The Yellow God

Elves, Fairies, and little Pixies gather at a tea party amongst the sprinkling stars. Cupcakes made of moon drops and grassroots are served, kebabs made of mashed passion fruits and sweet persimmon; glazed bushberry sandwiches from box elder tree sap trickles. Pixie lord Glunaag declares that each elf and fairy must sing or dance. A dance floor must be prepared.

At his behest, Pixies construct a dance floor. They transform themselves into frozen tears. And create a serene riverine dance floor in a far-side lunar crater. On its completion, sprites begin their intrepid, sprightly dances on the ice river surface; they fly, twist, swing, and flap their translucent, ethereal wings. They dance along with the orchestrated chorus sung by silver birds. Afterwards, every frozen teardrop cracks up to let out each pixie back into its fluorescent body. However, one pixie drops a tear by chance onto an African tulip in the woodlands; a single teardrop cups the secret of lush crops; grains, teeming with vitality and life are a gift of the bountiful sprites.

Guests gather at a community hall for a wedding on Tallow Beach this pale afternoon. A bride and a groom covered in turmeric paste, on their Haldi ceremony—a prelude to their wedding sit on a dais. An arching rainbow veers in and out between layers of clouds.

At the Haldi, Mother with her mate Juniper organise ceremonial flowers and view the rainbow’s movements of entries and exists. Juniper tells her, ‘There are invisible water droplets behind the rainbows, making them appear as this colourful band in the sky. While the water drops remain hidden to the eye, the hues are droplets imparted through the sun—transcendence in nature.’

Haldi ceremony is age-old. This tradition spans over five thousand years and passes down many generations. Today, though, it lasts only for a few hours. As it turns out turmeric has skin replenishing quality. It cleanses oil and dirt deposits and makes the skin glow; the essential goodness and the yellow colour are its limitless intrinsic properties—God knows, the sky is the limit. Hence, the bride and the groom are bathed in the tumeric liquid for a new beginning. They wear the venerable yellow mask and leave it for an hour or so until it dries. Until they rub it off gently for all the dirt and the oil to wash away for the skin to exfoliate and brighten for a complete makeover to happen.

Mother diligently grinds some turmeric paste into a mortar and pestle, then plops the paste into a silver bowl. She places the bowl on a silver platter. When the ceremony begins, each guest carries the silver platter and walks to the duo to apply a puny smoothy onto the groom's and the bride’s forehead. A betel leaf is used as a scoop. Guests scoop some paste on the leaf’s pointy tip and wipe the paste off on the couple’s forehead and face. Splashes of the paste drop on their bridal clothes, too. Turmeric yellow is a stubborn stain to remove. The bride has a dark, red silk skirt, and the groom has a yellow silk top.

For all intends and purposes, the bride decides how she wishes to wed. Mother is happy that she has chosen well. Romance must prevail at any cost. Neither the groom nor Mother wants any clash over traditions. Mother encourages her son to comply with the bride’s wishes. As it is, it is widely known that turmeric is endowed with phytonutrients, also beneficial in Ayurveda for relieving arthritic pains and other remedies that cannot be undermined either medically or poetically, this magical ceremony.

The cloud clears up on the Tallow. A straight narrow lane of sun ray tears through the window curtains of the community hall; an infinitesimal dust plume floats in the light’s pathway. The ray fills up the room full of flowers. As guests mill about, Juniper crouches on the floor and appears to be collecting some petals dropped off a white gardenia and tries to reattach them to the flowers’ unadorned stem head. Juniper is flustered that he can’t redo the petals. He leaves them scattered all over the floor and runs to rejoin the ceremony. However, he doesn’t find anyone here. The room is empty—no decorations, no cheering crowds; only a steady pathway laid out by the golden sun.

Blue room. Juniper sees a baby cot. He rushes toward it, but he slips on a wooden floorboard. The cot beckons him. A patched-up quilt hangs down its tall crib bars. A baby sleeps in blue sleepers. Mother enters the room. She carries the baby to wake it up for the next cuddle feed. When the telephone also rings—a red wired phone plugged into a wall socket. She puts the baby back into the crib and walks over to take the call.

‘What nonsense.’ All she hears is the chugged noise of a boat through the speaker. Mother lets the handset drop hanging it by the phone, and returns to attend to the baby’s needs, who is awake and cries out loud. Trepidation swells within her gut as she hears the cry. Chugging along through the handset, she does not heed the sound, but covers the baby with a light blue blanket, and offers it her breast. Baby’s cheeks are flushed with red.

