#AtoZChallenge – Flash fiction based on life’s philosophy or mood or emotions, interpreted using colours.
Image courtesy Google
I couldn’t bear to go in that room even after a month of coming back from the hospital. The elders had advised not to prepare anything, but the room was unused and it had to be painted along with the apartment. So I had zeroed on orange-yellow keeping in mind any eventuality—you know how it is. The color was supposed to be bright and sunny, sending positive vibes to the person living in the room. Person? A live, breathing individual, but there was no life left! My eyes welled again.
“Aadya, what is this? The whole house is in a mess!” Rajiv called out the moment he entered and glared when he saw me sprawled on the couch. “It’s been a month Aadya, you have to snap out of your gloom. Life has to go on.”
“I don’t care!” The vase on the side table came crashing down, as I jerked straight and my arm hit it.
Rajiv glowered at the mess then stormed into the bedroom slamming the door shut. His anger did what his concern could not do to my inactive depressive state. I took a deep breath, and cleaned the mess. The house was indeed very dirty especially the kitchen and I remembered the maid had not been coming for the past three days. A call to the neighbor proved to be the harbinger of another bad news. The maid had met with an accident and had died on the spot.
A week later someone knocked at my door and I found the maid’s seven year old daughter standing to collect her mother’s last wages. I brought her inside and gave some milk and biscuits. Sad and solemn, she kept looking at the door, apparently she had left something outside. I allowed her to bring it in.
To my shock, she brought in a basket of marigold flowers—orange, gold and yellow—the same color as the room.
“What will you do with these?”
“I have decided to sell them near the temple, this will help papa. Jindagi toh chalani hai.”
‘Life has to go on’. Her words reminded me of Rajiv’s anger. That day I could not comprehend what he was conveying, but listening to it from a child who had lost her mother a week back jolted me out of my misery. The bright yellow gold flowers mocked my immaturity and pessimism.
That day I opened the room painted in orange and yellow hues for the first time after I had miscarried. I sensed the darkness of negativity being chased away by the bright marigold colors.
Check out more A-to-Zers at:
Ina Tales Flaming Sun by Sundari Venkatraman Devika Fernando Blog Eloquent Articulation by Inderpreet Kaur Uppal Bewitched By Words by Aathira Jim Njkinnys World by Nikita Soni