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Susan Willingham Crystal Masquerade

Short Story
English
1508 Words
No Age Recommendation
496
2

CRYSTAL MASQUERADE By Susan Willingham The girl didn’t know how she got there, but it seemed as though she had been with them her entire life. She had suddenly found herself living with a family where the people were made of crystals. They had the form of a normal flesh and blood person, but there were tiny, gleaming jewels of different colors making up their eyes, lips, hair, and skin. They looked like crystal dolls. The entire family was outwardly beautiful, each part of their perfect bodies sparkling with colorful clarity. The mother had black hair, each strand consisting of tiny gems of shimmering blue-black onyx. Her eyes were of a brilliant sapphire, emblazoned with a radiant light, so brilliant that it was impossible to look at them for more than a few seconds at a time. Her lips consisted of jewels of ruby, like fiery embers of red, that flashed and moved when she spoke. Her teeth were a perfect glimmering white. When she moved, every minute gem of her body appeared to move singularly in a synchronized form. The rest of the family…father, son, and daughter, had the same likeness of appearance. The only difference was that the men were not as spectacular as the radiant women. Even the family dog was dazzling, with a beautiful coat of shining gold that moved with a fluid grace. Another surprising thing was that their bizarre behavior did not seem to affect the rest of the town. The citizens of this ordinary town actually appeared not to notice their abnormality. The Crystal family interacted with others as if they were just everyday people. They had jobs and went to school like everyone else. The girl observed the exquisite family closely while she was in their midst. Even though they appeared to have thoughts, feelings, and emotions of happy, rational human beings, there was something different about them besides their appearance that she could only discern after a period of close observation. Their beauty was deceptive. Their smiles and laughter were too quick, too bright, too fake. There was some internal struggle, like a cancer eating away at their insides, consuming them, while they were frantically trying to ignore it. Their jeweled smiles hid their pain and they had beauty to cover their weaknesses. This family’s performance was convincing. The whole town was convinced. And maybe if the whole town believed the façade, they would believe it, too. But at times, when the girl looked closely, she could detect what appeared to be tears glistening behind their beautifully jeweled eyes. She wondered if they fell apart when no one was watching. Maybe they would let her in on their dark secret, their hidden torture, and she could help them somehow. But the farce was too deep, too hidden. They would only deny that anything at all was wrong. They were living among the dead. They accepted the girl as if she were one of them, as if she had always been one of them - like maybe she had been born into their family, or that she was made of the same things as they were. She marveled at this and wondered why they welcomed her and why she felt so comfortable with them. Suddenly, with an awakening that struck here like a lightening bolt, she knew. She knew only too well. The girl had been drawn to them because she was becoming like them. She began to remember where she had come from. She saw herself running… running a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction and searching for someone, something to save her from the chains that are holding her prisoner. She hoped someone would hear her crying and carry her away, perhaps a prince charming that would step in and save her life. She was running from the ugliness in her life that had instilled itself into her heart, making it cold and hard. She had a cesspool inside, just like the Crystal family, and if she didn’t clean it out and allow herself to be filled with “something good and wonderful”, she would become like them. Instead of a beautiful diamond heart that matched their jeweled outside, this picture perfect family carried around a hard black piece of coal. The girl could begin to feel her own heart freezing. It was a slow fade, so slow that the girl didn’t realize that her life was anything but okay. It started when she was a child; it probably started before she was even born. The life was all she knew and she thought everyone else’s life was the same. She thought that it was normal to live in a family where the father drank himself into a stupor every night. She thought it natural that her father would beat her mother until she cried out in hushed whimpers. She was remembering it all now, the past crashing in on her like a tidal wave, knocking her to her knees. She was dredging up memories of the abuse, the drunkenness, the fear. Suddenly the girl was back in her childhood, hiding under the porch all alone with her demons, clutching the puppies that her pet Evie had given birth to recently. She stroked and consoled them as if they, too, felt the dread of the fight above them and were also dismayed at what the future held for them. The girl was heaving with the burden of shame she had carried since she was a child. She continued to carry that shame as she grew into her teens and began to realize how sick her family and her life