A midsummer afternoon sun burns at the planet’s core. Its flaring particle can fry an egg on a rock’s rugged crust. The baby settled and nourished, Mother puts it back into the crib. Juniper hears Father’s voice from an ocean in the backdrop of dolphins frolicking over the waves. Dolphins are man’s best friends. They rescue frenzied, drowning people and swim them to safety. Father’s fishing troller capsizes in the storm. The helm is wrecked in the ferocity of the wild winds. Father is all wrapped up in the rolling waves when a dolphin tracks him. It carries him on its back and swims to a nearby shore—the island of Crete in Greece. Dolphin is spot on in its nautical assessment of the oceanic chart.

Father survives. He is given a second chance at life—God’s gift. But Mother smokes out a new challenge. Father is increasingly difficult to cope with. Because he is mostly livid and dangerous; adrenaline disorders trigger hypomanic behaviour in him. The baby is nestled within the cosy comforts of the cushioned crib. Father yells out to Mother to bring him a bottle and whip. Mother obeys and brings him both; a crack of the whip on Mother’s back because she brings the whiskey late. Mother cries in pain as she forges a defense against him. He also battles a bottled disease in his brain.

She cries today. But a teenage boy unlatches a door and enters into the room. He catches the whip mid-air before it can land on Mother’s scarred back again. Now the boy will be whipped for stopping Father. She screams out in fear, ‘Run! Boy run!’ Latch the door on your way out!’ The boy is petrified. Father is manic, right now. He can barely stand up. Mother cries out. ‘Run, baby, run, save yourself … go … fates … who writes them, anyway … this diseased man … I’m tethered to his whip… but you aren’t boy… run, run.’ The boy screams back. ‘No, you aren’t tied to his whip, either … bloody hell, it’s in your head.’

Time is running out for Father. He is not that strong, anymore. Father glares at the boy and clutches onto the fiery whip. He swaggers his body as he moves towards them, and both the boy and Mother wait sweating and panting for his next morbid move. He lunges at the boy, but the whip wags weakly in his hand before his arms slump to his sides. Father takes a few uneven steps back and collapses on the floor. He puts a hand to his chest, still clings to the whip. His facial colour changes from black to purple-blue; his eyeballs bulge and his mouth hangs like caricatured fractured jaws.

Father is rushed into the hospital as his heart plays up. He stays there as long as time permits until sirens find him one midnight and steal off his last few breaths, dry. A fisherman’s burial is on the seabed where new life is spun. The whip is burnt to a cinder. The boy takes Mother’s hand and they both move out of the house. Mother sighs in grief and relief. Another place, another time, a new place for Mother. New headspace for the boy who slowly turns into a man. Mother awaits a bold, promising future.

At the dinner table, the man is engrossed in grooming a robot which he boots and reboots. He makes it speak a natural language. Mother understands it. Mother is infirm from age, but she still cooks. The robot is seated next to him in a chair. It does not eat. Mother smiles at the robot and starts eating dinner with her son. ‘Get married, will you?’ Mother asks of the son. With a playful smile on his wet lips, he nods that he will. But he must fall in love first. Mother looks at the robot and says, ‘I wish, I had a robot for a husband, but then, I wouldn’t have you, would I?’ The man laughs and replies. ‘No, you wouldn’t. Without me, there wouldn’t be this robot, either. One cannot exist without the other, right? Rarely, anyway,’ Mother smiles. Dinner finishes, shortly.

Mother wakes up in her bedroom early morning. She senses a touch and reaches out for her torch under the pillow. Last night’s robot from dinner is in the room applying ointment to her discoloured skin. ‘What? You?’ Mother asks. The robot replies evenly, ‘yes.’ ‘Why would you do this?’ Mother asks. ‘Because you deserve better.’ It replies and then lies down beside Mother in bed. Mother is confused. But, she doesn’t ask it to leave. In the morning, when she wakes up the robot is gone. She wakes up alone in an empty bed, ‘Fancy having a robot for a husband without the whip.’ She laughs at her fantasy.

Mother puts on her robe as she comes out into the kitchen area. She finds robots of all sizes—small, medium, and big. Some with breasts, even. They talk a language that only they understand. Mother observes them. Her son appears and gives her this surreptitious smile, then he walks away. Mother wonders what’s all the fuss is about. Why so many robots? Has he turned this house into a robot thinking lab?

Robots don’t fly into a rage. They don’t have such emotions. Adrenaline doesn’t flow through those artificial brain wires they aren’t endowed with a frontal cortex, unlike the organic brainwaves. Mother comprehends them as machines incapable of suffering chemical imbalance, which works fine for her. However, last night’s robot with his healing touch makes an impression on Mother.

Machines make breakfast. Mother doesn’t even move a finger but sits crossed-legged at the table. She watches them finish the tasks; fried eggs, toast, and tea breakfast is ready. Last night’s robot, shiny and yellow, crisp as the new day, brings her a tray. Mother says, ‘Thank you.’ It replies with a smile, ‘Welcome, I’m Juniper, the evergreen.’ Mother chuckles.

