Short Stories - The New Bhayanak Maut Album - October 2, 2011

Here's Sunneith's second short story, 'Sigh'. 

You would lay still in the cradle of her legs. Never doubting the shelter it provided – from fears you were still foreign to. ‘Maa’, you called the woman. You loved her. What you felt with your head on her thighs, you will never feel in the orifices of another. Her hair fell on your face as she told you stories. Stories which you pretended to enjoy. Stories that did not interest you. For your eyes rolled back in their sockets, and your ears hummed from the sheer pleasure of laying there on those warm thighs. 

It has been decades. The woman is long past gone, and you haven’t slept for a minute more than two hours at a time. But you have been working to make that go away. Oh yes, you have. And today, it will.

The body lies on the cold floor of the bathroom. It is one of many. You are two feet away from it. Its full legs are spread out. Eyes staring into nothingness, as if contemplating hatred. The dead can’t hate. You smile to yourself as you look at the red cloud that forms on the floor between the legs. Growing. Till it gets heavy and pregnant with consequence. But the sleeping and the strong know no tomorrow. 

You walk out into your room, towards your bed .You have waited years for this day, and now you will bathe in the joy of creation. 

 

Your bedroom is vast. On the left, lie stacks of sheets and cotton. On the right, 72 boxes. Each containing 200 size-12 Milliner' needles. Bundled next to the boxes are piles of gutstring. 
 

 

It is dawn. There is a heaviness in your eyelids that you have never felt before. It is done. You stand before your bed. You're quivering. Your legs shake, your lips tremble, and an almost animal-like whine escapes your mouth. Your chin feels wet. You are drooling like a dog on a pavement, breathing its last on a hot summer afternoon.

You strip naked and stand by the bed, such that your shins touch the wooden edge. You bend your knees to climb in. Your palms touch the sheet; And as they do, your elbows start to tremble, and before you know it, they buckle. Your body glides through the air as if in a dream. And as your face touches the sheet, your eyes roll back. Your ears start to hum.Your sphincter gives in. The ceiling fan creaks, but you know no mechanical poetry.

In this bed made of skin, you lie. Tonight you sleep.