"DISCOURSE"GLOBAL LITERATURE MAGAZINE
SHORT STORY
TITLE: BLACK MIRROR
AUTHOR: DR.SHALINI YADAV (INDIA)
Black Mirror
A eleven year old in a floral frock, on a mattress, under the Indian Lilac on the parapet, struggles to find something into the wooden mirror kept leaning on a creaky chair in front of her. Adding to her innocence, the morning breeze carries her silky hair over to her face as her mother whispers in her ears to carefully look in the mirror as she removes her hair covering her face.
Poor little girl with a solemn face has forgotten to chirp like a bird. Her uncle scolds her, urges her to concentrate and see deep inside the emotionless timer frame.
The bright sun moves up from the east heading towards north, as the sunlight peeps through the leaves and branches of Lilac; falling on the girl’s face creating patches of various shapes.
Her pale and nervous mother pats the girl’s back and asks if she can see her Malini aunt’s house in the mirror.
The little girl has not yet had breakfast. What she sees through the mirror is sliced breads with jam or tomato sauce, a platter of stir-fried Chow Mein or vegetable noodles and pieces of chocolate cake with salty cumin cookies.
She controls her urge and utters, ‘Yes mom. I can see aunt’s Jobner house with two long-legged Ashoka trees like bodyguards in the lawn. There’s also a white Toyota Yaris in the portico.’ Her mum’s pale face starts glowing with a ray of hope. ‘Okay’, she says quickly, ‘what else do you see in the house?’
‘Umm..’, the girl cooks up her story further, ‘Malini aunty is serving breakfast to Uncle and Pinky on the dinning table.’ Her uncle interrupts before she can elaborate and says, ‘let this all be….Tell me…do you see your father in the house?’
The girl shrinks out of fear and hesitation. ‘Not yet. I can’t.’ Finally she responds.
It goes on like this for nearly a month. Every morning she is made to sit in front of that mirror given by a fraudulent saint to her mother.
One day a policeman comes home with a broken wristwatch, some torn blood-stained clothes and the last photo taken of her father.
With tears in her eyes, poor girl whispers, ‘Dad! I wish I could really see you in that mirror.’
wilting timber -
she grips blurry mirages
with a wince
______________________________________________
(BIONOTE)
An avid poet, writer, humanitarian, ambassador of peace and professor, Dr Shalini Yadav holds a PhD in Post-colonial Literature and M. Phil in English Language Teaching (ELT) from the University of Rajasthan, India and a course in Advanced Creative Writing from University of Oxford, UK. During her tenure as an educator in India, Libya and Saudi Arabia, she has participated and presented papers at conferences and seminars, chaired sessions and delivered lectures. She keeps reading her poems and short stories at various National and International poetry carnivals. She has meticulously written and also reviewed a large number of scholarly research articles for various National and International refereed journals and edited volumes. She is a member of various literary societies. She is chief editor of a quarterly literary magazine Glitterati. The editor of Open Page in Writers International Edition, she is also an efficacious member of the editorial boards of various qualitative journals of many countries. She has authored and edited 12 books till now. Her major book publications include Contemporary African American Writers, Reconnoitering Postcolonial Literature, Emerging Psyche of Women: A Feminist Perspective, On the Wings of Life: Women Writing Womanhood, Postcolonial Transition and Cultural Dialectics, and Communication Techniques. Besides, her poetry books includes Across the Seas, Floating Haiku, Kinship With You: A Collection of Poems, Till the End of Her Subsistence: An Anthology of Poems, and one in Hindi Kshitiz Ke Us Paar. Many of her short stories and poems are published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, magazines and anthologies. She is recipient of prestigious awards Chanakya Award, Global Women Icon Award-2023, International Women’s Day Award, and Savitribai Phule Excellence Award-2023.
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Founder/Editor
Aamir Abdullah
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Mumtaz Husain(USA)
Dr.Ratan Ghosh(India)
Haleema Abdulazeez(Nigeria)
Aasma Tahir(Pakiatan)
Najia Ahmed(Canada)
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