heart touching stories.

[jai_bhardwaj]

Suspense Short Story

Morning

Wrinkles were settling on his face, making their way through his once firm white skin.

“Youth”, he told himself, “is gone since long.”

His mirror always reminded him of this gnawing detail. And as he heard himself in his mind, another voice reminded him of his loneliness. There was no one to tell him that he was still young, and maybe he needed no one. The only person he wanted to hear this from was gone, far away. And the rest, well… They were just there, calling, or dropping in from time to time. They were simply present, nothing more.

He sipped his tea, still looking for something in the mirror. His teeth had fallen, and a new pair of jaws was dipped in a glass of water. He had to put it back, if he wanted to eat the new biscuits his elder son had sent for him through a messenger. The yellow packet was on the table behind him. But he was too lazy to put on his teeth and go and open that packet, then crunch those biscuits with his loosening gums.

He threw himself onto the rocking armchair, and went to and fro. His hand automatically reached for his cigarette box. He found it at the usual spot, just on the right side of his chair. He took out one, lit it up, took a puff, and then looked at the case. “She’s smiling at me… I know she is.”

With a little strain, he stood up, and leaving behind his cane, walked to the window. A beautiful day shone outside, and the bright sunlight seeped in though the little space between the two curtains. He tore them apart. The light basked the room after a very long time. Layers of amassed dust shone over the furniture, like little pieces of glass crushed under the weight of something very heavy.

The lights pricked his ageing eyes, but he grew accustomed to it very soon. He was looking at a neglected pathway, where the grass had already flourished into a small jungle, where, had he been a small boy, he would have gone to look for the most formidable creatures of a miniature world. He had always been fond of small insects and animals. He was only a very small boy at that time, he remembered. Sticking his nose on the window pane, his face buried in his hands and his elbows striving to have a comfortable place on the very small ledge, he was waiting for the rain to stop. The sound of this rain made him happy, tripping over the glass pane, tinkling on the iron sheets over his head. A steady river trickled its way down the pane, from drop to drop, making a path for others to follow. Behind him his father opened the creaking door, a hatchet in his hand. He had just come from hunting, since the hatchet was still damp with hot blood. But his son was too busy to notice this all. The rain was far too interesting.

The tripping, tinkling and trickling… Then those shouts… Ominous shouts. He panicked and ran into the room, looking for his parents. His father stood there, face red with anger, eyes crimson, and a streak of steaming blood ran across his face. On the floor was his mother, lying in a growing pool of blood. Her hand wriggled, trying desperately to find something to clutch to, while another hand tried to hold back the stream flowing from her throat, down to her bare bosom, down her waist, and flowing down to the floor through the middle of her naked legs. Next to her was lying his uncle, as uncovered, lifeless, with gashes on his chest. The boy stood at the door, watched it all, and suddenly, he turned away and paced back to his window pane, humming to himself. A rummage through a drawer was heard, a cocking, then a shot, reverberating all around the little house. Then what remained was the tripping, the tinkling and the trickling…