Family Short Story – He’d come back!
Photo credit: hotblack from morguefile.com
He said he’d come back today.
And I was waiting. Arranging dishes on the table. Cooked his favourite food.
“Mom! I want pancakes!”
He loved them. Only when I made them.
I had cleaned his room so that he could clear his luggage and fill his wardrobe, switched on the geaser. He loved a hot bath after his long journey from Delhi.
Who would love to sit in the cockpit for 5 godforsaken hours? Especially when you’re coming back home. He’d become restless. Maybe I should arrange him dome soft pillows. He hates the long ones. Like dad like son.
I remember when he was just 5. I took him to the park and he’d never leave my saree. I had to sit with him on the mud so that he could take a bath in the dirt. He’d take handful of it and stick his tongue to it. He’d ask :
” Mom chocolates taste so bad”
That’s how I made him loathe real chocolates. Such a wise trick except that I had to spoil my saree. But.. For him.
Anything.
It was 8 o’clock now. But he said at 6.
Oh! Must be the traffic.
Another 2 hours.
The bell rang.
Oh finally!
I ran dropping the sweater I was knitting for him.
I opened the doors to hug him tight and take a sigh of relief that he was fine. My world was just fine.
But no one was there but two officers in their official uniform. They joined there hands and then saluted me. Not to forget their evergreen attention gesture.
I thought they had come to tell that my son’s visit was delayed. It happened so many times that I could just guess it.
But they didn’t say anything. They gave a large box of tin with my son’s name on it.
They said.
“Your son was a hero”
I broke my balance. My legs started shaking. Things seemed blur and slowly grey. Suddenly I forgot how to breathe.
One of the officers held me.
Was?
“These are his belongings”
I bent down to open it. I didn’t struggle much for I was already falling. Drowning in my own tears. Every time I took out something, I heard his voice.
“Ma, see what I have got!”
“Ma! Don’t wash this shirt. I like it dirty”
“Ma! This will remind me of you”
All I didn’t hear was
Ma! I’m back!
__END__
