Yellow Flowers

Yellow Flowers(Pritha Guha Majumdar) Sheela looked up at the night sky. In her eyes reflected the vision of another world. A world she had never been to, but knew existed amongst the many worlds in her imagination. An ebullient world filled with bright yellow flowers. The protruding flowers somehow resembled a woman’s visage positioned upwards, facing the morning sun, shamelessly. Flawless petals had freshly opened revealing the darkness within; vaguely resembling a woman’s parted mouth. It seemed as if a yellow secret had been rampantly exposed from that invisible darkness. There was a sense of urgency in the air; a sense of urgency in Sheela’s eyes; the urgency to live.

Hunger. The transfused stench of rotten blood and meat. The necessity of food; nourishment. Sheela’s hands reached her torso and she mechanically stroked her empty belly. A fire of hunger exploded within her at that moment. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her face didn’t change, she didn’t make a sound. She was used to silence. When she begged for money during the day some people remained silent, ignoring her filthy presence. Pedestrians didn’t look at her, because she wasn’t human to them. Or anything else for that matter. Her presence was not entirely invisible. Sometimes she demanded money or food from street vendors. She would shout at them, point at their nurtured bellies, and make them feel gluttonous. They had become an unusual part of her life. She shared a hate-love relationship with those middle aged men. In a way, it was similar to an immature brother-sister relationship. Sheela never knew the family she was supposed to belong to, could not recall their faces or decide if they were alive or dead. She never thought about her mother too much. When mothers held their daughters’ gentle hands and crossed the dangerous streets of Kolkata, only then Sheela was reminded that she was unfortunate. Within seconds those morbid thoughts would evaporate, and her ardent determination to survive would replace them. Sheela was not ashamed of begging, she did it with courage and enthusiasm. She knew she had to live and grow. One day perhaps she would be fortunate enough to visit the world of her dreams, the world with pretty yellow flowers.

Young couples were the most generous to her, financially. Love does things to people; unexpected things. A suspicious mixture of happiness and pleasure lingers within lovers. They smell of it. Sheela was unaware of love or the scent it exuded. Thirteen years of abominable poverty had restrained her from such fancy delights. Some of us are too oblivious to the unconscious flow of life. But Sheela thought about life and existence, space and time. Then her thoughts frequently transcended to the other world, where life was bright; golden. She saw yellow flowers that reached infinity and beyond. All yellow flowers. Equal.

Sheela’s resplendent dreams were followed by the nightmares of reality.
Sometimes the two worlds fused together within a few blurry minutes and Sheela would notice massive yellow flowers, in the sky, melting into the sun and back. These visions would last for a few minutes and then leave her, and then they would find other minds to corrupt and continue to exist like you and me. After these visualizations had vaporized, Sheela would find herself in strange places. Once she opened her eyes and realized that she was on the roof of an elevated building, looking down at cars, houses and humans. They all looked foolish, those people. She felt powerful in a perverse way, looking down at the men who failed to pay her, even though they had bulky pockets. They were running around, here and there, like hopelessly lost children. She felt superior, divine. Suddenly an enormous amount of guilt was born within her, and she was ashamed of her impure thoughts. She wanted to fly to the other world where perspective never changed; where the same yellow flowers looked up equally at the forgiving blueness of the sky.

Very soon she realized that the other world was too uncommon to fit into this one. And Sheela knew that she had to do something about it. The dreams had continued, and nights had passed. Sheela stood near a well now, intruding the loneliness of a still night. Her eyes were wet. Radiated light from a yellow flower softly touched her full lips, which parted at that instant. She was in shock. It was as if the golden light was seducing her to follow its brightness. All she could see were yellow flowers, calling her name, opening up their dark insides to her. She walked into the heart of a flower, and the petals closed around her. She was falling, into a shallow deepness. Sheela wasn’t afraid anymore; she was excited, thrilled. The secret that had once been exposed was sealed, with Sheela’s flesh and bone, as she splashed into a liquid realm; into eternity. Perhaps she had reached, finally reached, the world of her dreams.