sure that if Y has wanted to take her out on a date, he would have said so. He didn’t need to resort to this round-about way of showing interest in me first.

I could only sigh!

One day, she came to college in a really foul mood. Apparently, Y had told Z (another male friend) that she was engaged. He had been very detailed about the ceremony and Z was sold on the idea. Z had then told his aunt who knew X and she called on her family phone to congratulate her.

Since family phone offers no privacy, she was having a difficult time in keeping it from her parents. If they found about this prank, they will obviously ask the most obvious question: Who are Y and Z and how come she is friends with them and their relatives without telling her parents?

You see, in small-town India of early 2000, no girl spoke to a boy without parental supervision. X had just struck a friendship during extra-classes in a co-ed institute and kept it under wraps to avoid any parental obstruction. It was a regular practice in those days. No girl in her right senses would talk to her parents of all the boys she was acquainted with.

Boys, however, could boast about all the girls they had befriended (or claimed to befriend). No pointed questions were asked from the male counterparts. Girls, however, were usually grounded.

Now that the conversation had happened on the family phone (no mobile phone in those days), she had to lay it very thick to avoid detection. Pointed questions were asked. Her standard answer–“a friend (obviously female) called”–was not sufficient. She had to go through the details of the call ensuring that all her facial reactions on the call matched the explanation without revealing the truth. Not satisfied because the conversation was whispered but finding no reason for open hostility, the parents had dropped the matter. Obviously, the next few days would involve close scrutiny.

While it was uncomfortable, X was mainly upset because of the loss of trust. She was clueless why Y would lie about her. She wanted to confront him. But she had to play the good girl and go home on time after college to avoid any further issues.

I offered an insight yet again based on my previous assessment–“Y was deleting competition. Once Z heard of the engagement, (having no way to contact X to confirm the news because he would obviously not call X on home phone), he would have bowed out. But, Y had not counted on relatives being involved.”

X was not satisfied with my assessment because it now implicated two male friends–Y and Z– and suggested that they “liked” her.

But she had run out of all possible excuses for Y’s odd behaviour. Unfortunately for Y, no matter what his reasons were, X now wanted revenge. She was angry enough to take my advice and I let my inner vamp take over.

A couple of weeks later, X came to college wearing a heavy gold ring on her ring finger that belonged to her mother. Two of us went to meet Y after college hours. She was still unsure how it would act as revenge (engagements were usually happy events) but I insisted her to try. There were no relatives involved at Y’s front so there was nothing to lose.

Once there, she declared she was engaged–that her parents had found her the most amazing husband and marriage is due in three months. (To learn how the process of finding a husband for a daughter works, please look at I do: The Indian Way series.)

To make the charade more believable, we carried a box of chocolates as a “gift from her fiance’ ” and offered him a piece as celebratory sweets. We discussed a whole lot of believable lies coming from my experience from my cousin’s recent engagement–the families being in touch discussing the matter for a long time, the sudden visit of boy’s family, quick arrangements and engagement on spot.

We also gave him the details of the amazing ‘boy’–looks based on my brother and education, job, family and other details of my cousin…

For a Home run, I thanked him for the joke from earlier, and assured him that his words had acted as a prayer and have landed X with a such a wonderful future.

As expected, Y congratulated X and we took his leave to “further spread the news”. I am usually not a sadist. But as I sat in the auto for home, I laughed all the way eating the “celebratory chocolates”.

Later that day Z, who was already in on the plan, informed X that the news had hit home and Y had called him to tell him about the “real” engagement; that he had consoled him with the standard “it was bound to happen someday” statement; and that Y had assured him that “he was usually quite happy these days” with a tone akin of a funeral.

Z didn’t tell him the truth for a month. Considering they were best friends and spoke every day, I would say, it was needlessly cruel…

But what would I, who never had boyfriend, know about the matters of heart?

🤣🤣🤣

Picture by Kelly Sikkema

Poetry

Muddled | Poetry | Lantern

Posted on Aug 4, 2023Aug 3, 2023 by Shaily Agrawal

Pain,

not mine,

stays and muddles

what’s mine and what’s

borrowed.

Author’s note: Lantern is Japanese poetry form shaped visually like a lantern in 1,2,3,4,1 syllables.

My life

The Curious Case of M&S

Posted on Sep 8, 2020Sep 8, 2020 by Shaily Agrawal

We were born to different mothers 22 days apart in different cities, so we can’t be twins. M is Snow White, I am Pocahontas–both in looks and in attitude. Still, it feels like we share the same soul…not in a romantic way, but the way twins do–we feel each other’s pain and happiness miles apart.

Twenty years back, I met this pretty girl outside our Bachelor’s Painting class. She was a girly-girl who managed household responsibilities and fed the four dwarfs. I was a tom-boyish adventurer who would rather run around than cook. Roughly, you can call it love at first sight. I say ‘roughly’ because our relationship didn’t have a romantic angle. It is the comradery; friendship that belied all logic; the deep need to stick together without reason; and the empathy that crosses the border of sanity.

I remember instances like the sudden pain in my toe while sleeping and limping to college next day, only to meet her limping outside college having stubbed the same toe at the same moment at her home.

It became a habit. Some days, I would feel a sudden urge to laugh. Then, I’d call her to ask what’s the joke. Or I’d be feeling down over some matter and get a call from her to ask why I was sad.

We liked the same things. Her friends were forced to accept me as an unavoidable menace.

We had both behaved like grown ups during childhood. Together, at 18, we found our childhood. Our opinion was always different. But we agreed to fist fight over it and then laugh it off. No hard feelings ever. Our classmates often asked us if we had come from the same school. Some even suspected us to be sisters.

We fit beautifully together like pieces of jigsaw puzzle. We didn’t know what we were missing until we found each other. Life has pulled us apart for a long time, but every time I feel an emotion that didn’t fit the context, I think of her. Every laughter, every pain, every itch, every mood that isn’t really mine, reminds me of the other part of my soul–the one that will return to me once our bodies are gone.

Heathcliff waits for Katherine. Wuthering Heights gives me hope and solace.

Photo by Briana Tozour on Unsplash

My life, Poetry