were. She felt beneath her classmates and friends, and believed that if they really knew her and knew what her life was like, they wouldn’t like her at all. She was rejected by the “popular” kids because she wore old clothes and lived in an ugly house, and everyone in the small town knew about her father. Soon she found drugs, and in the first instance she tried them, she felt complete. She felt powerful, in control, beautiful, rich, everything that she was not. The drug crowd accepted her. They didn’t seem to care where she lived, what she wore, or that she had a father that was an alcoholic. They had the same problems as she did, and some worse. Even though the drugs worked for her for a while, they eventually became ineffective in covering her pain. The girl found herself searching for something else, anything to make her feel okay. She tried it all and nothing worked. That is when her heart began to harden and she put a wall up to keep out the hurt and shame. The next thing the girl knew she found herself living with these beautiful people make of crystals. She had to leave them. She had to find the answer for her life, and the answer was not in beauty and riches. She had to find “Something Good and Wonderful.” She dropped to her knees in anguish. It was there that she found the answer. She would take back her life from the demons that had snatched it since she was small. She would take back her identity, her heart, and her soul. She would find out who she was and what her values were. She would no longer believe the lies of her past, the lies of the devil…that she was no good. She would no longer live with shame and with the misery of jumping from place to place, relationship to relationship to find happiness. The “Something Good and Wonderful” spoke to the girl and said “Do you want to be free? Lift your arms. I have the keys for the chains that bind you.” She was free! She would go back to the Crystal family one last time to tell them the good news. When the girl went to them, she saw that they had gotten worse. Their appearance was even more perfect and beautiful than she had remembered. They were trying harder to delude themselves. She confronted the mother and told her about the “Something Good and Wonderful.” The beautiful woman slowly shook her head, her hair flashing with the motion, her ruby lips trembling. Her amazing cerulean eyes began misting with a slow agony. They gazed at each other for what seemed like eternity. Slowly the girl could see the woman’s flawless body begin to melt, her lovely features fading away. The colorful crystals ran together into a dripping twinkling wax. The onyx of her hair blended with the blue of her eyes and with the red of her lips, creating a merging color of sparkles, shimmering into a pool on the floor beneath her. The girl stared at the glittering substance on the floor in front of her and gravely watched as it changed into a colorless powder. Sorrowfully, she scooped the powder into the palm of her hand and softly blew, scattering it into a mist of a million tiny pieces. [more]

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Original:Perugu.Ramakrishna Flemingo

Translation:Jagadhaatri

Poetry
English
3399 Words
No Age Recommendation
670
3

FLEMINGO..(lONG POEM ON MIGRATED BIRDS) Time is infinite Time is a canoe Time is a winged dove Time is desert silence Time is the rumble of the oceans Time is the showering rain droplet It is the tremor of the heart Time is the lingo of history Time is an eternal test A non stop journey is time A ceased path is time Time is life Time is a flow Time is death Time is the opportune right Time is a tide Time is the breath Time is invisible Time is tangible Time is a scene of beauty The breath of an atom is time The tune of an iota is time Time is the play of life and death Time is the envoy of peace and terror There is no shore that the time has not touched And no ray of light untouched by time Time is the manifestation of the ancient Brahman The modern interpretation of duty is time Time is earthly and heaven Time is eternal Time is the river of life Life is a journey In the stream of time! (2) Journey Is a feature of instability The flow A lively spirit Flower voyages Pollinated From flower to flower The bird travels As love From shore to shore As a lineage Procreation Is the maternal instinct And desire for procreation Is the essence of the expansion of the soul Copulation Is it only pertaining to the man alone? Justice in creation Flourishes in plural Many rain droplets do make a rain Umpteen leaves do make a tree Millions of cells do make one creation Loneliness is not the trait of the world Embossing fetus in the ovum The bird blows the warmth of breath The cosmic universe is Perceived in totality by the inner eye (3) Every move is a journey Every death is a journey Every birth is a voyage Flight is the winning spirit of the migrating birds The effort of the ocean of love Is to procreate As the oceans run With the feet of waves As the air flows In wavy winds As life continues With the unending breaths As the world rounds in Non stop news In wings and wings Do fly and arrive these birds The creatures with passion and patience Thousands of kilometers of restless journey To the destination afar In search of wonderlands A partly witness of the Irrepressible instinct The soaring birds flying Like hunks of the rainbow Like the seven colored