blazeofglory
10-10-2007, 08:56 PM
I have written a story and I do not know how much you will like it. If you like it give it your comments, critically of course pointing at flaws, and any mistakes grammatical or stylistic. I will be more than happy to swallow criticisms. But indifference will sadden me, but I wall have to live with that.
Gnawed beauty
She was still beautiful and plucky. Worms gnawed at her corpus, yet she was shining. Her beauty was marked, unusually when she looked up to see us as if we seemed expecting something from her. She had lost faith in men and manliness is what she abhorred most. After a long pause she opened her caved mouth showing shiningly white teeth. Unpainted with modern cosmetics, ashamed, half-clothed and unexposed fully to us, she shared something of her she kept to herself unshared, may be she was waiting for a proper time and deserving partners. We partook of what streamed from her. Cascades of her secrets, frozen within. Her long, a little matted hair was dangling over her crimsoned cheek, and the face half covered and the lips half opened. We stood fixedly, expectedly of course.
We caught sight of her in an abandoned ruin on the outskirts of town with no doors in a shack. We had some bits and pieces about her life previous to come in person with her. We had approached her as we were professionally aid workers.
“Where are you from?” I asked her with curiosity. She was brooding over something I could not figure out. She did not turn to me, and fixed her eyes on the ground without detraction. She is there with a small suckling boy playing with her toes, undraped in that chilly morning. She had a few rags to cover her parts that need to be screened from people, particularly from the vulture’s eyes who always lie in impatient wait to feed on her carcass. She had lost faith in people, and was troubled thinking that we too were after her flesh; a thing of beauty proves a boon to others but she took this as something nature has unjustly endowed her with, something she wants to shed. Meatiness of the body mostly what queens of beauty hunger for, for the lusty one.
We were humanitarians; three of us, young and vibrant unquestionably started plying her with questions one after another thinking that we could sneak out something. But we got nothing out of her except ceaseless moments of silence, a continuity of apathetic quietude. Our approaches, we three youthful, muscular and full of energies signified something to her; may be a diabolic advance to nibble at her left over.
“You have no one to support?” We did not give up storming questions. We are from an aid organization. If you unfold we can be of a little help for you and for your baby’s sake. If you continue keeping about mum we will have to return helplessly.
She lifted the heavy load of her head brushing aside her hair cascading over her face shining in the sunlight. She turned to us for the first time when we were about to leave as we were running out of time to return. We met her gaze and we got the impression that she was formidably designed by nature, but to be wormed. She was still unsure of us and a sweep of fear shook her, for she thought men were worms and things to be aloof from.
If you do not disclose how can we be of help? We are in for help and nothing else. We insisted raining questions. Suddenly she blossomed: the way a rose does in the morning sun or something like the brightness of a full moon reemerging from the cover of clouds. She was ominously beautiful against all kinds of oddities.
“My husband was killed and the house shelled”. She pulled her head down again looking fixedly at the ground.
The baby was however busy playing with the toys, sucking them. He was a frame of bones, the stomach caving in. His face was furrowed. Amidst the un-surpassing beauty at times she looked prematurely old, and hunger had thinned her limbs, her eyes were cleanly vacuities. Homeless and abandoned, life seemed nothing, for her hopes had evaporated. Etherified she spoke droningly.
I am hungry”. “My boy has not eaten anything for this whole morning”. Yesterday a few passersby threw scraps for both of us”. Hearing something kinder and a little more soothing in our questions, her cheek crimsoned. Something rare in her state became manifest, a ray hope flooded her soul. She looked sardonically beautiful, for she had never guessed people would turn for asking her such things, for she was abhorrent to human nature. For people left scars on her life and her beauty was something that courted worms. She had seen enough of it, the ugliest of it when her husband was strangulated and she was raped by the army personnel. She recounted things in scrappy sentences.
We came to know after a number of persuasions something about her enabling us to weave out this story. She had a home on a hill with a small amount of land. Her husband was a teacher in a public school and earned something that could, combined with the meager income from their farms, suffice to run their day to day necessities. They were a happily set family planting seeds of hope in their only son, who they thought would bring prosperity only if they give them good education. She was a beautiful woman of the village and many women envied her beauty. When she was in her youth many boys proposed her and deserting the rest her parents arranged her marriage with a school teacher. For in the village she lived in marriages are arranged and girls were not permitted to choose their own husbands. She was happy with him and remained faithful deserting some playboys who at times crazed for her.
We did not stop asking to the extent of getting her on her nerves. “If you and your man were unconcerned about others’ business why did they kill your husband and bombed your house?”
They suspected him to spy the army. One night we were having our night’s meal. A team of army men knocked on our door. It was ten PM . We were alarmed to see the army men with their guns. My husband requested them to come the next day. They refused and threatened to break in if the door would not be open immediately.
One man, who seemed to be the leader of the team, cornered my husband on the pretext that he had some secret business with him. My man said there was nothing wrong if they related the matter in front of me. But they forcibly took him out of the house. The man seemingly chief of the team whispered something to him with the rest chuckling behind. You are beautiful. I am handsome too. You can be my mistress. He pulled me closer to himself and …..
She stopped. We understood the rest untold. She continued after a short pause heaving a long breathe. They pulled me out of the house. My husband was stabbed to death, and I fell to the ground etherized. They hurled bombs at my house. The villagers heard the scream but no one dared to dare to open the window.
We gave her a few packs of biscuits and clothes, for that was all we could do to help in a country where cases like this are everyday realities. This is the plight with people where power matters and is shinier than anything under the sun and where power is worshiped.
