21 Days of Lockdown

This was picked up and published by an online magazine. You can read the remainder of this collection at Village Square.


Day 15:
She Grew Up During the Lockdown
She had twenty teeth before the lockdown. ‘Mumma, I’m big,’ she said.
Today, she has nineteen. ‘Mumma, am I bigger?’

‘Yes, my dear, you grew up during the lockdown.’


Day 14:
The Joy of Makeup
I woke up, brushed my teeth and decided to wash my face with a gently exfoliating scrub. I combed my hair and rubbed in some lotion. Then I lined my eyes with kohl and thickened those lashes with mascara. With lip gloss, I painted the lips and there shone on them a tint of pink. In flamboyant strokes, I grazed those cheekbones with a bronzer.
Through the camera of my laptop, I saw a person I had not seen for the past thirteen days of the lockdown. It seems I was happy to meet people at an online conference.


Day 13:
Fashion Rehearsals
The younger one tries out the elder one’s clothes. They fit. The girls walk an imaginary ramp down the hall. They celebrate. They prepare for a party. I hear, the lockdown might get extended.


Day 12:
Fear of Stepping Out 
The lockdown has put in me a fear of stepping out. My family tells me its laziness. They say I should learn from the birds and wild animals who’ve reclaimed the streets after years. I agree. Perhaps, I should wait for years to pass.



Day 11:
Ageing a Little
My husband was prescribed spectacles. He looked old. I rued over his declining youth and over forthcoming inabilities. 
We visited his parents the following month. His mother touched his spectacles, thought for a while, then tousled his hair. She ran her fingers over the odd grey hair.
Later, seeing those spectacles lying on the table, my father-in-law picked them up, turned them around and then he held them up so he could look through them.
I did not display my sorrow when I realized that he could see through them with his weakened eyes. I teased my husband in the privacy of our room instead. ‘Uncle Scrooge specs,’ I called them.
            But his mother interpreted my resolve as indifference, not as strength. For if she’d seen my heart beat or the memories of a healthy past that had flashed by, rather the one I had seen shrivelled with my mind’s eye, she would not have blamed me for his fated ill-health.
            Perhaps mental strength at ageing was appreciated less than mental weakness while ageing. Or maybe because it was as frivolous a thing as weak eyesight. Or was it the expectations from a woman?



Day 10:
Ageing 
Today we received a picture of my husband’s father. His hair was gray. He had let go of colouring them during the lockdown. Maybe, he could not get his hands on a pack of hair colour.
He looked old, and although we knew his age and were aware of the details of his debilitating health, we were taken aback. 
I had seen my father’s gray hair a couple of years ago. It had taken my breath away and so I imagined what my husband felt when he saw his symbol of strength, weakened.
My husband closed the picture as quickly as he had opened it. The screen of his mobile phone reflected his face and he noticed the crow’s feet at the corner of his right eye.



Day 9:
The Cycle of Craving
My husband ventured out for grocery yesterday. It seems our stock, which was meant to last the lockdown period, hadn’t been enough. Either our estimates were wrong or our culinary experiments had taken flamboyant flight. The latter could be due to companionship he and I had discovered after over a decade or due to the humble reason of a lack of alternative entertainment.
But, here’s the cycle of fat that followed. It resulted in working out to deplete fat reserves and then led to feeding calories into what was lost. There was, lest I forget, also the cycle of munching on snacks because there was food at home unlike as is the case while at office. Although, that cycle of snacks also circled around the snacks at the store yesterday, simply because they caught the eye. My husband clearly had to consider exigencies and supplies running out during this period of lockdown, and what if he developed a craving? Worse still, what if we ran out of staples. A packet of fries would bring no harm to the diet of a diabetic trying to keep away from a virus that although posed most danger to people with underlying medical problems, would not dare harm someone who owned a gym, now would it?



Day 8:
Many of Lydia Davis’ stories deal with the ethics of parenting. She says that often something will start from her life, a conundrum, a puzzle. One question will lead to another in a logical sequence. She will take what she needs from her experience and leave out the rest to create a piece.

Here is something on Family based on an experience someone shared with me once.


