A LIFE WASHED AWAY

By Neel Anil Panicker

Sir, would you like a ride?”

Prashant waves the man away. As the evening shadows go longer, the stream of tourists thin out and soon the wooden pier is all empty, the last of the merry band of revellers having entered of or the ferry. Within the hour there’s complete silence save for the soft gurgling of the lagoon’s brackish waters.

Still unmoving from his seat, a wooden plank attached to the bark of one of the many peepal trees that line the entire kilometre long stretch that’s the world famous Alapuzhaa beach, Rajesh watches, his eyes slicing through the dark at the lone house boat that’s moored to the shore.

Human chatter…children…little kids bending down, picking palm fulls of water and splashing one another….watching the merriment the two adults…a man and a woman, hands clasped, their silhouettes standing out like dark sentinels against the backdrop of the hills that watch over this unfolding of human spectacle.

And then… a loud thud, an anguished cry… a leap into the waters… and then the plunge into nothingness.

Seven years but the memories still haunt him. If only…if only he had held her hand, if only the boat had not turned, if only his dear daughter…

His eyes feel heavy but the tears refuse to oblige.

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