The Afterlife: Blogisode 1 (Evening Tea with Biscuits)
Copyright (C), Puneet Gupta, 2015
PREFACE
"The Afterlife" is a new fiction series on Culture-Curry. It tells a story where today is seen through the eyes of yesterday. A story where we write a future for what was presumed history. A story when after comes before before. A story where old is the new new and new does not get old.
AND SO IT BEGINS...
They sit quietly looking at the setting sun.
It was their favorite part of the day. A daily ritual. At 4:45 pm, he would drag two cane chairs to the balcony, leaning heavily on his walking stick as he pulled them out one by one. It would take him a good five minutes, but he never hurried. The anguish from the nasty fall he had last year was still fresh in his mind. Since then, he had developed a strange phobia - “the marble is too slippery” he would tell her. His fear had him wearing slippers all the time, even when in the House. While he fussed with the chairs, she busied herself in the kitchen - milk tea with cardamom and a touch of cinnamon set into two white gold-rimmed china cups underlined by matching saucers. She would set the cups along with Marie biscuits and his favorite chudwa into the tray with the grapevine print. By the time she was done, it would be 5:00 pm. She would carry the tray slowly to the small table he would have set in the middle of the two chairs, now set at the perfect angle facing the sprawling greens that marked the empty vastness behind the House.
The rhythm did not change with seasons - the weather here was quite equable throughout the year. They had followed this ritual every day since they began four years ago, shortly after she came to the House. Except for when either of them was unwell. Over these years, they had grown used to each other’s company, chatting away for hours at end, discussing everything from their children to the afterlife. One thing was sure - they never ran out of topics.
Today is no different.
(to be continued...)
PREFACE
"The Afterlife" is a new fiction series on Culture-Curry. It tells a story where today is seen through the eyes of yesterday. A story where we write a future for what was presumed history. A story when after comes before before. A story where old is the new new and new does not get old.
AND SO IT BEGINS...
They sit quietly looking at the setting sun.
It was their favorite part of the day. A daily ritual. At 4:45 pm, he would drag two cane chairs to the balcony, leaning heavily on his walking stick as he pulled them out one by one. It would take him a good five minutes, but he never hurried. The anguish from the nasty fall he had last year was still fresh in his mind. Since then, he had developed a strange phobia - “the marble is too slippery” he would tell her. His fear had him wearing slippers all the time, even when in the House. While he fussed with the chairs, she busied herself in the kitchen - milk tea with cardamom and a touch of cinnamon set into two white gold-rimmed china cups underlined by matching saucers. She would set the cups along with Marie biscuits and his favorite chudwa into the tray with the grapevine print. By the time she was done, it would be 5:00 pm. She would carry the tray slowly to the small table he would have set in the middle of the two chairs, now set at the perfect angle facing the sprawling greens that marked the empty vastness behind the House.
The rhythm did not change with seasons - the weather here was quite equable throughout the year. They had followed this ritual every day since they began four years ago, shortly after she came to the House. Except for when either of them was unwell. Over these years, they had grown used to each other’s company, chatting away for hours at end, discussing everything from their children to the afterlife. One thing was sure - they never ran out of topics.
Today is no different.
(to be continued...)
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