This is my first (VERY) SHORT story, of 500 words. This can develop into a full blown short story. I would appreciate your honest opinion on it. Honestly, would anyone like this kind of mushy writing? I am posting this for a select few, and each one can view this status by invitation only. Each one's opinion is important to me. Do let me know the defects. For me, I feel this is mushy soap opera material, but the emotion behind this is heartfelt, as are the events real. One NOTE: my daughter's name is BRISHTI, which translates to RAIN.
My Homecoming
It was one of those stiflingly hot and humid evenings. I was trudging down the desolate pathway that led to his family house. It has been a drab day at work, as usual. Typing on an unresponsive keypad all day long, staring dazedly at a maze of alphanumeric characters scrolling past the monitor.
Every evening I come home from work and let myself in with a duplicate key I carry. I never ring the bell. My wife does the same when she comes home after work, almost an hour after I get in. Ours is a two storied independent house. Since all of us live on the first floor, and there are my parents staying with us, it is pointless for someone to come downstairs and unlock the main door.
It has been a practice for many years now, from long before I got married. Each homecoming of a family member is acknowledged with a brief nod at best, and being riveted to the television at worse. We live like islands till dinner, when we meet over food and briefly discuss our day. Ours is a very impersonal and independent family, and overt shows of emotion are frowned upon.
We are a joint family which in essence is a loose association of many nuclear families, each family constitutes many sub-nuclear members; each in their own world. We take pride in our exclusivity. We aren’t the prying types. If someone needs to talk, they will ask.
It is changing. A girl, all of eight years, is wiser for her age.
She hears the ruffle of my feet on the garage driveway or the tinkle of the main gate as I let down the padlock, and comes rushing down the stairs. She switches on the light, smiles from across the grille gate, her glinting eyes and shining dentures framed brilliantly in a halo of curly hair. She unlocks the gate with her nimble hands. She rushes out and hugs me. She stays that way for an interminable time, silently hugging me, with grime of the streets all over my aged frame.
By then, I, true to my flock, am thoroughly unhinged at this expressive behavior. My arms frozen by my side by long perfected inhibition, I don't return the hug.
Then, she pulls me down by my neck, an irrepressible force in her tiny hands, and kisses me on the cheek. Not a peck, but a full blown kiss of a daughter for a dad. I shut my eyes in embarrassment, but my eyes start burning. Disturbingly, not all of the burning is due to the unbridled emotiveness of a child not chastised nearly enough.
She holds my hand and serenades me up the stairs with a tumultuous cascade of words depicting her busy day at school. Once upstairs and I have taken my shoes off and eased into my slippers, she is ready with a glass of water.
I start to melt.
That water. There is nothing that ever tastes sweeter in the day or night. I have come home; at last.
It started raining.
- Jayanta Ray
March 1st, 2013.
My Homecoming
It was one of those stiflingly hot and humid evenings. I was trudging down the desolate pathway that led to his family house. It has been a drab day at work, as usual. Typing on an unresponsive keypad all day long, staring dazedly at a maze of alphanumeric characters scrolling past the monitor.
Every evening I come home from work and let myself in with a duplicate key I carry. I never ring the bell. My wife does the same when she comes home after work, almost an hour after I get in. Ours is a two storied independent house. Since all of us live on the first floor, and there are my parents staying with us, it is pointless for someone to come downstairs and unlock the main door.
It has been a practice for many years now, from long before I got married. Each homecoming of a family member is acknowledged with a brief nod at best, and being riveted to the television at worse. We live like islands till dinner, when we meet over food and briefly discuss our day. Ours is a very impersonal and independent family, and overt shows of emotion are frowned upon.
We are a joint family which in essence is a loose association of many nuclear families, each family constitutes many sub-nuclear members; each in their own world. We take pride in our exclusivity. We aren’t the prying types. If someone needs to talk, they will ask.
It is changing. A girl, all of eight years, is wiser for her age.
She hears the ruffle of my feet on the garage driveway or the tinkle of the main gate as I let down the padlock, and comes rushing down the stairs. She switches on the light, smiles from across the grille gate, her glinting eyes and shining dentures framed brilliantly in a halo of curly hair. She unlocks the gate with her nimble hands. She rushes out and hugs me. She stays that way for an interminable time, silently hugging me, with grime of the streets all over my aged frame.
By then, I, true to my flock, am thoroughly unhinged at this expressive behavior. My arms frozen by my side by long perfected inhibition, I don't return the hug.
Then, she pulls me down by my neck, an irrepressible force in her tiny hands, and kisses me on the cheek. Not a peck, but a full blown kiss of a daughter for a dad. I shut my eyes in embarrassment, but my eyes start burning. Disturbingly, not all of the burning is due to the unbridled emotiveness of a child not chastised nearly enough.
She holds my hand and serenades me up the stairs with a tumultuous cascade of words depicting her busy day at school. Once upstairs and I have taken my shoes off and eased into my slippers, she is ready with a glass of water.
I start to melt.
That water. There is nothing that ever tastes sweeter in the day or night. I have come home; at last.
It started raining.
- Jayanta Ray
March 1st, 2013.
