I wrote this in July 2022 in response to a prompt on The Story Cabinet app and won a cash prize.
A CARDINAL SIN
Parvati sucked her breath and grabbed the doorknob, praying that it would not creak. Twisting it open, she peeped into her parents’ bedroom. The waxing crescent spilled pale light, contouring the supine snoring figures. She closed the door and slinked out of the house with a bag slung on her shoulder.
A faint wind moaned through the trees, and echoes of a howling dog rent the air. Parvati wrapped a shawl tightly around her shoulders and hastened to the usual haunt of their clandestine meetings.
She waited, wringing her hands, and listening to the chatter of cicadas accompanied by a frog’s plaintive melody. The grey clouds fleeted over the moon, cloaking the woods in gloom. Parvati slumped on a rock, peeling a cuticle from her index finger, and watched the fluid smirching her nails. Moisture clung to her eyelids.
In the northern corner of the village, Ilyas pedalled his bicycle furiously, berating himself for the delayed delivery of meat. He required the extra cash to begin a new life with his angel. The strap of his Bata slipper snagged to the cycle pedal and hung out on a limb for its dear life. Ilyas flung both his slippers without pausing his momentum.
Just then, a covey of men huddling on the skirts of the forest pounced onto the path and halted Ilyas. He clutched the brakes. It splintered, the cycle skidded, and Ilyas catapulted to the forest floor. The brambles drew blood, scouring his skin.
“You didn’t find any girls in your community to elope? Misleading our young ones with vacant promises!” The gang leader pulled Ilyas from the ground.
“Did you think we were spineless fellows?”
Ilyas flapped his eyelids. His muted protests fell on deaf ears. The men had passed the verdict without hearing the defendant’s plea.
Parvati’s cousin, to be precise, her fiancé since birth, lobbed the first punch. Blood squirted from the broken nose, and a wail erupted from Ilyas. The cruor mottled his white shirt. Ilyas coiled into a ball, shrinking as a volley of blows and kicks plagued him.
“Hand me the can. This will teach these scoundrels a lesson!” Yelled the stout priest.
“Do we need to do that?” Pleaded the schoolmaster.
“This pig asked for it. Move over, master.”
The priest tipped the can of kerosene over the doomed lover while the cousin peeled the wad of money from Ilyas’s wet pocket. Then, cramming it in his shirt, he lit a cigarette and flicked the match on his rival.
Jubilant over a job well done, the self-proclaimed custodians of sanctity dissolved into the darkness.
When the birds resting on treetops began to stir, Parvati heaved a sigh. The sun began to spread its tentacles, splotching the sky in orange and pink. Acrid fumes crept from the farthest side of the woods.
Carved with grief, Parvati trudged back home, lacerating her mind for reasons. Unable to swallow that those declarations of eternal love were empty promises.
Picture Courtesy – Unsplash – Alexandre Boucey
