This is the short story I had submitted for the short story competition.
Each criticism helps me improve as a writer. So, I'd be really grateful if you could take the time to comment on it.
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Just me and you
Amidst the uproar of this storm, there is a pressing silence… a void, bereft of her voice. Voice of the only girl I ever loved and the only one who ever loved me. Her reticence is dispensing me to an eternal abyss of pain. Each silent moment that is passing is growing upon me, biting me into pieces, tearing me further and further apart.
I look out through the windows. There stands the magnificent tree, silhouetted against the black night, overshadowing everything in its vicinity. It had stood strong, just like our relationship, her and mine. But this recent storm challenged its subsistence. The demented winds mock at its defenses, savagely thrashing against it. The tree is bending under the force of the storm. It seems to collapse. But, surely, I couldn’t let it happen.
She is sitting there, in the corner, dry tears etched upon her ashen face, enveloped in a miasma of despondence. How much has she changed in less than a day! The lively blush has transformed into ghostly pallor. Her stooping self is in stark contrast to her spirited portrait on the wall. Her eyes, her beautiful watery eyes have turned so hollow. She is currently staring at me and yet she seems to stare past me.
I crawl my way to her and put my arms around her. But she pulls back violently. ‘Don’t….Don’t you touch me!’ she shrieks, her voice faltering with emotions. She wouldn’t talk to me; she wouldn’t let me comfort her. Never before has she behaved in such a manner.
‘But didi-’
‘Don’t - you – dare… don’t you dare call me your sister. It’s over… it’s all over!’
Over? The relation that we had wreathed with such care, with such affection, with such love… how could it be over? We had faced storms before. The tree had knocked back each adversity that dared to challenge it. When our parents died, she was the only person I had. She took care of me like no one could have. She for me was not only my sister, but my mother, my father, my complete family condensed into one. With each day that had passed, the tree had grown sturdier, stronger.
Obviously, there were stones thrown at it. Unwanted dark shadows often lurked around it. When I had fits or when I was partly asleep, I heard whispers… words from the devils. Those fiends murmured, ‘Oh, poor child, how she has wrecked her life because of her retard brother’…. ‘Asylum… the only thing that would do him and her world of good!’… ‘He is crazy…..talks of some tree outside that doesn’t even exist!’
The tree did not exist! How cruel, how inhuman of someone to say that! But it did not matter, my sister believed in the tree. She said that she believed in it if I believed in it. And that was enough for me. The tree stood stronger.
Everything ran perfectly… until…until he came in our lives like a torrent ruining everything. I remember the day when he came… but I don’t know why he came. Maybe that grumpy Aunt of ours sent him. I never liked that old woman…said all sorts of wicked things. She thought I was responsible for containing my sister’s life inside one house. She thought I deprived my sister of any love life. Argh… how much I hated her! Soon, though, the poor old hog was reported dead. She was found beaten to pulp by some rogues. Good that she’s dead now.
When my sister had let him in our house for the first time, there was a smile on her face…it was a weird one. For the first time, I did not like to see her smile. I think it was that smile which encouraged him to come again… and again…. and again. He was unusually friendly towards me (in the beginning)… and maybe that’s what drew my sister towards him.
Sometimes he came to our place, sometimes she went out with him. I hadn’t realized her absence for the first few days. Maybe, she chose her time carefully, when I was asleep.
I did not mind it so much initially. The tree remained practically unaltered in the beginning. But it slowly began to shed its leaves. She began to become more careless. She remained out for longer times of the day. She returned late. Our only-me-and-my-sister times disappeared somewhere.
And that guy didn’t make anything easier for me. That sweetness was as fake as Santa. Oh, he was so cruel, so evil! I remember how he used to give me those wicked satanic smiles when he took my sister out. How couldn’t my sister get it? I tried to explain her that he wasn’t the right guy. But I think she even stopped listening to me. He was in our house even when he wasn’t.
I only suspected it initially, but then I became sure, he was a wizard… a bad, bad wizard. Enchanting my sister, he was slowly drawing her into a world which wasn’t made for her… a world which did not have me.
