Image adapted from: Pixabay / jem040506
Image adapted from: Pixabay / jem040506

Leaving home

FICTION: A short story from Kashmir.
Published on

Through the multi-latticed chiffon window, the view is decrepit. Half open doors hinge on loose and rusty hooks. The windows have gathered soot and have faded in colour. Empty balconies nestle vagrant cats and wild pigeons. The garden at the front of the house, once full of life, looks parched. And in all this, a silence, broken occasionally by the jarring cry of a crow resting upon a splintered wall of this long forsaken house.

***

Saturday afternoon, August 1989. The air is heavy with moisture, and the weather is incredibly warm. Moti Lal, has returned from his office after a half-day leave. The house appears noiseless; the children are yet to return from school. Moti Lal marches around to find a place to sit, and finally rests himself on an old blue sofa, where Sunita and Reshmi often sit to do their homework. He sits down brusquely adjusting his fawn headgear, and places his files next to him. Waving one of the files against his face, he calls out to kanta.

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Himal Southasian
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