[Fiction] Friday Challenge #219 for August 5th, 2011
Am obviously a little late, but the prompt intrigued me enough to want to take a stab at it, so here goes.
***
All eyes turned towards me as I almost fell into room. The carpet had ripped at the entrance, thanks to our new canine friend we adopted just a month ago. I was, after all, the man of the moment and I had walked into the room bringing with me gasps. Of pin drop silence and shock.
In anticipation of celebrations, family and friends had traveled from far and wide. Including the frenemies that we, as a family could not ignore.
To give you perspective, I was getting dressed for the evening and in a moment of unbridled happiness and not waiting for further instructions on the evening’s schedule, I dart across my room and into the corridors. Hearing the voices from the larger room that we usually host people for drinks, I make my way up towards it. I didn’t find a soul on my way and I wondered at my good fortune. What are the chances of given free reign in your own home, without a man not given instructions on how to dress, walk, stand when there was company under the roof?
Nada.
One makes hay while the sun shines. In this case, run untethered and unencumbered. The door was wide open and sounds of glasses clinking mixed with my Uncle’s baritone guttural laughter greeted me. My cousins were at their wildest best, and I presume they must also have an inkling on this untethered atmosphere, coz out barged two of the best dressed ones and ran the other way. Right on their heels was my older cousin, the bully. I remember being very intimidated by this guy as he was a head taller than me and was not afraid of using that height. He did not see me and had eyes on the girls. It was at this particular moment, I walked into an atmosphere of revelry and laughter, only to stifle it all in a moment. All my peers, stopped in their tracks and stared. Aunties covered their open mouths with the edges of their pallus, some mouths still stuffed with the remains of half eaten samosas. Uncles stopped mid-way through their drinks and one coughed up half of some really expensive 60’s wine.
Oblivious to the split second reaction I produced, I still had the grin on my face and beamed all around.
It was at this juncture that my cousin brother stepped in from behind me and started laughing, his normally brown face now going a deep crimson.
That was all the cue everyone else needed, and the whole room burst into loud, undisguised mirth. The kids pointed their fingers at me and laughed, the ladies chided and yet again covered their faces and mouths and laughed and the uncles guffawed.
It felt odd.
It did not seem like they were happy and laughing with me, they were laughing at me.
You see, I was naked.
Butt naked. Not a single shred of cloth covered any part of me.
My hair all tousled and unbound falling in long tendrils across my forehead and neck.
My fair chest, hairless with fat in folds and hanging loose.
My member out there in all its moderate glory.
My dimpled knees in plain view
And just like that my favorite aunt rushes forward, scoops me into her arms and around her large dupatta and sings softly “happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you” as everyone else joins in.
I had turned three years old.
standing packed
in anticipation
brimming a dreamy symphony
whispering the same
in repetition
silencing a misty cacophony
waiting
yearning
pining
to awake in the music
to dance in the echos
to shimmer in the ripples
to be alive
an orchestra in order
bows bent
backs straight
in attendance
in anticipation
in repetition
to wake up and dance and shimmer with life
for
his breath to surge
his eyes to rove
his finger to trace
to render her
tactile
She was a delight, he thought.
From her giggles to the hearty deep laugh, her coquettish eyes to that curve of her brown lips. The way her chin angled in every picture he’d seen. It seemed natural that she’d do that until it was pointed out one day.
Her rich brown coffee colored hair streaked with henna, catching a bit of the sunshine as she turned and tossed her now waist length mane.
Flirtatious and flippant, she moved with purpose. Unaware of the effect she had amongst the row of men that waved from across the lines. It didn’t seem to faze her. It didn’t seem to make her heady. Her dancing feet firmly rooted, she pranced in and out of his life a few times now.
A whirlwind with every entrance. Leaving him breathless and harried. A high that was at once sexy, heady, thrilling as much as it drove him up the wall.
She was a child-woman. Excitedly she’d waltz into his life, with a bit of a tear threatening to flow down her rounded brown cheeks. He’d succumb. As much as a strict front he put on, he let her have the power on him. Every single time.
Every time she revealed a little bit of herself.
Animatedly she’d pull herself aside and show a secret. One. Each time it was just one, or maybe two. Not more. Guarded secrets. Ones that she treasured with great pride and a sense of urgency to protect.
He’d peeled away at her childishness one day. She let him.
Next it was her enthusiasm.
The way she held her pen while she wrote volumes to him.
Then came her spunk.
The sensuous curve of her neck.
The eyes that spoke volumes with different shades.
Peel by peel by peel.
His fingers trembled with every reveal.
She in turn glowed under his touch.
The finer fluff done, he probed further and braced her jealousies and insecurities.
Fascinatingly repugnant, yet strangely goading him further, he delved deeper.
The layers got difficult to navigate, murky, there was no clarity in where he was headed. Common sense told him to retreat now, but he was curious. He wanted to know everything about her. He felt that when he first met her and now there was a hesitation. A voice floated down “Be careful for what you wish for, you may just get it” He wondered briefly if this complication was necessary at all.
Outside his mind, the game continued. He stopped asking in hope that she would stop revealing. He was no masochist.
He exclaimed one day,”You are crazy! One day you surprise me, the next you shock!”
She smiled shyly. “There’s more. Just one last one”, she said with a twinkle in her eye.
With a sense of finality and relief and a sadness that accompanies the revealing of the mystery, he stood waiting. With a deep breath and a smile, she opened her palms and it shone. Clear and radiant, it lay there dazzling against the pinkness of her palm. It was her final treasure. It was herself.
Shielding his eyes to the brightness, he says with disappointment “A shiny clear stone!”
Her eyes drop, and she closes her palms. Her pulse raced and before she fell to the floor in a heap, she held onto her diamond just a bit tighter.
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