Family Honour

Dear readers,

I know I had gone back on my decission to carry short stories consisting 1500 words or less. But since this particular short story is written in a 'different voice' using such unorthodox subject matter, I felt that it deserved space in Passionate Pen. - Sajitha

Jayantha Rethnayake

We controlled the area where we lived. Our family, with ever growing members, had the birth rights to claim the yields of the area which, in your vernacular, was a 'junction'. We had not much worries in the life except when it was raining and from a particular individual of whom I am going to talk about. In hindsight, I tend to think, that the rain was our biggest problem as we could not win over this enemy in the same way we dealt with that person. We have been suffering from the rain for years whereas the suffering caused by that person was short lived. Rain brings us first dampness, cold, hunger and that disrupted our social fibre as well. I, along with my family members, hate rain, first and foremost for the reason that it lashes horribly cold water on us thus dirtying and soaking our only garments; or you may call them 'coats'. When the rain ceases, what a trouble we had to undergo to dry ourselves? Secondly it brings us hunger as our movements will be restricted.

As for food, we had a food supply chain, though may be not always to the level of our expectations. Since we, (except one family member who practised preserving or 'hiding' her portion of food), every body else went for meals together to a few eating houses in the area where we were residing and shared whatever we had in a communal eating harmoniously. Our communal eating habit brought benefits to those who need more food. In dining, we allowed lactating mothers and mothers- to? be enjoy the priority rights. (I wouldn't say that there was always peace prevailed among our members. We, of course, had occasional squabbles. Those, were settled mainly by seniors raising their voices and soon peace will resume as we do not have the habit of carrying grudges). Associated with two of the eating houses, were a couple of kind people who used to keep our portion of food everyday for us and hence in turn, we gave him protection from intruders by providing them escorts and voicing out our protests whenever we sense a danger for them.

We are a family with very simple habits, as it was the nature of our race. Our wants are a few and limited. Food, Shelter and Protection were our main concerns. Food, though we have sources, we have to protect them keeping a watchful eye, lest intruders which included some other families in the vicinity or some roaming members passing our area might snatch and claim and get used to thus affecting our supply chain.

Shelter is not a big problem. We did not bother to have houses built for us. Oh ! What a cumbersome job is to build a house. I have seen how men toil for ages in building houses often very much bigger and spacious than necessary; which are huge and spacious for hundreds of them to lie down. But most of the time, there will be only two or three people subsequently living in it. !. What a joke and what a waste and what a trouble. In that sense, birds are better, though they too were foolish enough to take trouble in building houses for them. But at least, their houses were not bigger than necessary for their offspring to stay until they grew up. I used to watch how crows, used to build their houses prior to hatching the young ones.

As for us, just a nook in an unoccupied house or verandah of an abandoned house or a coir carpet of a boutique, after its closure for the nights, provided places for sleep, As in our view, that is what is houses are for. This saved us a lot of trouble of thinking, planning, executing of building houses for the limited use of sleeping. Even in the cases of delivery of our babies, our ladies performed that duty in a protective nook, all alone without much hassle. I, as intelligent chief of our family, have enough experience as to what puss men do in bringing their babies in to this world. Their ladies, though sometimes used to show us their might, mostly through shrieking voices, act like cry-babies when they were about to deliver their babies. They go to hospitals in a mighty hurry, spend a couple of days there and come back with the baby, again with much ado. Also I have heard that in the very act of delivery, they make it known to everybody by crying out loudly!. In contrast, when our ladies perform the same task, we do not know so until the little sounds made by newly born are heard by the curious neighbours who were concerned about the absence of the lady concerned and hence were looking for their sister.

So we had a sort of comfortable life in our own estimation. The trouble started a few months later. I do not know exactly who initiated it: whether it any of our family members or that individual himself. He was a person who lived a few blocks away from our gathering place and therefore used to pass our area of control every day morning and evening on his way for his daily chores. Often in the morning, even I, as intelligent chief, did not notice him, perhaps I was also may be asleep at that time or most probably it could be that he did not make any strange noises which made us curious, the very source of the problem which I am going to relate.. But after we started noticing him, hardly any evening passed without him passing our area not being noticed by us for, by habit he used to make strange annoying noises.