sankranthi(pongal rangoli) The flowing sea of the bird flock Floats on the treasures of the blue oceans The jingling song of the migrating birds Is a travel A stopover A sojourn A libido All are the traces of the moving time…. (4) The bird is the Infinite freedom with sprouted wings The eyes filled with a fear And a shiver As the soldier of the border forces The bird is a being, all time alert Onlooker with a quest It is the bird that Smears a mosaic of colors To the ends of the wings And tips of the tails The bird is the one Which casts net and Catches hold of the Jet velocity And the splendor of winds In the moment of hunger It is the bird that Surgically operates the available food And feeds on it as a fork Welcoming a dawn The bird is the Wake up call To the society Crossing a cold night Slivering the foggy morn With its beak Flying fast with its legs apart Runs the bird in prey hunt Testing the air contaminated From the farthest branch Of a tall tree It is the bird that removes the pollution On a sunny afternoon On a choicest water meadow It is the bird that Jumps and thumps And somersaults Playing water khabaddi Fluttering the body Dries its wings Measuring the distance of thousands of miles It is the migrating bird That carries The history of the other side of the world To the culture this side And the race of that land To this generation here The bird is the flying goddess of passion A flying message of peace Completing the journeys By the twilight of dusk Gathering near the tree It is the bird that gets ready for a chorus concert It is the bird that reflects The mynahs of poesy Gandharvas (divine singers) of music And the doyens of music Hunger, sleep, love, and passion Are similar to all the living beings Between birth and death Birds too have relations They are not promiscuous Birds too have a social life They do not know social betrayal The bird that unfolds its broad wings of vast feels Seldom knows selfishness It does not contract with narrow mindedness To the lady bird That sits over in hatching With all balance and patience The snacks of Pulicot Brought tucked in the bags beneath its nose Is fed in pecks and perks by the male The bird is beyond jealousy and hatred To the villagers who saved it from Any one shooting a bullet The bird as a good Samaritan in ardent gratitude, Makes the land fertile with its drops Gifting a three times crop and leaves the land The bird must be a role model for the man..!! For sincerity and commitment And discipline. (5) Exodus is an unending journey Migration an age old fete When the hues of life’s backdrop change Exodus is a weapon When the clouds anger Making scarce a droplet of rain The village turns an exodus To the anna datha (farmer) The farmer’s life turns a coolie Exodus transports a generation Exodus changes the way of life At times migration in life Encircles as a whirl pool At times drowns as a typhoon It makes you travel out to the continents For the sake of the tiny belly There is no race and no religion The hunger’s language is universal It may sojourn over anywhere Will make you do anything Stretches its hand until the belly is filled From a dark continent On to the dais of light From an icy country To the warm place Builds the bridge of the seasons (6) The pelicans moving on the wings of time The flamingos that ram in the air car The Painted storks flown in like kites Fluttering on the Konkanai Sails of the waves are the black cranes As the ambassadors of many countries Have taken part in the international conference The nature is all over colorful messages of love All the festivals of love of the bird tourists Are happily celebrated by the youth On all the branches of the land are the happy resorts In whichever village lost is the eye It is the hustle of the moving colorful dreams Are the goods of the empires of Manmadha(god of love) The secrets of Mithuna rasi(Zodiac sign pertaining to love) The hundred puzzles of the colorful flying boats All over the Pulicot lake is the congregation of romantic heroes All over the sky of Pulicot are the airs of emotions Each bird is a hoisted flag of poesy The colorful parrot is a short poem of dreams The dark legged crane that has soiled its feet in the dirt of darkness Washes them in the blue Pulicot The myriad colored sea-parrot Dives into the waters as the water drawing pulley Alone a great sage Stands on single foot in penance When in the shades of waters narayani(heron) appears He chants the manthra of gutakayaswaha(i.e. to swallow it) Folding its wings to the sides of time Gudaswami(the paddy bird or pond heron) Takes thrice a dip in the Pulitheertham(name of a place) As if thousands of women Are stilled as a picture In the postures of classical Indian dances On the dais are the postures of the imitating flamingos The everlasting fight of the usurpers for the water treasure And for the enticing damsels As if the Nelapattu has blown the snake charm Every now and then they journey to the home Naughty kids being the waves, Floating are the winged boats The structure that has turned The Pralaya Kaveri(stormy Kaveri) Into pranaya Saveri(lovable Saveri(a raga)) In the radiant jugalbandi of the jalatharangini Is the passionate shower of dazzling ragas As soon as it dawns in Pulicot Spreading the colorful carpet Entwining the hues of spring and winter Flows as a soaring garden of blooms Watering the mouth of the awaiting sea. (7) The bird