Competition Twenty-Two Shortlisted: The Mermaid’s Tail by Vijayalakshmi Sridhar
The only grove in the family holding that gave 50000 coconuts in a single cutting. Every summer it brimmed with the plucked jackpot nuts that lay about its expanse.
“It is my fort, da.”
Perumal mama (uncle) would thump his chest in pride, tap the ground with wisdom.
“It is where the village’s wealth is.” Not even a hundred feet from the roaring layers of Kodiyakarai seawater. Tongue-stingingly salty yet mineral-rich.
But mama didn’t keep the grove for him. Like a hot piece of ghee mysurpa he measured and cut the property from the rest and put perippa’s name on it. Instead, he took the partly barren, less-yielding Manthoppu– another grove at the far side of the town.
“Mouli deserves the bounty.” Mama lamented in defense, gulped down smuggled whiskey he collected from the cross-over, refugee boats at Vedaranyam port. Swiped his runny nose in rustling Singapore silk shirt sleeves in colours like traffic lights.
Even if the yield dropped by a 1000 less than 50,000 mama would fret as if the world had come to an end, immediately task the labour to salt the tree roots. Drove batches and batches of goats to feast on the grass on the grove’s banks and lay their excretion to pack the soil with nutrients.
Post-harvest, he would personally guard the coconuts until the load lorry arrived. Would hug the heap and roll back and forth on it. If perimma took even one from the lot, without thinking, mama would pluck it off her hands.
“Your Bhairavar swamy could do with second-grade coconuts from elsewhere; These are gems that brought riches,” he would say to aggravate her wrath.
50k, 55, 60k. Like the daughter he never had, the grove gifted, heaping him with riches, kept him going with purpose.
Vijayalakshmi Sridhar’s fiction explores the angst around relationships. She writes from Chennai, a coastal city in South India.
FLASH FICTION / MAILING LIST / SUBMIT / CURRENT COMPETITION / PREVIOUS COMPETITIONS / CRITIQUE SERVICE / BOOKSHOP / TWITTER / INSTAGRAM / BSKY.SOCIAL / DONATE / LINKS/COMPS/INFO / THE FREE FUTURE FOUNDATION
*
Tags: