The Girl who was a Graveyard

Photo: Dixit Motiwala on Unsplash

Flash Fiction by Zalma: ‘She knew there was another possibility. Surrender. Or submit. Yes, submit. It’s a more positive word. Optimism. In tragedy.’

- Zalma A.

She picked up the bees from the ground. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Eight bees.

It was brown and scrappy—the ground. The green grass was dying—yellow somewhere, and green or brown elsewhere. The sun was strong. It made a pattern of leaves on her face. She was under the shade. Everything had a tinge of yellow to it. The bees were yellow too.

The sun is not responsible for everything that is anything. The bees didn’t sting her. They were dead. Yellow. Black. Yellow. Black. Yellow.  Her palm was yellow, too. She had swiped her hand on her shirt before she picked up the bees. It was pink otherwise.

How did they die? Flight or fight response? She knew there was another possibility. Surrender. Or submit. Yes, submit. It’s a more positive word. Optimism. In tragedy.

She tried. Memory flashed before her. She always thought she needed to close her eyes to remember something. Block out everything else.

It was not so. She couldn’t erase the memory. Can memory be erased? No. Our experiences are always in our subconscious or unconscious. Freud theorised this. Those experiences make up our memory. Or memories. Memory can be suppressed. Memories can be suppressed. She couldn’t suppress it.

She stood still where she was. Under the peepal tree, holy to Hindus. They are abundant here. Neem too, and eucalyptuses. They lined the winding roads on both sides while their shadows danced on the roads like grey flames. A shade darker than the grey of roads. Roads are long, and so are eucalyptuses. White barks, green leaves. These are the colors of Islam, and symbols for peace and harmony. Different people live here, and lived. By the Indus. In harmony.

She kept staring at the bees. She looked up. Two hives. Too full. Honey dripped from one of them and landed on her nose. Sweet honey, warm and thick. Viscosity, she thought. She closed her eyes. Then opened. Looked down at the dead bees in her palm. It was pink again. She wiped her nose with her dupatta.

She started walking back home. Another memory. Her Naana told her a story once. A story about the pigeon and the cat. The pigeon and cat are in each other’s proximity. Too close. Pigeon senses the danger. It becomes still. Stays like that. It neither flies nor fights. Instead, it closes its eyes in the face of danger. Whose danger? The cat. Both wait. The cat to attack and the pigeon for attack.

Pigeon is no more.

She buried the memory. It would come back. She knew. She would bury it again.

She arrived home. Towards the backyard. She opened her palm. Yellow again, and sweaty. There were eight bees minus one. Seven bees. She lost one on her way. She put them in the pocket of her kurta shirt. She didn’t know what else to do with them. She thought for a while. She would burn them to ashes and drain. She found them under the peepal tree. Holy to Hindus. But what if the bees were Muslims? They were mentioned in the Quran. Holy to Muslims. She would bury them. In the backyard, by the roses.

Dilemma. She knew nothing. Neither of people, nor of bees.

One, two, three, four, … and seven. Eight minus one is seven. Yellow, black, yellow, black, yellow.

She was a graveyard. People wouldn’t keep her. She would keep the bees. Remained in her shirt pocket. Buried. With her memories.   

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Zalma A. can be found on Instagram: @zalma.ab.