guests under the boundless skies Are the messiahs of universal brotherhood The romantic tales carried over by the great poets The Manmadhas(gods of love) who well knew the secrets of love Lovers they are, who have left their family and place With an ardent desire to beget off springs Though in the size of a seed, but vast are their hearts Their eyes are like lamps without wicks To spread light is their message To perceive life is their philosophy Life is a penance Life is radiance Life is a dawn Life is providence Life a tune of the creation From generation to generation pervades life From earth to heaven is the debate of puranas Life is an eternal stream of time! The birds are the flags hoisted by the King of time!! (8) There – On each branch is a concert In each nestle, a sonata Every tree a cluster of myriad hues A bird fete all over the lands Chirps and tickles Coos and laughs Many a confluences of umpteen springs of ragas Many a sum of joy With the exciting songs of the round eyed ones The climate is delighted In the highways of power filled skies A colorful dream unfolds The milky-way Turns a rosy hued stream In the time of saran navarathri Saphari Theerdham(name of a place) Relaxes in the conference of arts The banjara(wagabond) birds that have come Croon the songs of coos They spread out the treasure troves of love Onto the nest of the worlds To the noises of the love making birds All the stars peer down to the earth The ways of love of the romantic hearts Breathe out the passions in loneliness Stretching his hands of rays, sun of the dawn Applies henna in stealth Unfolding the doors of their hearts The blooms color themselves in serenity Color is the manifestation of spirit of life! The lands that were not greeted till the day before Today are, the life of the birds summit The trees that were faded till the day before Are today the strings played veenas Thousands of flute songs of Krishna Now the morns of Nelapattu Are the wavy streams of sweet melodies Now the evenings of Nelapattu Are the springs of songs of the elixir of love A pelican tucks in its lover Into the nestle of its wings A painted stork nearing it Woos its beloved with its long snout The sabari crane in the tune of passion Loses himself to the sweet song of its lady love Turning its body into breath the wood pecker Smears all over the body of its heart throb Not only the floods of milky bosoms But the ardor of sperm too flows In the great yagna of the Santhana Lakshmi(the goddess of children) Millions of lives are dawned (9) Not only the Devakakulu But all the birds are the ancient kith and kin! All our visiting birds are Manvanthara purandharas!(the age old lords of Heaven) We assume the Bulbul to be an alien When have we seen it as a peace monger? We feel the blind crane as the evil spirit Have we ever counted it as the Charioteer of virtue? Though the python is black in color It is as good hearted as the dark lord (Lord Krishna) All the beautiful dances of the red breast are The festoons of light of the happy family ways In the life rituals of the branches Pour in the fuel of lively smiles In the bright journey of procreation, both the branches Ignite the lights of new radiances Numerous tales of love, umpteen loves Each branch is the cottage of Vathsayana(the author of Kama Sutra) Every nestle is a sound of music No creation, no rains, no destruction No progress of the world is possible without the family life Children are to the man, seeds of time And the ovum is the radiance of dynamism for the bird From the seed the tree and from the tree the seed Is the first step to the world’s progress To the yagna(ritual sacrifice) of the migrating birds The flourishing Kadapa tree is the dais The tree is the green flag hoisted by the nature The tree is the comfort to the exhausted mankind To the alien birds that crossed the oceans The tree is the temple of conjugal bliss To the on spreading bird dynasties The tree is the temple of the secret of creation (10) Time is always an open book All are open truths that are snuggled into it Time is a teacher that seldom taught anything to anyone Time is the emissary that tells every one everything The foreign birds are the prophets of yoga of life They are the bosom friends that do not know the hatreds of the borders They are the alien yogis that do not have lust They are the enlightened ones that have seen the secret of the kala chakra(the cycle of time) Greets in the universal lingo, and ecstasies They are well cultured ones that conduct unity camps Holy souls overflow in joy To the emigrant flock with the touch of this land In the lush green shade Appear the dreams of morrow’s generation That’s why I say bird is the indication of time It is the symphony of the past, present and future The holy fire of confluence is the endorsement of trikala tantra Bird loves a bird Soul copulates with the soul Nelapattu is the dais of the perseverance of Poundarika Nelapattu is the indication of age old yagas The sowing of seeds of life from generations Nature is the balancing measure here It is here that nature takes another breath And here the world gives birth to another creation This little land after crossing over the oceans Is a living home for a race It is a pillow of the joys and sorrows Where the dharma of Buddha has excelled It is the stage of dance for the danseuse Rathi Devi(wife of kamadeva, the lord of love) That knew the mystic