"He lived like a dead tree in a graveyard."
"A Storm On The Mountain" is nominally about Aanav, a young boy who flees the portrait of a family and finds refuge on a hill where he befriends a shepherd who wears goat-skin-trousers. Still, his chaotic...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Now that he was back here after so long, he was first pulled into a hug by his brother Aarav, slapping his back swinging from side to side along with an unnecessary peck on the cheek that made him frown and wipe. He'd missed this too.
Aanav was then introduced to his sister-in-law, Kate, who had deep blonde hair and pulled him into a hug too. "He always talks about you," she chided.
His face seemed about to crack. Unstable, perhaps even uncomfortable. He put his index finger on his forehead and thumb on his temple and rubbed it, only finding it to be clammed up. Deep inside, he tried to convince himself that it was nothing but exhaustion, that he wasn't used to the city. But he was lying to himself. The memory of his brother, protecting him at times, guiding him almost made his lips twist into a smile. Almost a smile.
The city was still sound in the house, as usual. Even though the building stood on the outskirts, the far away traffic echoed throughout with car and bus horns, the smell of smoke as if something was burning. The very visibly rising smoke too, reminded Aanav of burning of the forests on the hills. That's what the city was, a burning forest. A puddle laid flowing outside the gates of the building, green and shimmering against the bright sun, stench arousing the insects around it. The roads were marked by passing of vehicles, so much so, it felt like a crisscrossing of Medusa's head. The gong bell of a church nearby boomed every couple of hours. And it all reminded him of who he was- a lost young man in the chaos of a rising world.
The building wasn't too old, for it seemed to still take in a storm or two. Inside, almost nothing had changed. It was as if someone had framed a picture from his childhood and stitched it in front of his pebbled eyes. His body felt stiff, uncomfortable, perhaps even afraid of something he didn't know.
They sat on the very settling couch- another new craft Aanav had noticed since he'd stepped foot in a couple of moments ago. It was deep maroon in colour, and more bouncy, spacious and rather too comfortable.
They sat there quietly, just as usual- the silence was the uninvited guest, slipping itself between a man and the family he'd lost.
The sunlight grew thicker, darker. Birds started flying into homes- a curfew. A fly on the table between the couches crawled lazily, without a cold drink, running over the smooth, transparent surface, buzzing it's wings wildly, but not to fly. Once or twice, it raised it's dirty, sticky claws to rub it's face. When the wind blew on it, it mustered all the energy it had to fly away.
Aanav sat on the couch like a stone, still. His sibling and sibling-in-law looked at him and perhaps were staring-? he couldn't make it out as he had decided to not look at them at all, only noticing their movements through the corner of his eyes. He felt stupid too, looking into thin air, or the tiles or the showcases in the hall as if trying to look for something. His hands rested on his knees- just like when he was a child. Once or twice, his knees bounced, but he'd stop them realizing it would bring him unwanted attention. He deeply just wanted to disappear out of nowhere, to disintegrate or better yet collapse into himself.
