STORKS OF SUMEKO (Short story)

STORKS OF SUMEKO

It was a bright evening in the spring. Soumya was standing near the front gate of her palatial house, awaiting the school bus.

‘My daughter is getting skinnier everyday... She is so tired after the school... poor kid,’ anxious thoughts kept on gushing out through her mind as her six year old daughter Shruthi was the fruit of thirteen years of infertility treatment. Whatever food, that too made after a lot of research from noted cookery books, remained almost untouched every evening! Why evenings... everyday! She wished to plant bombs on every torturing cell named schools! Stupid society! And their silly education!

‘Hi... Premji,’ Soumya waved her hands when I was about to cross her.

‘Hi... Saumya’

I stopped the bike, a little ahead of her, by jamming the breaks. It creaked a lot before coming into halt! 

‘When are you going to throw away this junk?’ she teased me:

You are nothing but a friend in front of a childhood friend!

‘Not in the near future!’ I laughed. ‘Then... how is life?’

‘Same routine... getting her ready for school in the morning... household duties... that will be over by ten... the watching 'the never ending serials in T.V..... You know... the heroin of the best running serial didn't deliver even after two years of pregnancy!’

‘Idiotic! Is she an elephant?’

‘May be,’ she laughed aloud. ‘And waiting for Shruthi in the evening and then teaching her... preparing her project works’

‘The same routine of a 'Gulf widow',’ I teased her.

‘You know... Premji... For just two kilometers, they take her around ten kilometers everyday... every school bus operates like that... they have to drop other kids too at their doorsteps’

‘Just two kilometers... and your car is lying idle... Why can't you drop her every day?’ 

‘First of all... I don't know how to drive! I am really scared, when I see a vehicle approaching from the other side! And who knows... what will be left with when you return back! Thieves move around, more free than Policemen, that too in broad daylight!’ she laughed again.

‘Idiot! A wonderful woman like you should never depend on others... Just one week is enough! I will make arrangements for that.’

‘Thank you... I will try my level best.’

‘When is your husband coming back from Dubai?’

‘By next week... don't worry, Premji... your quota will be taken cared of... What's that? Aaah... Bacardi...,’ she smiled. ‘Recession has nothing to do with alcohol!’

‘Thank you.’

‘Premji... why are you crazy of that bitter stuff?’

‘First it tastes bitter... then better.’

We laughed.

♥           

Shruthi used to sit beside Akhila in the school bus everyday as she was her guardian angel. Akhila, studying in seventh standard, is a voracious reader and that day she was reading the translation of a Japanese book taken from school library, telling the story of Sumeko.

‘Chechee... (Elder sister)... Please, tell me also the story,’ Shruthi requested as she was fascinated by the colorful illustrations.

‘Shruti Molu... This is the story of a young Japanese girl named Sumeko... She was the victim of Atom bombs, dropped in Japan during Second World War... understand,’ Akhila started a new story as daily routine.

‘Yes’

‘Do you know what a war is?’

‘Yes... lots of people die... I have seen it on T.V.’

‘O.K.... some sixty five years back... Americans dropped two atoms bombs in Japan... one in Hiroshima and other in Nagasaki... three hundred thousand people dead... How many people were dead?’

‘Three hundred,’ Shruthi stopped in the middle.

‘Thousand... O.K... and another three hundred thousand people were affected by its radiation’

‘Chechee... what is meant by radiation?’

‘What is radiation? How to explain her?’ Akhila was bit confused. ‘Ah...it's heat... the heat of the bomb blast... And Sumeko was a small girl like her,’ she pointed at ten year old beautiful girl with Rosy cheeks, sitting on the other row of seats. ‘Our...poor…Sumeko was also exposed to that heat... You know... the heat of Atom bomb can cause blood cancer.’

‘There is no cure for it... isn't it Chechee? Mummy was telling that the other day to our next door aunt,’ Shruthi shared some information innocently.

‘Yes... You are right... In Japanese, they call the radiation victims like her as ‘Hibakusha’... And Sumeko was diagnosed suffering from blood cancer... She was getting weaker and weaker everyday... One day, someone told her a simple cure,’

‘What was that?’

‘Making paper storks... Make a thousand paper storks... Then death will step away.’

‘That's interesting,’ Shruthi said.

‘She started making them and her condition was getting better... But, she couldn't complete a thousand,’ Akhila gave proper modulation to her voice as a trained dubbing artist.

‘Did Sumeko die?’

‘Yes... when she died, her friends counted the paper storks... there were six hundred storks, of different colours, in her collection. How many?’

‘Six hundred... a very sad story Chechee... today I will tell it to Mummy,’ Shruthi told painfully while going through the sketches in that well illustrated book. The last page contained a line diagram... how to make a paper stork...

♥        

                                   

‘Please make me one,’ Shruthi started pleading her. ‘pleeeease.’

‘No... No... Not now,’ Akhila was not interested. 

‘Pleeeeeease.... Checheeee,’

Akhila couldn't resist the innocence in her and she tore a sheet of white paper from her notebook. The bus was running at average speed and she completed the paper stork as per instructions. And at last she made a beak just by folding on end. 

‘It's so beautiful,’ Shruthi gave a surprise kiss to Akhila.

Happily, Akhila went back to the book.

‘War is evil,’ Shruthi played with its lovely wings throughout the journey. ‘War is evil... otherwise Sumeco wouldn't have died’

♥                                            

The school bus stopped at her stop.

‘Bye... Chechee...,,’ Shruthi was ready to jump out of the bus... from the cage of letters to the comfort of her freedom zone named home....

School bags were heaped at one corner of the bus and Saumya collected her heavy school bag from the Ayah, caretaker woman. The bus driver, an old-man, was waiting for the Ayah to close the door. 

Suddenly, the stork had a strange wish: to fly up in the strong west wind, as it had fallen down from the hands of Shruthi. Ayah closed the door and the bus was about to move slowly as he gradually released the clutch pedal.

‘You can't escape from me...,,’ Shruthi managed to catch hold of the paper stork's tail. 

Quickly, the white paper stork turned blood-Red...

Premji