Gathering: A Short Story

They gather out of nowhere, like a crowd that drifts towards where blood gets spilled. And the blood is spilled this day, right outside where I fell down, while playing with the neighbourhood guys. I cried many tears and made a puddle out of them on my palms.

I was rushed to the doctor. I do not remember much but for the agony, when he sprayed some liquid which coagulated my blood there and then, which still is circumventing through my mind. I have been acting like a lame person ever since returning back home.

And now they have gathered. I have loved them since as long as I can remember. Mum tells me that it had rained the morning I was born and my first cry was accompanied by the ringing of the temple bells and the morning hymns of the gurudwara, symphonising with the drip-drop of water pearls. So, it may very well be so that we are connected in some way.

“It is going to rain,” my sister says what everyone already knows. She rushes off to the terrace to gather the clothes, hanging to get dried in the sun, but the fate has it that it must rain today.

I cripple along her up the stairs and reach in time to have the first drops to fall down on my cheeks and stream down my throat to the chest. I feel light.

She gets angry and asks me to go back down but I am not the one to listen. I am here to pick at them and gather what I can, hiding them in every possible crevice of my body. I do not joke and thus, my intent is true.

She has gathered the clothes. They are now flung on her left arm and she hands over her right for me to take so that we can go back down. But I rather hold onto the door and crouch because I do not want to be taken away. I want to see my destiny in the few drops that have painted the dust riddled bricks below me. My blood had made stains just like that.

And then, the thunder crackles and the lightning zooms piercing the sky apart and showering blessed pearls. She exclaims in horror and takes me by force and yet, my arms try to reach out to them as she makes me walk down with her.

Stepping down the stairs, I lose my view of them at their gathering. I want to join them. My vision, thus screened, and I am thrust to darkness.

Now, I rise, feeling the trace of those drops on my cheeks that stream along, down my throat to my chest. I feel light.

I clutch at them dotted on my skin where the matchsticks have branded them. Feeling my ribs, I fall down on the bed, zooming through the many gatherings of visions or dreams. It doesn’t matter what they are because they are tangible to me.

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A 500 word story for Oloriel’s Tale Weaver’s Prompt. It is a blend of reality and fiction… what is what… I don’t know and I won’t tell.

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