Deux

"Mom, where's Dad"

   She would ask herself same if the betraying gaze could sustain the surge squashing the restless capillaries transferring weariness to every nooks of her consciousness.

    That was the third time the innocent-but-curious cub would ask. At long intervals though. And like hell, she was done serving confetti of hope in a broken tray of smiles to her and her young brother. Where's Machli, that could escape her larynx in a scrunching shriek.

     Idea would not suffer her a stance in its territory. She was spent in thoughts. She was done thinking. She believed that he wasn't in a good state. He'd gone one in a blue for a day and return with felon feasts of carcasses. Carcasses with fresh blood dripping like nectar from a saucy beehive.

    "How's that possible? Did you just hunt this? You've been away for a day! And look! A fresh catch!"

     He'd smiled it away. Women, always bathed in flimsy questions. He would drop the catch and make for the callous cave to bathe. She'd looked over her furs and smiled a relief of his return. But now, she was dying of heaving that sigh. Twas choking her consciousness.

     He hadn't been away for two days. She remembered yelling at him at night, after his arrival from the a-day tour. 

     "You scared me to death! Why in the fuck name would you have done that? Reagan and Botha are barely two to three months respectively and you left Reagan to stalk me with the crave of your return. I don't know what kinda man do thus."

       She remembered that the boiling point was beyond measure. But all her sweet husband did was pull her closer and send a romantic surge through her spine. He always knew how to quench the fiery anger fueled by thoughts.

       Her head was full. Sundry thoughts contending to take a seat in her oblongata. She thought she was going to run mad. Twas at the verge. But she wouldn't. She couldn't. How would she afford it? What would become of Reagan and Botha?

      The Joys Of Motherhood  wouldn't be ripped. She'd gone for two catches. To stand in for the crave of the cubs. And the dusk was dragging by. Smithereens of clouds in locks, canvassing the irritation about to be puked by the disabled dusk.

        She knew she wouldn't have the guts to reincarnate the same lie and present it in trimmed silhouette to the resentful cubs.  She was done. She watched Botha hopped about and took a swig of excitement as he smiled at her. She was almost forced to spit:

      "Jejune!!"

        But which mother does such. She had learnt for her mother-in-law to veil her worries from her cubs in the Calcutta of her smiles. But how long could she go on.

       She would tear. She would die. She would abscond. No! She would stay. Machli must fight for survival. She knew he was a fighter. But probably had been met with a greater force.

     She watched felon sleep save her from the bothers of her cubs as they succumbed to the gore of trance. She kept her heart opened as her eyes took a rest.