The House

Nobody understood why he had built a typical Kerala-style house next to his huge palatial mansion in the south of France.

He had specially ordered and hand painted several of the furniture. Curtains and cushions had been imported from Kerala.

 He stayed there on weekends, listening to old Malayalam songs, immersing himself in memories. Expecting to hear the sounds and laughter of his parents.

Fate had rendered him an orphan years ago. Greedy relatives had usurped their house. 

A French couple had adopted him.

Now, he often received calls from them, requesting their long-lost billionaire cousin to help survive poverty.

Word Count: 100

This post is part of Friday Foto Fiction being hosted by Tina and Mayuri 

The Dinner

The corner table beside the aquarium had been booked for four by a Mr.Sharma. Must be a family outing.

This, a family restaurant in central Kolkata, had always been my dream. I had sacrificed many things to attain this.

 Love among others. Saurav and I had wanted different things from life. 

He wanted marriage while I wanted to become a chef. I had gone off to culinary school. 

He had married someone hastily to punish me.

Very soon, Mr. Saurav Sharma and his wife walked in accompanied by their twins. 

He looked careworn. Clearly, not the man I had loved.

Word Count: 100

This post is part of Friday Foto Fiction being hosted by Tina and Mayuri 

The Palace

Years ago, a little girl used to wait here, leaning on the arch.

She hoped her father, the caretaker, would open that little gate above those stairs and invite her into the palace that lay beyond. 

Instead, every time he would come down and take her back to their dingy cottage in the valley.

“No, my dear. The queen doesn’t want any kids wandering in the corridors of the palace. She detests kids.”

Now the queen is long dead. Royalty is not revered anymore. 

But I am the new owner of the still beautiful palace. I married my beloved prince.

Word Count: 100

This post is a part of #FridayFotoFiction 

A Bookish Love Story

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He had met her on the metro. They smiled at each other because they were reading the same book. 

Phone numbers were exchanged between the bibliophiles when similar meetings began to be repeated in the company of more books.

Their dates were always book outings. They loved the same kind of books, croissants, and coffee. 

They went to book launches together to meet their favorite authors.

Soon they realized they were irrevocably in love.

Wedding bells and two years later, the stork arrived with a delivery. 

These days they are reading fairy tales with their little girl who loves books. 

This post is a part of 

The Legacy

David ran his fingers on the keys of his Grandmother’s old typewriter.

It was a unique piece. He had found it discarded in an old trunk in the attic.

This machine had created dreams, the many books that she had written. 
People still loved them.

He scrubbed the rust on it and his fingers pushed open a secret compartment in the bottom. 

Out fell a velvet bag containing a beautiful diamond necklace, one that had gone missing during World War II. 

Perhaps, she had hidden it there in a hurry when the Germans attacked and had forgotten all about it. 

This post is part of 100 word fiction prompt as part of #FridayFotoFiction hosted by Tina and Mayuri 

Keys

The prompt for this week’s Indispire is this:

Pick up the book you are reading and from the 12th page, choose a word and use it as a prompt to write your next post. Try to relate it in some way to the twelve months of the New Year. Don't forget to tell the name of the book to your readers. #TwelveMonths

The book I am currently reading is The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  The book seeks to teach the right principles, the right language to understanding each other in a relationship. Gary Chapman says there are five specific languages of love: Quality time, Words of affirmation, Acts of service and physical touch.

Sharing these quote from the book.

“Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment. It is a choice to show mercy, not to hold the offense up against the offender. Forgiveness is an expression of love.”

“We are trained to analyze problems and create solutions. We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve.” 

In a relationship, couples usually forgive each other’s mistakes frequently. But what happens when the threshold of tolerance is reached? The following story, which I am writing for #FridayFotoFiction tells what happens then.  The word I had selected from page 12 is marriage. This story talks about domestic abuse.

