This short story is participating in Write Story from Picture India 2012 – Short Story Writing Competition.
WSPI-2012-02
Photo credit: Nevit Dilmen
That was a calm evening. Maya and Angu were playing in the Parakum Lake in the yellowish glare of the evening sun. Old mother was busy with the palm leaves preparing a basket hoping to sell it in the market for a small amount. Eight month old Baby chaili was crying continuously as they all didn’t have anything to eat last two days and the milk powder was also finished in the rusty tin.
Yasri the 12 year old boy is the eldest in the family. He had to go attend to many works just after coming back from the village school. Yasri has four younger sisters and two younger brothers. His old mother was suffering a lot to look after them. Father is a drunkard and never came home before midnight. Yasri has to climb trees to pick fruit and coconut in others’ yards to find some rupees.
That day there wasn’t any single rupee to buy anything. Everybody drank water from the parakum lake which was the only support for them in all the times. yasri could see the baby is crying and the mother sits holding her head on palms as she is faintish due to starvation.
He was searching something around the house to sell. There wasn’t anything. All the possible goods were had been sold already. He was hungry as well. But he never spent time to think about that. Hopelessly he sat on the corridor of their mud hut. He was unable to breathe pleasantly as the sorrow and grief surrounded him.
The hen was nodding the head and searching something in the ground beside him ‘’kok… kok.. ‘’. Suddenly yasri got an idea and ran in to the wooden house built for the chicken. Fortunately there was an egg. His mouth was watering to think how it would taste if he can have an omelet. But it was not enough for the whole family. So he decided to sell that to the farmer’s shop in the town and buy some milk powder for the baby. But town is several kelo meters away and it is impossible to walk alone.
Yasri wore his one and only shirt and placed the egg safely in the pocket near his chest. He took his father’s bicycle and saw the tire was empty. He began to fill air with the pump. yasri couldn’t tollarate the cry of his small sister and fastened the pumping. Accidently he hit the pocket with the pumping hand. Egg fell down breaking the hopes for the day.
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