Young Writers Society

The evenings belonged to her and her grandpa.

In the hazy summer of her childhood years, the trees, the palette of colours in the horizon and the low, soothing sound that accompanied the callused strokes on her hand were ingrained in her memory.

As she grew older and brought home clumsily drawn pictures of trees and rectangular houses, only the vacuous silence of an unloved house welcomed her.

So she stood by the tinted windows, watching mutely as the maids, the gardener and the rests bustled about and lied to herself she was not alone.

She called this house ‘on display’.

She called her parents ‘figureheads’.

She called herself ‘evening’.

For it was only in the evening, she had an inkling of true content and happiness as she and her grandpa explored the parks and she remembered the ways her fingers look in the sparkling fountain water, like silver fingerlings her grandpa remarked while chuckling softly. It was a content none like other, like the soft wind that whistled softly through her hair as she soared high into the sky on the creaking swing. Or the lazy summer sun that enveloped them in silken ribbons of gold.

There are no adequate words to describe those feelings.

When pictures evolved into shiny new textbooks that smelt of plastic and graphite, she stepped into a new regime of monotonous routine.

Come home.

Then there was the rapid of sound of spent graphite, erect and firm.

The walk down the ebony sidewalk jutted with black steps.

Bed.

Her eyes wide open as circles and rectangles of passing lights from cars below and longed for the stars and the wild open wind, but those only come twice a week and she valued them even more.

Yet now, the pair would up the winding hill where aged cobblestones crawled with faded graffiti and the great Banyan that stood at the top, with aging dignity. Its aging whiskers beckoned to them with open arms, they exhaled a breath in silent admiration and sat in unison.

“You run too fast, I’m having trouble to catch up to you.” He said in a quiet voice that was both melodious and melancholy.

She turned slowly and the sun’s ray flitted across her hair like fireflies and a slow smile spread across her lips of the supple warmth. Head titled to the sun, she didn’t catch the pools of unshed tears in her companion’s deep-set eyes.

As months slipped into years, grandpa’s hair began to pepper with white. She would spent these evening in the rich musky smell of freshly ground ink, as apprehensive strokes of ink blossomed against the white paper. After, the two would sit out in the balcony, with pots of fragrant flowers and scented herbs around them and a mug of still-hot tea in their hands and she would listen. To the soft yet distant bird songs and his low, timbre voice spinning tales of bygone days.

And whence his voice had dwindled into a soft sigh, the tea would’ve gone cold and sun would’ve sunken low in the evening sky and her spirit too, ceased and faded into disappointment.

It was the last of autumn’s reign, just as the golden leaves turned to bare, skeletal branches when the decision was made just as silent and soft as the remanets of leaves being blown away by the first chill of winter. She stood once again on the balcony that overlooked the asphalt roads and smog coated trees, while the last shy rays of evening light casted ominous shadows of the boxes stacked high behind her.

For the first time in nearly a decade, the evening belonged to her.

The thought lingered with her as she flew above the Indian Ocean with her heart scattering in the roaring tides and her thoughts that remained in the tattered reminds of a smog-coated leaf. But her body carried her over to a foreign land, with a foreign language and a foreign place without grandpa.

“Wut are ou luuking at?” The untinted innocence of childhood voice snapped her out of her train of thoughts, she blinked. Dazzled.

Once

Twice

And realized, she was on a quieten path with dusk-soaked leaves whistling above her and she held, her three year old sister in one hand. Large brown eyes stared up at her in blissful ignorance, she smiled slowly and shook her head and as she bent down and picked up her sister. A ray of muted light flitted across the smooth surface of an emerald jade pendant, the clear handiwork of her grandpa.

“Pwetty sunsit!” Her sister exclaimed in awe, chubby fingers doodling sloppy lines in the air.

She nodded slowly, eyes fleeting a brief moment between the pendant and the evening sky and in that glance. ‘Sometimes,’ she thought with a strange smile, ‘a presence felt is as much as a presence seen.’