Lucky

Kites Are Happy By Nature

Flash Fiction
Look, I am flying.
[Source – Pixabay]

Jo loves kite flying and he is flying one right now. His kite is bright red and cheerful. Jo is a very skillful boy and he knows all the tricks needed to fly a kite high.

Dramatizing happily, he tells his friends, ‘Look at my kite…soaring high, up above the sky’. All the boys burst out laughing and Theo animatedly sings ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ while an out-of-tune chorus follows him.

These kids are full of fun at the moment. Life is beautiful for them.

The kite flies high. Wind is also playing with it; taking it high and low, twisting and tickling it.

A kite has a wonderful life. Everyone looks at it with awe when it glides and dances along with the wind and the kid holding the string also feels it. A kite is joyous by nature. It brings smile on the face that looks at it. It has only one purpose in life and that is to fly high in the free sky.

Jo knows nothing but one thing that kite flying on a holiday is his life’s purpose. He didn’t even know how to spell the word purpose correctly, his English dictation test is a non-living proof of this fact, but he knew this feeling very well.

It is something to do with passion and excitement and playing well and concentration. These big words are also a problem for him, especially to remember the spellings. Jo knows the feeling and not the spelling of such words, how silly and smart of him to be so.

Jo shouts, ‘I am flying…see I am flying… o twinkle twinkle little star oye, here I come oye’.

A sound of real, innocent, pure somewhat like the rustling of the leaves, laughter filled that lucky area.

Pleasure is all around here. It is a vanilla cake sweet moment.

Slowly the winds begin to get crazier; Jo understands immediately that now is the time to fight and stay alive. All the kites are ready for the battle. Who is their enemy? Not an outsider, they are against each other. Jo tells his kite, ‘Come on… fight hard… it’s an order!’

*

Glide and rise!
[Source – Pixabay]

The bright red kite gets tangled up with the black one which is Mat’s kite. ‘It’s a knot!’ said a kid (who exactly spoke, we don’t know, anyway something more important is going on up above in the sky).

It’s the nature of the strings to get tangled, form knots and then break away.

Jo warns Mat and Mat challenges him. The mad winds knew it, Jo and Mat knew it, and the kites knew it- one will be defeated and it’ll fall.

That lucky area is now filled with exclamations, some funny, some ridiculous.

And without any final announcement it happened. Jo feels it, the string is now loose in his hand, and he looks at Mat for a millisecond. All of them stare upwards. His bright red kite is gliding away with the winds.

To his surprise, it is not alone as now the black kite is also gliding away.

Jo and Mat, half-glad, scream excitedly. Walking towards each other; their little gang members encircle them. Whatever the two say, the other boys find it entertaining.

The kites are gone, says their experience in kite flying. Like mirror images of each other, Jo and Mat begin the debate.

Possession is powerful, it can make enemies (but in this case, just for a while).

Let us leave the kids alone, they’ll be alright soon.


Life is very funny and very fickle minded. It jumps from one emotion to the other. But then this is how life is by nature. The interesting thing is that kites don’t copy life, kites always remain in one state and that is the happy state.

So look where the bright red kite is going. Colour is beautiful and this is a truth. One will naturally follow the colourful kite.

Oh! The way it matches with the dance winds do, is heavenly. It seems this kite wants to reach a selected place. It is driving for itself. But the trees are near now, will it get to rest on a tree?

No! It lands safely in a garden. Who lives here? Someone is pruning the plants there. It is Mr. James. The kite fell in Mr. James little garden.

Don’t know what will happen now. Mr. James is very old. See he walks with a limp and can’t see properly. Oh, he picked up the kite. He is checking it. Is he trying to read the kite? Maybe he thinks it is a newspaper or something.

Anyway, he’ll know what he is holding when he wears his reading glasses. Surely there is nothing to read in a kite.

He sits on the lawn chair, but without washing his hands? He is a clean freak and there is some dirt on his hands.

What is he trying to find in this kite? Perhaps he likes the material of the kite. He is rubbing his hands against the kite. And now he smells it. The kite must have been prepared using a high quality paper.

*

Lost in the world of memories.
[Source – Pixabay]

Mr. James is caught in a reverie. His eyes are looking bigger. Where ever he is, it is a good and happy place. There is a grin on his face. He suddenly looks peaceful.

A bicycle passes outside his gate and rings the cycle-bell. God knows why the bicycle rider did so, surely not to wake-up Mr. James. But see, he breaks out of his daydream. He looks around and gets up. His expression changed, though it isn’t that clear due to the wrinkles. He looks at the sky and then at the kite.

Moving towards the house leisurely, he bends slowly to keep the kite on the top staircase. Then he returns to work in the garden.

Even the flowers and the bushes and the leaves he was pruning could tell that Mr. James is still pondering about something.