Keys:

Her mother-in-law had accidently given her the keys to her freedom when she had told details about her son’s food habits. A key, which she had been seeking desperately since the first day she had woken with swollen eyes and welts all over her body.

That day, she ordered his favorite chicken biriyani. While he pounced on the food, she stealthily threw away the bottle of unrefined peanut oil she had added into it out of the window.

Later, she wailed loudly when the doctor at the hospital pronounced him dead due to anaphylaxis, an extreme case of peanut allergy.

Word Count:100

I am combining two prompts for this post.

This  week’s Indispire and Friday Foto Fiction prompt being hosted by Tina Basu and Mayuri.

On their Wedding Day

The trees were green, the water sang as it rushed by and the birds chirped. Just like it had been years ago.

A little girl visiting her grandma’s house in the countryside had wandered towards this stream with its long wooden bridge where the villagers sat and fished. The little boy who had accompanied his father to the spot had looked up and smiled. And she had smiled back. They hadn’t known at that moment that they were laying the foundation for an eternity of love and friendship.

The newlyweds fondly reminisced how their friendship had blossomed steadily into love.

Word Count: 100

This post is a part of #FridayFotoFiction being hosted by Tina and Mayuri

The Song

Pic Courtesy: Saumy Nagayach

The sponsors were beaming the concert live on national television. When the first note of the violin hit his ears, tears began to sting in his eyes.

Miles away, his wife watched him blink back the tears. She would trade her life for this one moment. Today the world would rediscover her Anand, the singer who had forgotten to sing, caught in the vagaries of life.

Perhaps this would be the last time she would hear him sing. When the last notes of the song died away, she nodded to the attendant who pushed her gurney into the operation theater.  

Word Count: 100

This post is a part of #FridayFotoFiction being hosted by Tina and Mayuri

Tamanna: Friday Foto Fiction

Image Credit – Fotolia 

The path ahead blurs as my eyes well with tears. I press down the accelerator and will the car to move faster.

I grab my phone as it vibrates with another message. It is from Tamanna’s father.  He has reached her apartment together with the paramedics. She is now stable. I send up a token of gratitude to the heavens and breathe.

I don’t want her to go through another such hypoglycemic attack alone. I am terrified of losing her. I don’t care what my parents think; I am going to move in with her. I love her, damn it!

Word Count: 100

This post is written for #FridayFotoFiction being hosted by Tina Basu and Sirimiri.

Victory: 100 Word Fiction

Writing stories is my passion. It gives me a high just diving into a parallel world where I can create new characters and make them sing and dance to my tunes. I have tried all forms of fiction writing till now. Short stories, flash fictions, five-sentence-fiction, novella, novel. But I think I haven’t challenged myself to write a story in 100 words. That is what I am attempting to do today.

Did you know that the most famous and shortest story ever written was supposedly created by Ernest Hemingway? He had bet that he could tell an entire story in just six words. He had written it on a napkin and won the wager (ten dollars) he’d made with other writer friends. Check it out here:

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Quoting from the authors of the book ‘Elements of Style’ which is a must have for any writer.

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer makes all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in outline, but that every word tell.”

---William Strunk and EB White

Another one of my favorite quote about writing is the creator of the masterpiece ‘The Prince’:

“Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away.”

--- Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Now let me take you to my submission for this week’s #FridayFotoFiction being hosted by Tina Basu and Sirimiri.

Victory

Image Source: Tinabasu.com

My jogging- app says I have completed my monthly challenge. I am elated for another reason as I walk towards the familiar dilapidated building.

A dead woman, a sobbing toddler trying to wake her up and a man shouting expletives. Scenes from a nightmare that haunts me every single day.

The soul of my birth mother wanders here, adrift in grief. A breeze caresses my cheeks.

“I have made him pay. Rest in peace, ma,” I whisper.

 I throw the newspaper which carries news of my victory into the house.

“Man found guilty of wife’s murder twenty years ago.”

Word count: 99