She Who Remembers

I saw her scavenging the streets lined with shops, bustling with vehicles, complemented by smokes crawling up the air. The sun had set, and the gloom was cut by the yellow rays emerging from the light poles. Her clumsy pace drew gypsies to form a lump around her, following her wherever her heavy body heaved along. I managed to glance at her eyes welled with reluctance and fear. She hadn't chosen the busy city. The mahout sitting above her was dangling his legs in the air between his leg and the concrete road. He reminded me of an unruly king sitting on his throne. His big hands held a thick bamboo stick and jute rope intricately tied to the insides of her mouth, stretching along her milk white ivory. He must've been a multitasking pundit. His left hand pulled the rope while the right one brandished the stick as she advanced towards the jewelry shop exploded with gold. He demanded her to stop before the glass door while he let out a small scream — as if a signal. Someone from the inside rushed to him with an agreeable amount of cash as she trumpeted waving her trunk. 

If the shop keeper hadn't rushed to the mahout with the money, the glass door would have lost its grandeur probably. It would've turned into shards flying in all directions. And all that glittery gold would've turned into dust and specks under her mud-coating colored feet. 

As I pulled myself back from the thought, I studied her eyes again. I had the sudden urge to dive into the dark pool that her eyes were and witness whatever she had to go through. I wanted to witness how she was snatched from her mother's clutch and made accustomed to sticks in some corner of this mammoth concrete land far away from the evergreen. I wanted to reach the deep end of the unending pool of her minutest memories- her kind is known for remembering everything. I wanted to open the cap of the pool bed and drain all the darkness she bore so that I didn't have to come up gasping for air before I even executed the purpose.

A car honk exploded into my sense and my thoughts turned into fumes, dissipating along the vehicle smokes. I watched her lug herself with a reluctant pace into the distance. The mahout had a stomach to fill while she had memories to never forget. 

She heaved along. The mahout dangled his legs.

The writer is a grade 11 student of Birshreshtha Noor Mohammad Public College.