Flash fiction

Skeletons In The Closet

Skeletons In The Closet.


Gowra decided to talk to her father. He just finished puja . She knew he would head for the steaming cup of coffee her mother made. Within the hour, he would leave for the bank where he was an assistant manager. If she couldn’t tell him now, she’d never be able to do so. She gathered her courage and went in. Winter sunshine, mild and pleasant, started brightening the semi-dark dining room.

“Gowra, how come you’re still at home dear?” her father asked in surprise. His daughter’s working shift at the University library was from 8 am to 4pm. It was past 8.

“I have asked permission to go an hour late, dad. The boss obliged.”
Her mother joined them for cozy chat over breakfast.

“Dad, if you remember, you and mom have met my boss at my colleague Uma’s marriage,” said Gowra, slim and fair, aged twenty three.
“Yes, the tall handsome guy with decent manners, I remember,” said her father, looking a bit curious.
“He proposed to me and I accepted. He is really nice, dad. You both will love him.” Her anxiety showed through her veiled look.

Silence fell like a shroud on the three. For Gowra’s orthodox family, the news was a bombshell. Mom had that shattered look and dad turned red.

They recovered a little later, and their voices clashed when they tried to speak.

“He is …” her father’s voice trailed.
“Not of our caste.”
“Then you can’t”
Aghast, Gowra said, “I can, and I will.”
“So we live our separate lives.”
“Why so adamant dad?”
“Don’t bring mixed blood into a family of pure origins.”
“Pure? Purity is in our mind and heart dad, for godsake.”

Two years passed since Gowra had married Ramesh. Mr. Srinivasan didn’t call his daughter back.

On a Sunday morning, while he sat reading the newspaper on the porch, he heard a crash. He went in to check. Too old to hang on, the grandfather clock fell off the wall, and there it lay in ruin. Srinivasan noticed a yellowed folded paper had fallen out of the clock’s frame. With hands shaking, and his breathing strained for some unknown reason, he opened the small square of a ruled paper.

The header said, “To those concerned” followed by a brief note.

“Srinivasan is not my son. He was conceived on a stormy night when an unknown man overpowered my wife, while I was away on duty. For fear of society’s finger of blame and castigation, I kept it to myself.”

It was signed by Srinivasan’s father…his foster father. Minutes later, his wife found him unconscious. After checking his pulse, she read through the contents of the slip he clutched, and quietly burnt it on the cooking stove.

It took a skeleton in the closet for the Srinivasans to reunite with their beloved daughter. None knew, the why and how of the radical change in him though.


Word Count: 450