The Yawning Gap
As I happened to live in the city, many people, both known and unknown, used to visit my house for various purposes.
I usually leave the gate unlocked very much against my wife’s wishes. As I usually read a book or newspaper in the living room, I could easily see the gate and anybody coming into the house.
After my retirement from a hectic job in the media, the number of visitors had decreased. When there were no visitors I felt rather lonely as I was living with my wife who was eternally confined to the kitchen.
One day I heard somebody tapping at the gate. I peeped through the window but could not see anyone. But the tapping continued.
Out of curiousity I opened the gate only to see a middle aged woman who had one leg amputated. She looked at me in a pleading way.
“Sir, can you allow me to stay in your house for the rest of my life?” the woman asked. I explained to her that it was not possible because we could not look after a disabled woman. And I also told her that I did not know her from Adam.
“Sir, you may not know me or you can’t remember me. Please let me speak to your wife. ‘’ “She is in the kitchen. How can you go there? You don’t even have crutches.”
“Sir, my leg was amputated recently as I had a wound on it. As I am a diabetic, the doctor advised me to get my leg amputated. He said that was the only way to save my life.” “I am sorry to hear your story. But I can’t allow you to go into the kitchen.”
The woman did not seem to hear my words. She dragged herself into the house and then to the kitchen despite my protests.
“Sister, can you remember me? I used to come to your house when your father was running a boutique.”
My wife seemed to have recognized her by the way she treated the woman. After a hurried meal, the woman wanted a place to keep her belongings which were packed into a small bundle.
My mind raced back into the distant past. Two or three decades ago, she was a pretty, coquettish girl who had come to our house occasionally. She was in her pig tails and looked extremely beautiful.
I had been immediately drawn to her charming ways. She visited us several times and I always longed to see her. As I was newly married, I had restrained myself with great difficulty.
The woman sitting on the kitchen floor was no longer a welcome sight. I told her very kindly that it was not possible to accomodate her in our house. But she insisted that she wanted to stay with us whether I liked it or not.
I summoned enough courage to tell her in no uncertain terms that she had no right to stay in my house. But she was in no mood to listen to me.
“Get out of my house or I’ll call the police,”I told her very firmly. But she pretended not to hear my words. Then I threatened that I would throw her out onto the road.
However, my words had no effect on her. Drastic situations called for drastic solutions. I lost my temper and nearly beat her with a club.
Then the woman got frightened and dragged herself out of the kitchen and soon perched herself on the pavement.
When she was pretty and young, I wanted her company.
When the same woman came to see me as a disabled person I wanted to get rid of her. I felt that there was a yawning gap there, somewhere.
| The last line of the story today has been edited to leave the interpretation open, a more effective device, I feel, than spelling out what we should be feeling. Then, what the reader gets out of the story might be even more than what the writer thought he was expressing. This story is beautiful in what it says indirectly, the changing of feeling, the passing of time, the sadness about the shallowness of human attraction. Please send in your contributions to the Flash Fiction Page, Madhubhashini Dissanayaka Ratnayake, C/O The Sunday Times, No. 8, Hunupitiya Cross Road, Colombo 2. N.B. Work sent to this page maybe edited |