tune or the tune of mysticism It’s the moment that seeks the justification of the soul Having understood the inevitability of the mortal body Forgetting the body pleasure, and pleasure of the body Manmadha becomes a passionate yogi here It’s the nature that fulfils it’s duty on this land Turning to be a man, it furthers the creation Congregation of birds that have no disparities An egalitarian equality The fragrance of passion to the ones who open eyes And to the eyes closed sages The liberation of the soul Time, changing colors as seasons For a minute, ecstasies as birds It’s here that begins an end To the time infinite The foundation is laid here From the end to the endless (11) Flamingo offers with love to its lady The bedisa(silver fish) that it brings with its nose How much it longs for its lover When it succeeds to fly in whirls Catching the vanjaram(the scomber or the seer -fish )in the net of its nose Fluttering its wings dreams of off springs Who must have taught so many tunes to these birds? How was such passion adorned to these round eyed ones? Which bird was that have shown way to this place? That results every year in this compulsory family fair The ecstasy of life in the foreyard of Nelapattu Wings sprout to the nestlings The tiny fish school, become their food grains Pulicot is the field of water crop The tiny shrimp is the fruit of the crop Fluttering its wings the blue flamingo Hounds the snake fish The crooked nose lakumuki(king fisher) bird Chase the mattagidasa(the sucking fish, called the Echeneis)) Having shattered the line of the girasa(short) fish The baby paraja(Rasica) crow feels joyous The sky seems congested To the nestlings that got wings The blue lake is the food store To the red breast that has learnt to fly In the battle for food To the shouts of hunger and The dance of the Bharatha(Titlark or Pippit called in Dakhini Chendul)) bird Searching for prey Bulbul is the food Hunger is the age old enemy to all the living beings To gratify hunger is peace for any being Even the gods of heaven savor elixir in hunger When big fish is swallowing the small ones Why is it wrong if birds feed on fish? As if the rainbows had bathed As the Apsaras (divine courtesans of the heaven)cast their charms Festival of colors on the waves of Pulicot A divine game of the baby sparrows The water meadow filled with children Looks like a conference of joy and gay In the eyes of the bird watchers Reflects a kaleidoscope of colors From Nelapattu to Pulicot This bird festival Flows like a stream of water colors The celebration reaches the skies Neither trap nor net, and no hook Beak is the mere weapon The battle of hunger seldom stops Even in tides and in the nets of waves and typhoons All the expertise lies in hunting However a great jalapushpam(fish) The test is to catch the prey with its beak Is the sanguine trait shared Pulicot is the resort for a change of climate For the progress of the breed the trunks of Nelapattu are the residencies The Pralaya Kaveri is now the grace f love Every nestling born here is morrow’s bird The yester born narayana(the common heron) The water parrot that fed on this land Having breathed his first in the nest of this tree Can the alien Sabari ever forget? The colorful dreams of the pelicans The blooms of hope of their beautiful nights The cool breeze and the odor of the soil of Nelapattu Can the red breast ever lose memory of this honeymoon? The ecology of India echoed with The divine violin notes of gratitude The land is infinite and sky vast As the flow of time the ocean too is boundless The one who called these foreign birds as aliens The one who made immigration as inheritance If he goes from this village Begets a child in that great nation Earns a green card and citizenship But how can the egg laid here be an alien? Can the way of pariga(the rose colored Starling or theCholam bird. Pastor roseus) brought up in the Pralaya Kaveri be changed? This soil is remembered by every bird And hence every year it turns up to its motherland! (12) The scene of the skies blooming in myriad colors On the branches of the rubber trees is The sweet home of the flamingo and pelican Reflects the groping families of man In the spreading apartment culture In the shades of the hoods of the waters of Pralaya Kaveri Joyously bathes the Siberia Forgetting the tiresomeness of thousands of miles As the armed forces of navy The meghmalhar(a raga that invokes rain God) song of the bird How many brushes of the artist must have bowed in reverence? To this sea parrot Umpteen canvases must have lost their faces In the symphony of the chirps of love birds is The still picture of the happy NRI doves The music of sarigama (the seven music notes)that teaches the soaring music to the heart At least once in a year…… The passion for the embrace of the motherland The longing to kiss the soil of birth The son of the soil who lost his inner face Forgetting the roots of life in the battle Having turned into a machine At least …now Have to transmigrate into the bird! Conclusion All the souls become one The cosmic treasures become divine souls In the confluence of the water treasures of India Taking a holy dip turn to be the holy souls What may be the divinity of the migrating birds They always worship Narayana in waters. Telugu original: Perugu Ramakrishna Eng trans: Jagaddhatri [more]

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