We returned with a stamp of her, a half-nude body, a pair of imploring eyes and the look which was an art of perfection. Gnawed by worms of hunger, poverty and predicament .
Gnawed beauty
She was still beautiful and plucky. Worms gnawed at her corpus, yet she was shining. Her beauty was marked, unusually when she looked up to see us as if we seemed expecting something from her. She had lost faith in men and manliness is what she abhorred most. After a long pause she opened her caved mouth showing shiningly white teeth. Unpainted with modern cosmetics, ashamed, half-clothed and unexposed fully to us, she shared something of her she kept to herself unshared, may be she was waiting for a proper time and deserving partners. We partook of what streamed from her. Cascades of her secrets, frozen within. Her long, a little matted hair was dangling over her crimsoned cheek, and the face half covered and the lips half opened. We stood fixedly, expectedly of course.
We caught sight of her in an abandoned ruin on the outskirts of town with no doors in a shack. We had some bits and pieces about her life previous to come in person with her. We had approached her as we were professionally aid workers.
“Where are you from?” I asked her with curiosity. She was brooding over something I could not figure out. She did not turn to me, and fixed her eyes on the ground without detraction. She is there with a small suckling boy playing with her toes, undraped in that chilly morning. She had a few rags to cover her parts that need to be screened from people, particularly from the vulture’s eyes who always lie in impatient wait to feed on her carcass. She had lost faith in people, and was troubled thinking that we too were after her flesh; a thing of beauty proves a boon to others but she took this as something nature has unjustly endowed her with, something she wants to shed. Meatiness of the body mostly what queens of beauty hunger for, for the lusty one.
We were humanitarians; three of us, young and vibrant unquestionably started plying her with questions one after another thinking that we could sneak out something. But we got nothing out of her except ceaseless moments of silence, a continuity of apathetic quietude. Our approaches, we three youthful, muscular and full of energies signified something to her; may be a diabolic advance to nibble at her left over.
“You have no one to support?” We did not give up storming questions. We are from an aid organization. If you unfold we can be of a little help for you and for your baby’s sake. If you continue keeping about mum we will have to return helplessly.
She lifted the heavy load of her head brushing aside her hair cascading over her face shining in the sunlight. She turned to us for the first time when we were about to leave as we were running out of time to return. We met her gaze and we got the impression that she was formidably designed by nature, but to be wormed. She was still unsure of us and a sweep of fear shook her, for she thought men were worms and things to be aloof from.
If you do not disclose how can we be of help? We are in for help and nothing else. We insisted raining questions. Suddenly she blossomed: the way a rose does in the morning sun or something like the brightness of a full moon reemerging from the cover of clouds. She was ominously beautiful against all kinds of oddities.
“My husband was killed and the house shelled”. She pulled her head down again looking fixedly at the ground.
The baby was however busy playing with the toys, sucking them. He was a frame of bones, the stomach caving in. His face was furrowed. Amidst the un-surpassing beauty at times she looked prematurely old, and hunger had thinned her limbs, her eyes were cleanly vacuities. Homeless and abandoned, life seemed nothing, for her hopes had evaporated. Etherified she spoke droningly.
I am hungry”. “My boy has not eaten anything for this whole morning”. Yesterday a few passersby threw scraps for both of us”. Hearing something kinder and a little more soothing in our questions, her cheek crimsoned. Something rare in her state became manifest, a ray hope flooded her soul. She looked sardonically beautiful, for she had never guessed people would turn for asking her such things, for she was abhorrent to human nature. For people left scars on her life and her beauty was something that courted worms. She had seen enough of it, the ugliest of it when her husband was strangulated and she was raped by the army personnel. She recounted things in scrappy sentences.
We came to know after a number of persuasions something about her enabling us to weave out this story. She had a home on a hill with a small amount of land. Her husband was a teacher in a public school and earned something that could, combined with the meager income from their farms, suffice to run their day to day necessities. They were a happily set family planting seeds of hope in their only son, who they thought would bring prosperity only if they give them good education. She was a beautiful woman of the village and many women envied her beauty. When she was in her youth many boys proposed her and deserting the rest her parents arranged her marriage with a school teacher. For in the village she lived in marriages are arranged and girls were not permitted to choose their own husbands. She was happy with him and remained faithful deserting some playboys who at times crazed for her.
We did not stop asking to the extent of getting her on her nerves. “If you and your man were unconcerned about others’ business why did they kill your husband and bombed your house?”
They suspected him to spy the army. One night we were having our night’s meal. A team of army men knocked on our door. It was ten PM . We were alarmed to see the army men with their guns. My husband requested them to come the next day. They refused and threatened to break in if the door would not be open immediately.
One man, who seemed to be the leader of the team, cornered my husband on the pretext that he had some secret business with him. My man said there was nothing wrong if they related the matter in front of me. But they forcibly took him out of the house. The man seemingly chief of the team whispered something to him with the rest chuckling behind. You are beautiful. I am handsome too. You can be my mistress. He pulled me closer to himself and …..
She stopped. We understood the rest untold. She continued after a short pause heaving a long breathe. They pulled me out of the house. My husband was stabbed to death, and I fell to the ground etherized. They hurled bombs at my house. The villagers heard the scream but no one dared to dare to open the window.
We gave her a few packs of biscuits and clothes, for that was all we could do to help in a country where cases like this are everyday realities. This is the plight with people where power matters and is shinier than anything under the sun and where power is worshiped.
We returned with a stamp of her, a half-nude body, a pair of imploring eyes and the look which was an art of perfection. Gnawed by worms of hunger, poverty and predicament .