And then a week before, what happened had not happened before. She forgot to give me my medicines. Insane pain had seared through me, scorching my insides, turning me inside out. For a moment, I was in mid air, in a fog of darkness, all alone. I was drowning in that void, suffocating, unable to breathe. I threw my arms around wildly, hoping that a hand… her hand would get hold of me, and pull me out. But the hand never came for me. And I continued to writhe, leaping from oblivion to oblivion. Then, there was silence…
I heard the doctors say that I had nearly died. And I think they were true. As for the first time, I had experienced a fear which knew no bounds, a fear that engulfed me whole. Fear of losing her.
I think that incident really disturbed her. The first night she cried a lot. She said she was really sorry. She caressed my hair with those delicate hands of her and we traveled back in the past, to the wonderful times we had. She did not want to leave me but the doctor instructed so.
Her care and the doctor’s medicines worked wonders and I was out of the hospital in two days. Her guy had not come to meet her since the night I had my fit. But she did not seem to care. All she cared for was me. I had my sister back. The tree began blooming again.
The tree would have continued to grow stronger had it not been for this doomed storm which struck the tree so hard today. Two cops came at our place in the morning. With them they brought a huge stretcher covered by a white cloth. It smelled bad… really really bad. One of the cops pushed the cloth aside. I don’t think I have seen anything more horrible, more terrifying than what lay on that stretcher. It was a grotesque dead body, or rather what remained of a body, twisted at bizarre angles. The face was hardly human with patches of red all over; it was badly quashed. Yet, somehow, it was very easy to put a name to that face.
My sister screamed. Her legs joggled under the shock and she was on the floor on all fours. She began to cry hysterically. I think she had identified the dead body too. It was her guy’s body.
She seemed devastated. She lay on my lap and cried and cried. Obviously, I did not like to see her this way. I tried to reassure her in every possible manner. I took her to our buoyant memory lanes. I reminded her how she was my only source of strength and support. I reminded her that she still had me. I told her that she’d get much better guys. But she cried and cried. I talked of our parents. I talked of this. I talked of that. But she cried…and cried. And I think that was what frustrated me. I think that was what made me say what maybe I shouldn’t have.
‘Isn’t it good that he’s dead? He was so evil. How couldn’t you see it? With him out of our lives, it’s just you and me again.’
She raised her head and stared at me with an expressionless face. She backed off to the other corner and sat there…for a long, long time.
Whenever I tried to comfort her, put my arms around her, she pulled back. She wouldn’t let me touch her, let me come near her. And now, she even said that our relation was over!
‘Don’t - you – dare… don’t you dare call me your sister. It’s over… it’s all over!’
‘Over…?’ I falter.
‘Yes… OVER!’ There is a brief silence that seems to last an epoch. She continues, ‘Where did I go wrong? WHERE? From where did you gather all that hatred? From where did you gather all this malice, this enmity? Did I not teach you to love everyone? Did I not tell you that you and me were inseparable? Did I ever teach you to hate anyone? Did I ever teach you to… to kill anyone?’
Ah… so she knows. But then she must understand. She must understand all that I did was for her. She would have never been happy with him. She could not be happy without me. That old Aunt of ours and this devil of hers were drawing me away from her. They could not do anyone any good when they were alive. Surely, then, they should have died. I had a lot of fun smashing the brass spittoon onto her head. I banged it again and again. She had to pay for each thing she said and she was paying back indeed… with her blood. With him, it was even easier. Why, I already had practice.
I had much fun then but I don’t find it funny now. I did all that I did so that she and me would be together. But now I realize how wrong I had been. He had taken her away when he was alive; he has taken her even further away now that he’s dead. With his end was my beginning, I had thought, but how little had I known that with his beginning had commenced my end.
I chance a look outside the window. The gale has gone insane now. The tree is swaying wildly. It could fall any moment now. I have to stop it… I have to!
‘Di…DI! The tree… it’s about to fall! Would you do nothing?’ I look at her with pleading eyes, with one last request.
‘Tree…THERE’S NO SUCH TREE! YOU UNDERSTAND, NO - SUCH - TREE!’ She stands and runs out of the room.
Suddenly, outside, there’s a huge crash. I look out. On the ground, lies the tree, dead… if it ever lived.