Chemical imbalance or not, Father’s behaviour cannot be condoned. Robots seem more sentient in comparison Mother realises that life is not to give away. Without joy, life isn’t worth living. But she is also afraid of change knowing full well that change is inevitable. She makes a quick foray into the future and back. She waits patiently for her son to marry, all in good time. What if they too don’t find real happiness? A shiver runs through her.

Mother knows from Juniper that the rainbow’s water droplets appear as a band of hues. Dolphin is an ‘Angel’ within an aquatic mammal; Mother deems such phenomena as transcendental, they impress upon her as being mind-blowingly ‘real.’ Infinite, because while the water droplets and Angels are so, they themselves pave the way to the finite existence of rainbow colours, and carcass-melting dolphins.

The man gets married today. A much-anticipated wedding ensues following a grand Haldi ceremony. The next day top to toe bejewelled, the bride in a bright mauve skirt and a top, and the groom, in a bright red shirt and matching pants walk together around a fire—swahaor agnifor eternal bliss. The fire is ignited in a cast iron pit bowl. The couple walks around the fire seven times vowing to serve each other as husband and wife for seven generations. Mother watches with glee, how the wedding is panning out for eternity is a time-bending moment.

Elements: earth, water, fire, and wind ally to facilitate the wedding, this evening. The fire doesn’t go out anytime soon but continues to grow and purifies the relationship as undiluted happiness awaits them. The priest pours purified butter, ghee to keep the flame rising. It extinguishes only after the wedding is over. However, a hitch occurs, and causes the man to pause the ceremony, because the bride is tired from the rounds. He excuses himself, by saying to his guests that the bride feels faint, and leaves thewedding stageafter her— ‘be back in five,’ he whispers to Mother. Mother shakes her head. She has faith in her son’s judgment. He isn’t a rainbow maker; rainbows elude her.

Father isn’t here, a mere phantom; she too will become one—invisible. Juniper asks Mother to watch a hologram with him: Night falls over a rock quarry on this starry dome. A dark bride, this real beauty floats around in the hologram, and rises to dance in foggy delight: a dance with colours. Turmeric has been central since the inception of human civilisation. Another ancient fire crackles up in the quarry of this far-flung repository, a tale of a bride, and a groom unwind. The bride mesmerises Mother. She hears a whiff of her laughter through spacetime.

A child makes little boats with brittle papers and sets them assail on an unsettling rainwater puddle. She grows up into her, this dark beauty and falls in love. At her Haldi, she smells the flowers and garlands from the wedding; she hears chirrups from her forest hut and watches the celestial sights of the moon, and the blinking stars with her lover on blue nights. As the end game draws in, she envisages dimming lights on thecelestial bodies of the same universe’s brimming sights; the colour-dance dissolves in a blink and rapidly runs into a sinkhole of oblivion.

While the dazzling ‘Invisibles’—the transcendental grain-makers remain unfettered by time, unmarked by past, present, and future, the naughty, nutty fairies—the ‘Irreals’ well and truly blindside earthlings with a sizzling mirage of a fanciful, notional ’real,’ in which the concept of ‘solid’ is sullied by fluid fantasy of paradox, Mother inuits from perusing life’s events where the solid flesh of youth age and perish before they even know it. Life crumbles and disappears into the depths of nothingness; millions, even billions of well-grounded years, upend in three short days.

Mother’s face falls. The happiness she seeks is rare; this wedding, is the only plausible ruse in her view to get her son there, to be happy. In a moment, the bride and the groom return in good spirits. Juniper stays close to Mother. The ceremony restarts and continues for another half hour. They are married. Now they are husband and wife. The groom can’t stop smiling. Neither can the bride—stop smiling, a bit much Mother thinks—such a perfect smile, what a doll. They both shake hands with guests. Mother blesses them, her son, and his wife. The bride’s delicate beauty: her sharp nose, her intense dark eyes, her arched rainbow eyebrows, and her chiseled cheeks, charm Mother.

Off to honeymoon, Juniper is with Mother at her son’s instructions; Juniper is to stay with Mother and attend to all her needs. He will be back soon with his newly wedded wife. Mother hugs him. However, as she proceeds to hug his bride, her gorgeous daughter-in-law, Juniper stops her. Mother’s hands are in Juniper’ s tight grips. Mother is shocked and struggles in vain to pull her locked hand from its brawny bind. Juniper looks at her and says:

‘Bride’s Name?’

Genesis .01

‘I am?’

Juniper, the evergreen

‘I’ll give you a real name, Mother. And man, a real name, too.’

THE END

Bio: Mehreen Ahmed is a widely published Australian novelist. Her works have received Best of the Net, and Pushcart nominations. They have also won multiple contests.

E-mail: Author's Website

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