Short Story – Visitors
© Anand Vishnu Prakash, YourStoryClub.com
I sit at the table for hours, mostly on Sundays, preferably on all days. I do not wish to answer the door knocks then. But I do, more by force than by will. I give the visitors a dull look through the window first and then hazy glares as I open the door. Prominent enough expressions that you are not desired at this time. They reply with a smile, courtesy as they call and shameless as I interpret.
The table, I intended to sit at for hours, is set with fruits, breads, jams and bunch of food by now. Everyone prayed silently, please do not eat everything; that is all we have for number of days we don’t know. Yet they were offered more. One yes and I need to go out, stand a few inches from the entrance so that my shirt don’t peep through the door or they do not see my shadow, and come back in a few minutes declaring the shop is closed, or if I am in mood I would say the shop refused food for them.
“Wasn’t it open while we came?” they would discuss among themselves, in voices they measured low enough just to make us listen. Embarrassment accepted, of course we are accustomed to it.
I would not go out with them. I have a pair of shoes, inherited from each of our predecessors by every successor. And I don’t go out with people who walk bare footed. Instead, I bring my stitched-in-every-corner-more-than-once shoes in, removing the dust, as if that was possible and keep it under the chair one of them was sitting. The others unbothered, the wife scowled on her husband, the children howled on their parents. I smiled at all of them, taking time and turn. It was my generosity, they construed as show-off.
Time was up. They kissed the others and praised for the food they gobbled up though not meant for them. The others apologized for not offering the best food they could prepare. “We didn’t have time”, the others said, blunt enough to make them understand that we could not afford anything else. I waited at the opened door they are so wanted to leave through. I no more look grim and my eyes flash goodbye. My politeness, this time misinterpreted as blatant.
Into my shoes now, half a mile down the road, I make sure they don’t turn around. Neither do I. Instead I head left, to those who don’t visit us.
__END__