After five or so minutes, Mr. James gets up, fixed on the spot, shares with his garden, ‘I know all the tricks to fly a kite high…up above the sky’.

He is now beaming, now humming something, it is not clear. But then it is the nature of the aged people, they have a smiling face, they answer in a mystical style (unclear to others) and they always chew the songs they enjoyed in their life.


Freedom from life

Or finding freedom in life,

What a joyous ride,

Especially if you are a kite.


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Knockout Rounds

Short Story
Sonu VS the masks. Who will win the next round?
Image – Pixabay.

Hypnotizing black eyes, burning red face, twisted antennas, bushy moustache and a funny pink tongue…

Why will someone buy such a bizarre face? Why waste clay and colours on an ugly head? Sonu often thought this but never had the courage to speak before his uncle.

He had a strong feeling though that these monster masks were bringing bad luck for them. His hatred increased gradually towards these masks, so much so that he tried twice to throw them from the cart while returning home with his uncle and to pretend that it was an accident.

However, it never happened and Sonu knew it by then that these masks were evil.

Lying on his chaarpayi (woven bed) with twinkling stars above him and crickets playing their favourite tune around him, Sonu was in his thinking mode.

His cousin brother Chandu and cousin sister Munni were asleep, tired after spending some routine hours at school and some happy hours with friends.

He could hear his uncle and aunty chatting inside the hut. He couldn’t understand but he somehow could feel their words.

Every talk in a poor house is always about money; a thorough discussion about their sufferings. He wanted to help. He didn’t want to be a burden.

He remembered seeing a hunchback in a roadside show when he was too young. People were attracted by that weird hunch and the show was a hit. Sonu thought he can do better than a hunchback for his uncle and aunty.

The starry sky was making him dizzy and the silent breeze was telling him to go to sleep. It was only the punk music of the crickets that kept him awake. Sonu had a vague idea in mind before he slept. He has to get rid of those masks…has to get rid…masks.  

Next day Sonu’s uncle was a bit surprised to see his nephew’s keen interest to sell the masks by any means. Sonu was chanting a new mantra, ‘buri nazar bhagau mukhote le lo’ (mask to ward off evil) instead of his usual ‘matka le lo’ (buy these masks).

Many people visited, few bought and few sought for some time and then left.

Time told them to go back home with the sun coming down. But Sonu was eager to sell the masks. He shouted once again his new mantra, but his sound was not heard, he felt as if it was ignored and the masks made that happen.

He was sitting in the cart along with his uncle, thinking again to kick the masks out from the cart. When a car passed them and Sonu saw a foreign face peeping out from the car.

Somehow he knew that it’s time to say goodbye to the masks. The car reversed and the person sitting inside gestured Sonu’s uncle to stop.

Sonu was right. That person in the car was the one who bought all the masks form them. He didn’t look of this land to Sonu and talked in a different language. Sonu didn’t care as those monster masks were gone and nor did his uncle cared because he got a good price for the masks, much more than his expectations.

That night Sonu was smiling all the time, even when his aunty shouted at him for being lazy and not washing the dishes properly.

Before going outside to sleep he told his cousins proudly that their family trade will do far better from now. He didn’t realize that both his cousins didn’t react at all rather they were both filled with their own stories.

Sitting together and talking unfinished sentences about their silly dreams was also a routine for the three.

But for Sonu one dream had come true and he couldn’t stop but smile. He danced at the tune of cricket and swayed along with the blinking stars. Then obeying the silent breeze once again, he fell asleep to dream the victory.

Next morning, Sonu had a mark on his face, a mark of five fingerprints. He was putting the monster masks in the cart as directed by his uncle who had slapped him because he broke one of the masks thinking it to be an old one.

But his uncle told him that it was one of the new pieces he had left to dry. Sonu’s uncle had painted new ones hoping to sell more of these ‘lucky masks’, and earn more profit.

The cart was moving slowly towards the mundane destination. Sonu was sitting upset and confused. He turned to look at the masks.

Those nasty heads were gazing back and this time Sonu heard them laughing out loud at him.

Sonu smirked with a new plan in his mind.  


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The Leaf said Amen

A leaf once wished
 
                  to be green
                  to be yellow
                  to fly
                  to be dry
                  to allow a spider to spin a web
                  to give a cocoon its bed
                  to fall on someone’s head
                  to be crushed before it’s dead
                  to feel the wind
                  to be picked up and placed in a book
                  to know an artist and a poet
                  to inspire
                  to make a tree bend
                  to reach a road’s end
                  to be a flower’s friend
                  to touch the moon and the sun
                  to call itself fun
 
It was a lucky leaf after all,
died and got most of the above all.   
 
The leaf said amen.
Image by Lucas Wendt from Pixabay

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