Durjoy

Yesterday (Biopage Mini-Essay Writing Contest Entry)

May 31, 2018 5 years ago

At age 4, Sarah learnt a new word. Yesterday. Amazed with her own accomplishment, she used the largest word in her arsenal wherever she deemed fit. And so, like the Beatles song, at once, the word too lost its individuality. The word became synonymous with simple past. Regardless of how many days, months or years an event dated back, for Sarah, it always happened yesterday. "Where is the snowman I built yesterday?" "I want the short hair like yesterday." "Mamma, why were you crying yesterday?" Sarah's odd behavior didn't seem to bother her parents much. Except for the time of the day, they met for breakfast and agreed to play hide and seek, Grace The Mother, pretty much kept herself locked in her room. Jonathan, The Father, was always too tired from all the races he had lost. Plus, Jonathon had always been a little on the slower side. Took his time to register changes around him. So, it was only natural that, on a lazy summer afternoon, it was Sarah who discovered Grace floating still and stale in her own red ocean. The funeral was an open casket event. At first, Sarah was a little overwhelmed. After all, it was the longest she had seen her mother before she vanished behind a door. Had she always looked this pale? The same freckles that Sarah has on her chin? Gashes on her wrists? Should Sarah get one too? Is this how they are gonna play hide and seek now? However, appalled by the stillness of their new game, she went on to chase butterflies around the garden. Jonathan found it difficult to explain death to a 4-year-old. He wasn't sure he fully understood either. Everyone said they looked such a happy couple. Wine swirling in glasses. Laughter orchestrated to perfection. Pigs canoodling in blankets. Walls christened with her sweat stains... "Where is Mommy? She was here yesterday." Was it the kid? Grace was never too keen on having a child. Or was she? Jonathon can't quite recall. He had way too many Brewskis that night. He had missed the rerun of The Sopranos. He recalls thinking of the lady who sat across the bar. Quite the fine young Adriana. Lighting cigarettes faster than a wildfire. Tinsel twinkles twirling ‘round the vermouth…. Was it another guy? Just as his horse finishes last of the lot, Jonathan feels betrayed. Has to be another guy. Explains a lot of the shrugs, the nods and staring blankly at a piece of paper just as blank as her last day since the Art School. O, the heresy! As some forgotten flower from some forsaken relative crunches under his feet, Jonathan feels angry. And for all the right reasons. He rifles around the house for some sort of evidence. A shirt that wasn't his. A lone pair of shoe maybe. Glasses. Or at least his old harmonica that he can pretend to forget for now. Just for now. Before he burns everything to get rid of her scent, the feel of her touch. Only to remember he never held on to it anyways... "Papa, why do I see a me in the mirror?" His mother was right all along. "Grace is not the kind you take the long road with". He should have known better. His friends always said that he married way too quickly. Should have let it breathe. Sow his oats maybe. "She certainly sowed hers"- chuckled one of them.... When the door creaked open, Sarah was busy staring at the night sky and wondering if they all were inside the underbelly of a giant dragon. And so, for a second, she too mistook the woman, salacious in red, for her mother. The woman, still dizzy from the promises of a Friday night, asked Jonathan where her mother was... "Mommy was yesterday."

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