eFiction India eFiction India Vol.02 Issue.09 | Page 21

STORIES

20

A MISPLACED
IDENTITY
    PRERANA YELAMANCHILI                                   

“

Y OU ARE BEAUTIFUL,” she
patted my oily hair, standing upright,
and held my wrists close. I wiped my
running nose on her cotton dupatta, while
the fresh block prints left pale red stains on
my upper lip.
She turned her back to me, mumbling and
sobbing quietly, while I turned myself in.
I had fallen prey to the only thing she had
warned me against, and she? Well, she just
kept walking along.
It has been days since I last met her, and
nobody has been able to gauge why she left
so instantly. Like a firefly at the break of
dawn. Like my mother, whose bed is now a
pile of rotting wood and broken memories.

I know at that very moment, that very
breath, why she had left. She had become
nameless so that I could live up to my
household’s name. She had gone, for she
wanted me to stay. She had not run away,
no, she had stood still while time around
her passed by.
Wonder why she never stayed back and
took care of us, like before, or why she
didn’t take me along?
Well, you don’t know, but she did.
She knew my little secret, and I know hers.

***

That’s what her pinkie had promised me
the other day, before she had kissed me on
my cheek and remarked how beautiful I
was. Before people had accused her of bad
things and called her worse names during
her absence.

I remember her face suddenly. Deep brown,
and a few lighter patches on the chin.
Big, kohl-lined eyes, with a tiny deep red
bindi between her brows, often twitching
involuntarily. ()