Rules of Engagement in a Family
When they first went grocery shopping, he narrated to her, his father’s rules against food wastage. She praised the rules on the table the day his father first came over for lunch. Post a nap, his father narrated to him the rules of privacy. ‘What you can tell your new wife son,’ he said, ‘is praise about me, not complaints. That’s family secret.’
Rules of silence in new family, she made a diary note.


Day 7:

An Unforgiving Mother
Over breakfast, she recounted the trick she played last year on April Fools’ Day. Then, she described the trick her friend played on her mother. With fruit, she unfolded the prank her classmates pulled on their teacher. While setting up the table for lunch, she recounted how she fooled the School Van driver. Over lunch, she retold the one she pulled on her grandmother many years back. Later, she revealed the one she pulled on her little brother. Then, with tea, she relayed how her gang of friends had played one on another gang of girls in class. Over dinner, she cried that she could not play one on her mother due to a lack of time. 
That night, the mother cried because she felt she lacked humour.


Day 6:

Suitably Macabre
Someone said that thoughts of love from a dying person are not suitably macabre.
‘Does it need more horror?’ I ask.

Thoughts of dying love by a living person and thoughts of a Living God by a dying person, it seems, make the cut. 




Day 5:
Image source: Google


A Love Story
Most stories have a beginning, a climax and a resolution that leads to an end. In the 80’s, I saw many a dying lover confess to a not dying lover on screen the reason behind their pretentious hate towards the undying lover. The dying lover often had cancer, thereby, saving the not dying lover the pain of separation.

Here’s a corollary. If a dying lover were to decide to clarify a doubt off a not dying lover, “Why is it that you never loved me?” And the not dying lover in one final act of extended benevolence reassures the dying lover, “But, I’ve always loved you.” Should the dying lover believe the not dying lover or should the dying lover die a less-than satisfactory death?


Day 4:


An Apology
A minister in Germany commits suicide. 
A prime minister apologizes. A genocide had gone amok under his leadership once and yet he rose oblivious to regret. I write and rewrite the previous sentence because I desperately want to blame the abstract noun, genocide. Why is it an abstract noun, anyway, when there are tangible bodies that give it a name? And what about a pogrom? The homeless from which can be touched and tossed with bamboo canes in shelters and hospitals to this day. Aren’t those the qualities of a concrete noun?
Well, the premier had expressed no guilt for turning away towards another spotlight then. And now, a virus has taken both over. 
Suddenly, I think about the minister in Germany who felt deeply worried about his country before his final step and then I feel the severity of what we have in our hands, the virus obviously.
An Apology
Image Source: Google



Day 3:
Here's something I don't miss from my days before the lockdown.

A Ketogenic Diet

I need magnesium.
And so I munch into the soft, sweet, spongy apricot.
I hear it’s a dried fruit, needed much for my muscles.

A ketogenic diet, I was told to nibble on,
With its missing carbohydrates, my sugar levels
Would find a functional home, it seems.

And so, I now force my sharp teeth
Into a nerdy walnut,
That my brain might wake up 
From its sweet-less sleep.


Image Source: AdobeStock Images
















Day 2:
Here's one on a prompt, an e-mail from the current times.

An E-mail of Hope
He sent the e-mail to the school reserving seats for his daughter for the fall session. It’s in the new city they are relocating to. On the checklist, he ticks off SchoolHouse on Rent and Work Permit were ticked off two weeks ago.
            On the laptop screen, the ticker of the News channel scrolls, screaming in capital letters it says, ‘RESTRICTIONS ON INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL. COUNTRY IN LOCKDOWN.’



Day 1:


When Coronavirus Comes Calling
A five-year-old’s wish, “I wish to always have my favourite pancake in my world.”



Image Source: Google


I'm taking a writing course to learn from Lydia Davis' writings. We're studying her book, The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. Here are my attempts, some of which I've picked from my assignments.



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© 2020 by Donna Abraham

1 comment:

  1. Loved loved loved "Ketogenic Diet". "A apology" was heart-rending.
    Keep writing!

    ReplyDelete