The Prelude
The night is silent; but is it holy?
The night’s freezing, the hour ungodly!
‘Tis the hour when evil shapes
slink out of their filthy lair
and flit amongst the shadows
to lie in wait for hapless souls.
For that’s when the inky air
writhes and sizzles like the Gorgon’s hair.
It’s wintry, desolate, full of dread
under the old stone bridge,
brooding o’er a rocky, dried-up riverbed.
A papier-mâché sky, moonless, sprinkled
with stars hanging on the edge
of ragged storm clouds, sullen, red.
Down in the valley, people are celebrating
the Festival of Lights; but up here
it’s mostly dark.
What little light is seeping out
of the windows of
cottages dotting the steep mountainside
discovers a vague shape, huddled in a hollow under a pillar –
a dirty ragamuffin, a wastrel barely twelve,
pulling her threadbare old coat around her
with all her might against a chilly wind that,
like a knife, creeps around her, just waiting to slice into her flesh.
Eyelids so heavy she can barely
keep them apart; and yet blissful sleep eludes her.
The stinging pain, crawling around like scorpions
in her empty stomach,
keeps her awake. Shuffling uneasily
amongst the trash in the shrubs and
brambles, her bare foot strikes something:
a square paperboard it seems.
She feels around with her hands
and sure enough, it’s a matchbook!
Partly soggy, discarded; a lot like herself.
“A little warmth,” she smiles, her heart glad, “and light!”
Rubbing her numb hands together,
she breaks off one stick from the book
and strikes it.
With a slight hiss the match flares up; instantly,
The space under the bridge is bright as day.
Father
Staring into the heart of the flame, she sees, wonder of
Wonders! Oh! What a magical sight! A stage
Set in a beautiful home, festive lights,
a lovely mother, a handsome father
And a pretty daughter, her own age!
The daughter is dancing, twirling, and turning,
round and round, on nimble toes to unearthly music
Silent to the urchin’s ears.
The happy family gathers around a
table laden with sumptuous fare: –
All the meat, fish, and fowl, all the fruits and sweets
the heart could desire.
Now they are seated: father at the head, smiling lovingly at
wife and daughter on either side.
Now they are passing the plates around.
Their lips move, eating, laughing, talking.
Without warning, the scene changes.
The lights are robbed of their sheen,
Mommy is nowhere to be seen, and
Daddy is alone with his little girl.
His arm is around her waist. He pinions
her to his side in a vice-like grip, so she cannot stir.
His eyes have shrunk small in his head.
They blink over an abyss of
reptilian cunning.
Long neck and head twisted downward,
he is looking askance at his little darling.
Like a rabbit caught in the glare
of headlights in the night, the girl is petrified.
“Watch out!!” but no one hears the waif shriek
as she drops the burnt-out matchstick.
The scene dissolves faster than
ink in a pail of murky water.
Mother
Shivering and fumbling in the dark,
with frantic fingers, she gropes
For the matchbook. Her fingers close around it,
And she breaks off and lights another stick.
In the leaping flames appears the mother,
Her face twisted in grievous pain, horror, and pity
Wild. In terror, the urchin watches
as the deflowered daughter,
her face and limbs bruised blue and black,
her lovely dress stained with blood and ripped to shreds,
crawls up behind her mother
whose face is turned away. Weeping piteously,
she reaches out to touch her mother’s arm.
Quick as a flash the woman wheels around.
Her narrowed eyes are vicious.
Of motherly love there’s not a trace
in her white stony face. It is filled instead,
with boundless disgust, and cold hatred.
She raises her arm, and strikes
her daughter hard on the side of her head.
And once again, the scene vanishes.
A yelp of pain escapes the urchin’s lips
as the flame singes her finger before going out.
Child
Somewhere a clock chimes three.
Beating perfect time, the hooting of a barred owl,
(“Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?”)
Calls out to the townsfolk, buried beneath a pall
of sleep. Sick at heart, the urchin awaits the dawn,
her eyelids drooping. A rustle of leaves and twigs snapping
close by jolts her awake.
Suspended in the darkness
two glowing yellow eyes are sidling near, closing in on her.
Bolt upright, she breaks off the last stick from the matchbook
And strikes it. Turning up its bushy tail, a fox
Scampers off into the night.
All the while the urchin is staring into the flame
That opens new vistas in her sight.
A vast rocky desert, arid, brown, and ochre,
without a trace of
Green to slake the parched eye.
The sharp jagged mountain peaks,
like a shark’s jaw, are taking a bite out of the
Pitiless blue sky. A row of boys (they can’t be thirteen, not yet!),
dressed in long tunics, white prayer caps on their heads, are
kneeling on the ground, bowing low.
Two tall, swarthy men, with fierce hawk-like faces,
in turbans and flowing beards,
armed to the teeth with deadly weapons,
stand in front. One man is speaking to the boys.
His lips move, he gesticulates, but she cannot hear a word of
the harangue. Shortly, at a command from him,
the boys get to their feet.
The other man hands each child an assault rifle
From a box on the ground beside him.
Soon the boys start walking towards the mountains,
Their commanders watching from behind.
One small boy, straggling, with a gun longer than his
arm, is walking slightly apart; he looks up at
the sky. His dazed eyes search
For questions that don’t exist.
He takes another step and stops.
The next instant, a landmine beneath his feet explodes
in a blaze of blinding light, ripping him
apart, limb from limb,
in a shower of blood and body parts.
In a flash the scene changes.
A field full of folk, sitting on the ground, their pious faces
raised skyward in deep devotion to a god unknown.
A tall, burly man appears, striding towards them,
his face flushed in anger, his bearing sinister, eyes
Menacing. The spitting image of Death incarnate,
he reaches into his duffel bag as he comes within
shooting range.
There is a flurry of alarm in the group; some
Spring up and run for cover. All at once, a woman rises.
Calm and serene, her face filled with a strange light.
With stately grace, she walks up to the stranger,
without fear or malice and speaks to him.
Miraculously, all the violence
ebbs from his face and body; he sags to his knees,
weeping like a child in infinite sorrow.
He draws the murderous weapon from his bag
and hands it over to her,
in mute surrender. Right then,
The last match goes out and universal darkness
Covers all.
Postscript
A young sun spreads his fingers
on the earth below and touches gently,
the still eyelids and lips tinged with blue,
the cheeks streaked with dirt and tears,
Of the little waif under the bridge.
She won’t need her tattered coat ever again,
for a faint smile is curving her lips upwards.
Image courtesy: Pexels
Prateeti is an English Lierature major from Presidency University Kolkata who took up the technology challenge without an Engineering degree in 1993 and embarked on a full-fledged technical career, becoming a RDBMS expert. She worked as the CoE Manager for Sybase products, platforms and technologies at SAP Labs India Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore. She is a great admirer of Augusta Ada King and Marie Curie.
She is also the author of ‘Green Rose Wild Earth’ a collection of poems published by StoryMirror Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