Here I must say that, we everybody in our family is very much conversant with the sounds made by humans to get things done. We also had our own set of sounds which we used sparingly as we are a race of few words and also we used to convey our needs, wants and feelings using body movements rather than making it all noisy.

But the sounds uttered by this person, though in a sing-song style, in the evenings were very strange and did not convey any meaning to us. Therefore it brought a lot of amusements to us. Just imagine some sounds such as:

I am a doctor
Brother is a proctor
Riding on a tractor
Knocked my in-law's sister
Or something like
Father Harry
Went to marry,
in a donkey car
Father vetila, kakula kedila
Lalai lilai lah?

As I said earlier, we are well conversant with the sounds which they used to communicate with others. But however, above were quite different and meaningless funny sounds. We adults were able to suppress our mirth at his strange singing. But it could be one of the youngsters who could not suppress his laughter would have burst out and it could have annoyed this person thus giving birth to this whole episode.

We know their way of singing too. We too used to sing but only when we feel lonely or sorrowful. But they used to sing for every occasion. Another difference, is that, whilst we tolerated their, of course meaningful, singings, they did not have the courtesy of, let alone appreciating but at least keeping silent, when we were singing. Instead, it appeared to us that they very much hated our songs and always used to hurl abuses at us whenever, we started a song; which we performed, mostly when the full moon was on. But we never objected to their singings. However with this person, it was different. Accompanied with his strange words used in his singing, he had a funny way of walking as if he was not sure of his steps and also used to have a pungent smelling smoking stick, black in colour struck in his mouth.

First day, at the protest made by the youngster, he reacted by hurling a stream of abuses in filth making our ladies blush and was also looking for a stone to throw at us, before he fell down, may be due to his funny sway in his body associated with him in the evenings. This brought forth a wider laughter among our family members and he would have misunderstood this as an insult to him as he was a complete stranger to our language.

Thereafter, every evening, when he was passing our area, he used to carry a stick. His everyday singing of those strange songs, funny sway in his body, stick in the hand and a black-smoking stick in his mouth, made our family members more and more uneasy. I must confess here that sticks (and stones) are the things, we are very much concerned about; apart from, of course fire. We knew by experience that the sticks had a controlling power by making one painful and this power could only be used by men; but unfortunately not by anybody else. Therefore, him carrying a stick made us annoyed and alert. After all, this is our area of control. Previously, by singing strange songs he made us annoyed, now on top of that, he is carrying a symbol of threat!. But we could not do much on this other than making a long series of protest, willingly attended by almost every member of the family, whenever he made an appearance till he goes out of the area. We realized that this made other people too a bit unhappy through their reactions, but we had to fight for our rights.

One day after lunch, I went for an inspection tour as I used to do as a part of my duty being the intelligence chief of our family. Others had been asleep as hardly any interesting things generally happen at this hour of the day in the simmering heat. I was not a witness to the incident which I am going to relate now, but later I was made to understand how it happened. Whilst the family members were enjoying the siesta, the man whom I have been talking earlier, had emerged suddenly from some where and thrown that smelly black smoking-stick on a sleeping body of one of the female members of our family. When the smoking-stick started burning through, first her coat and subsequently her flash, she had made such a pitiful cry that every member of the family had got up and, as first reaction, have dashed out of the possible danger without noticing the reason for her agony. Pathetic cry made by the unfortunate victim of this barbaric act brought a sardonic smirk across the ugly face of that brute of a man and that made our family seething with anger. The burn ?injury suffered by our lady healed gradually save for a small mark on her skin, but our hatred for that individual grew ever stronger. Thereafter, every day when he used to pass our area with his usual stick in the hand and smoking stick in the mouth, he used to mock us with a threat of throwing more fire on us, if we don't behave!. We do not know what he really expected from us when in fact it is he who irritated us and tried our patience. However, this verbal threat and his gesticulation of throwing the smoking stick on us, which of course represent fire, made us more and more annoyed and revengeful. Thus, we started nursing a blinding anger and hate on this person and were looking for a way to take revenge and vent out our resentment.

