FICTION:
Stolen Moments
By Aaroshi Sahgal
You smell like the bitter smoke of old cigarettes and the sharp breath of someone who couldn’t care less, or at least that’s how mom used to describe you to grandma when she thought I was asleep.
On some nights, I’d wake up to the sound of her faint sobs, failing to be muffled by the heaps of pillows that she drowned in. As I stepped through the shadows to carefully wrap my arms around her heaving chest, I would wonder whom this mysterious enigma was who created these pools of pain in her empty eyes. I would wonder who tainted her purity.
I saw you through pictures, but I never really knew that I was seeing you. I remember sensing slow chills creeping up my back as I stole glances at your hardened face, and my fingers would tremble as you stared shamelessly back at me. I would run outside mom’s room, and track her down so I could tug on her dress with inquisitive eyes and draw answers from her stubborn mouth.
The first time I asked her who you were and displayed the photos I had discovered ever so proudly on my desk, her soft eyes toughened and her pretty lips parted and I sensed the moments of her transformation in my mind. It was almost animalistic, the way her angry words shook the room and her slender fingers became claws as they tore at the photos. She never gave me an answer.
I learned to push my overwhelming curiosity into a tiny box at the back of my mind, a box which constantly itched and irritated, but could not yet be opened and emptied to my satisfaction.
It was easier to ignore when the first signs of happiness began thawing at her face, drawing out a smile that I had forgotten. It was a different smile from what I was used to though; it wasn’t gentle and soft and it didn’t sing to me like her lips did.
It was a dirtier smile, a smile that came from late nights at bars and the stench of strange men on her chest. It was a smile that made her makeup crack, and it was a smile smothered in cheap lipstick that was always smeared from kisses.
I no longer heard her cries when I woke up at night; silence was always the screaming answer that wafted throughout the darkness. I no longer had the job of comforting her; it was stolen from me by people who she made excuses for and told poorly fabricated lies for.
One morning however, when she left early before breakfast for who knows what, I discovered a picture frame of grandma in the section of her mattress which appeared to be unnaturally thick. I pulled it out and unclasped the back, and out fluttered three abused pictures. The tape holding the rips together was peeling, but his eyes still stared back at me just the same.
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Aaroshi Sahgal is a senior at Mission San Jose High School and lives in Fremont, Calif. She loves writing, fine arts and Indian classical dance.
