WINNER OF BOUND’S VALENTINE’S DAY SHORT STORY CONTEST 2020
The pancake should shape itself into a nice, round disc
like your mother’s chappatis
but you are not your mother
Have you ever been in love? I’m not talking about the kind that makes you feel good. I’m talking about the kind that makes you feel worthless and still you decide to stay, and you forget what you loved about him but now something is keeping you here, and maybe it’s love or maybe it’s fear, and maybe this is as good as it gets.
The thing with sadness is that everything feels like it’s your fault. With the burden of blame on your shoulders, you shrink and disappear. You make a list of all the things you need to do to feel like you’re enough. Don’t remind him to do the dishes five times. Of course he’ll get defensive. Don’t lock yourself in the bathroom when you get angry. Don’t hold a knife to your wrist and demand he tell you where he was last night. Don’t cry so much, yell so much, try so much, feel so much. Don’t ask him to love you, even as he tells you he feels like the love is dying. And when he walks out with his bag, don’t ask him to stay.
The beginning of a separation is the hardest part. You think he made you whole, that he completed you, so it’s only natural that you’ll feel broken when he leaves. But self-preservation is pretty spectacular. Each day is slightly better than the previous one. You learn to like yourself again, to see yourself again. You step out every evening and walk twenty minutes up a hill to buy vegetables. You talk to trees, whisper to sunsets. You become Tom Hanks in Castaway, a solitary survivor. And while Hanks had Wilson the volleyball, as his best friend, you have your pen, your paper, and your poetry. It’s been your religion since you were seven. And now, like all predictable gods, it saves you.
the recipe for whole wheat pancakes
calls for one cup of flour and one cup of milk
make sure you cut the portions in half
because now you’re cooking for one
remember
how he used to make fun of the way you said
fla-wer instead of flaar
the indian and american in you getting confused
your confusion making him smile
his smile making you proud of your eccentricity
making you forget that even quirks
can become boring
after blending the flour and milk
add one egg and half a tablespoon of honey
be generous with the honey
but be sure to divide the one fourth cup of oil by two
because now you are cooking for one
remember
because the world won’t let you forget how broken you are
they don’t want you to be better
they want you to go back
to say you’re sorry
to be the rachel to your ross
to dismiss disrespect
to be the bigger person for the greater good of love
so you tell this well-meaning world
you have no interest in being a martyr
after you mix the batter with a whisk
pour it into a narrow, tall container
like a jug
or a cup
it will make the pouring easier
not everything needs to be as hard as getting out of bed without his smell
maybe the batter wants to stretch
to fill more space, to look bigger than it feels
maybe the batter wants to stream into the margins
to expand its understanding of what it could be
the pancake should shape itself into a nice, round disc
like your mother’s chappatis
but you are not your mother
maybe the batter wants to stretch
to fill more space, to look bigger than it feels
maybe the batter wants to stream into the margins
to expand its understanding of what it could be
maybe the batter wants to run
like the little girl who runs
until she grows up and finds herself frozen
not realising when she stopped becoming
remember
though this meal won’t fill the emptiness
it will remind you how good it feels to be full
and though it won’t erase his memory
it will allow you to build new ones
and though it won’t make the day end faster
it will show you
for those thirty minutes
why you need to slow down.
the pancakes will be sweeter than you expect
which is the best kind of surprise
and even then, if you want to drizzle them with more honey
you should, because you can
because now, you’re cooking for one
All this is possible because you’ve cut off all contact. You cope through complete disconnection. Your therapist says it’s not healthy, but sometimes you feel she just wants to be controversial because that will make you think. You want to stop thinking and start living.
He comes back. You feel you are a bad feminist. In the movies, if the guy treats the girl poorly she leaves. But no one’s the victim here. You’re stronger somehow, less tied to the romantic notions of permanence and a happily ever after. Bollywood doesn’t tell you what happens after the wedding. Now you know. It is what it is, until it isn’t.
our love can bleed
without the violence of hands
between the two of us
there are enough mental blocks
to build a legoland
a castle we’ll never live in
rooms that will gather dust
towers that will topple
gates that will rust
because they are too silent
silent
rearranged
becomes
listen
which makes me think they aren’t different
because the ingredients are the same
there is a splinter in the spaces between our words
so that when we speak it hurts
and we become haters instead of lovers
i can’t offer you permanence
but I can offer you anagrams
friend becomes finder
sacred becomes scared
tried becomes tired
mate becomes team
hater rearranged becomes heart
which makes me think if I have the starvation
and insomnia and tears to hate you
i must really, really love you
i can’t offer you permanence
but I can offer you anagrams
friend becomes finder
sacred becomes scared
tried becomes tired
mate becomes team
i understand words more than i understand us
words can be defined
we can not
About The Author:
Written by Rheea Mukherjee
Rheea Rodrigues Mukherjee is the author of The Body Myth (Unnamed Press /Penguin India 2019) which was shortlisted for the Tata Literature Live First Book Award. Her work has been published and featured in Scroll.in, Southern Humanities Review, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Vogue India, Out of Print, TBLM, and Bengal Lights, among others. She co-founded Bangalore Writers Workshop in 2012 and currently co-runs Write Leela Write, a Design and Content Laboratory in Bangalore, India. Rheea has an MFA in creative writing from California College of the Arts.
