‘Missing Years’: Flash fiction by writer Iffat Nawaz

Somewhere near the peripheries of Sundarbans, a ninety-five-year-old widow rocks back and forth under her grey mosquito net. Beetle leaves crushed between her teeth, her tongue red, confused and mildly accusatory, questions God, “Why have you kept me alive this long? What’s your secret intention behind my unending life?”

On another bed, under another mosquito net, in the same room, her daughter watches this all-nighter episode. Her mother’s body swaying as though inside a cloud. Mosquitoes roam outside both their nets, playing a resentful orchestra of some sort. The daughter sighs thinking how in this land of Eighteen tides, under the reigns of Bonbibi and Aranyani, both women – fatherless and husbandless are used to being the decider of their own fates, until moments arrive when the inaudible mouth of God plays Truth or Dare with them, and both, almost always, choose Dare. She wonders if it might be the influence of the nearby wilderness, mangrove forests, where adventures win over confessions, and everyone anxiously and fiercely wrestles plights.

Lately though, the plights had subsided for both of them. The ninety-five-year-old, whom the villagers call Nanu, still has long jet-black hair without a trace of grey. Nanu recites poetry and sings old songs....

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