It was a gloomy day with a drizzle which started in the morning, continuing through out the day in to the night making us damp and uncomfortable. In the night, there was a pale moon which made us feeling more miserable. This was apparently felt by every body in the family as demonstrated by almost all family members joining in a melancholy song started by a senior member and continuing it in an unbroken line. This sound brought a sort of eerie feeling among us too.

After a lengthy performance, to the consternation of our neighbours, singers one by one fell silent. Generally, we sing like that to dispel our loneliness and sorrow. But that day, even after our lengthy communal song, we still felt uncomfortable and felt wretched without any particular reason.

Then, it is after some time, when we were about to forget our sorrow in a sleep, it is I who first felt it. It's HIM!

First, my hearing sensors picked up his foot steps where mostly none of our kind goes wrong. Then the smell further confirmed it. It is HIM. Subsequently, my alerted eyes picked up his movement through the faded moon light, in our direction. After all, it is my extra-sensitive hearing ability and power of smelling made me the intelligent chief of the family!. So, I can not go wrong. Whether there is light or not, I can see and identify different movements associated with different objects; whether live or mechanical.

He was coming towards us. Then I saw that he had NO stick in his hand, nor smoking stick, neither that funny movement of his body which was associated with him most of the time in the evenings. In this late night, he is coming where we had gathered. Having known the man, it is not definitely going to be any good for us! Immediately, I sent a message through our family and everybody was up and alert instantly. He was not carrying the stick and hence this is our chance to avenge him for which we have been eagerly waiting for. Everybody was kept informed and our leader, whom I would use this opportunity to introduce to you, took the lead.

Our Leader was naturally the biggest and strongest among our family members and you may say, fiercest as well. We obeyed him without a murmer and any offenders of his orders were severely punished.

So, as it should be, the leader shot towards the oncoming man with sharp but blood curdling growl and we too immediately swung in to action by rushing after him. It took only a few seconds for the man to realize the danger that he was faced with.

"Chep Ballah !"

Under normal circumstances, these two words uttered by a human were quite enough for us to back off with lowered spirit and tails. But not today! We were determined to teach him a lesson. By taking revenge for all the ill-treatment meted out to our kind in general and in particular, for burning one of us. So we all rushed.

"Chep Ballah"

He almost screamed again, more out of fear for his life, than to frighten us off. But these derogative words only had a counter effect by further infuriating us. I am sure, even if you are a Man or Woman, you would not like to be called 'man' or 'woman'. Would you? We are no different.

I saw the leader had his fearful teeth bared in a snarl. The man also realized the imminent danger from the maddening pack of eight, charging towards him. He turned back and took to his heels and dashed across the road to cross it. Next moment, blinded by the light of a speeding vehicle, we could not see the rest of the drama but heard a couple of sounds.

Creeeeeeee sh!
THUD
Ammo!

The vehicle passed without even slowing down. Everything was silent again. We saw the man lying in the middle of the road faced down and blood was flowing out freely.

Only movement I saw in him was a feeble twitching of his fingers and that was also only once. One of the family members still wanted to take a bite at the fallen enemy; but I stopped him, firstly I saw a vehicle coming on the road towards us and secondly I caught the smell of death!. We turned, walked back and settled down and little later started, what you may call, a series of howling?

Next morning I heard somebody was saying that the man, under the influence of liquor, in the act of trying to cross the road had been knocked down by a speeding vehicle!. Hah!!

Washington DC Sniper

His heart is cold as winter ice ,
He feels no passion,
He has snake eyes,
He could see the victims in dark nights.

Driven by rage,
Guided by insanity,
Obsessed with slaughter,
He is compelled to pull the trigger.

Like a deadly arrow,
His metal fragment would silence an innocent man,
The victim would never know,
That he was touched by the DC Sniper.

Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge

The world as it is

I have become a mountain stream,
In my dream;
Not intending anyone to quench his thirsty,
I have become a flower;
Not intending anyone to feast his eyes,
I have become the sky painted with;
Different beautiful colours,
Not intending any one to paint and enjoy.
The stream, the flower and the sky
Tell me something eternal
The thing that keeps on going
With no beginning
With no end.

Pon.Ganesh