Curtains: A Short Story

By Gaurav Chandra Tuli -

A short story that weaves myth, archetypal symbolism, and allegorical psychology. Carefully analyse guilt, rigidity, and other important thematic tensions.

Reya was inside her room. She stood facing the curtains. She felt uneasy as if something stood behind the curtains. But that unease was quickly replaced by a curiosity after aeons.

“What is it?” said Reya.

The small table lamp in her room that, interestingly, was meant to light the entire space, started to flicker. It was all quiet. She could not even hear her own breathing. Perhaps it had stopped too.

Reya was now walking down one of the grocery store’s aisles. She kept walking with a still face, motionless. She held something she had loved for long, almost had identified with it – her matchbox. Her grey eyes sat firm rock-solid. Someone deeply interested and mentally well-acquainted with the nuances of Greek mythology, would find her similar to a modern Medusa. Honestly, the polished curls of her hair closely resembled snakes and would be indistinguishable had they been a shade darker, compared to her fiery brown. She walked only to walk more. It looked aimless to the common passerby. But it wasn’t for someone actively exploring mythic archives and ancient chronicles. Something didn’t precisely fit the puzzle of coherent understanding but everything did in a gestalt. Aisle after aisle, section after section, from among crowds of intensely focused vegetable pickers to casually excited snack pickers, she drifted by, noticing not one specifically, but all.

And then she stopped. The ceiling lights flickered. People paused to look around. Children shouted in glee, the powerful words of freedom and liberty. Enthusiastic shrills ensued to heighten the heat of the space that had gone cold and measured smiles lit themselves on the weary faces of the adults. The children ran around to play a quick game of their own, with the creepy ghouls, the menacing spirits that had – of course – turned the lighting flickering. And then it all stopped. Amongst this, Reya thought that it was interesting as to how a short spell of confused silence gave way to a light cheery commotion which, again, gave way to a short spell of expected silence. In her motionlessness, she had only allowed herself to run her thoughts, as she stood leaning against the notebook shelves in the stationery section. Barely had countable seconds passed by when the wearied faces brought back their intense focus to the significant task at hand. Shopping. The legally not yet adult, who had proclaimed inspirational words of freedom and liberty in their penchant for enthusiasm, grew dull, back again to monotony of normalcy. Away from the haunting dimension of reality afar; only to give appearance or become reality when lights flickered.

Child after child asked as to what had exactly happened and why it had happened. The wearied faces in their intense focus could not leave the task at hand. It was important.

Suddenly, the lights began to behave differently as before, but still different. They flickered again and mostly everyone, except for the children, remained unmoved. And then came a dramatic off. The lights went off. What flickered now was no more the light, but hope. Something was not right. But everything was in fact - at least from Reya’s perspective. Countable seconds into the darkness and the nose detected smoke. Initially it smelled like burnt desire to…

But soon, it began to overpower mortal lungs. In its short and successive insidious attempts, the questioning children, the thought-driven minds suffocated to death. This time a chaotic commotion stormed within the walls of the store. This time, however, it were the wearied faces with cold intense looks, who were its causal entities. This time, however, their intensity accurately justified something greater. Action, responsibility, and an innate sense of humanity. Unfortunately, they had failed. The children had succumbed to the fire. Through them, the hope that sustains life, had died too, because in a fire only ashes remain.

 A deafening scream was heard from the stationery section in one of the corners of the store. It was a wearied and intense face looking at a burning figure, a human. As everyone rushed to the scene, to the source of the invisible amplitudes of sound, one after another, each froze into stone. Including the one who had seen the burning human. Reya.

Only her grey eyes shone the light of fire, that did not flicker. She was in flames. She had used her favourite matches to fire alive her destiny - death. Her eyes sat still in their soul-piercing stare, her lips had stoned into colourlessness, as her fiery brown hair burned. For a crime she could not forgive.

As Reya added more sticks to the fire in her room’s hearth, her parents walked in.

“Don’t ignite the fire too much,” said her father, “Keep it soft and low. Else it will combust destruction.”

But she could not help it. The child she was, the fire in her wanted to bloom. Through questions, openness, curiosity, fiery idealism, warmth for humankind. It did not want to be kindled. But society wanted it to be kindled. It favoured pragmatic structure over idealistic welfare. So, Reya, unwillingly, had to pull away sticks. However, the fire did not soften and kindle. It exploded in wrath and destruction. Frustration and disappointment too.

The adult she became, she replicated others in symmetric detail, in their weary intensity. And became the Medusa of today. However, she lived her life as a victim of her rock-hard power too.

Reya, the adult, was inside her room. She stood facing the curtains. She felt uneasy as if something stood behind the curtains. But that unease was quickly replaced by a curiosity after aeons.

“What is it?” said Reya.

She drew open the curtains. The lamp’s flicker of intuition continued faster, as though it had been possessed by creepy ghouls and menacing spirits.

“Nothing,” she said, “but the wind that not just blows curtains but spreads fire. The fire.”

She turned off the lamp. And walked away toward the grocery store. In the unhindered movement of the curtain, she had foreseen her future in the wind. The wind that had stopped blowing. The fire that could only now wreak combustion. The desire had been burnt. Long ago.

Check "A Storm" to explore another story of tragic character depth, and psychological symbolism.

https://mindtales2024.blogspot.com/2025/12/a-storm-intuitive-short-story.html

Gaurav Chandra Tuli

  


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