Tuesday 4 November 2014

Stella's Orange-red Gloves

(A story without climax. My hands typed it after I fell asleep on the keyboard. Hence, excuse me!)

Stella came out of her room. It stank of her. She wanted fresh air just outside her home. It always smelled a little of the nearby playground dust in a red sunset, a little of the delicious lunch that her neighbouring fat lady makes everyday and a little of some distant flowers that bloom in the evening. She put on her dark navy grey winter wear over a pale white dress. But her socks were orange-red. So were her gloves. She wore and loved them secretly.

She wanted to go on a walk. Not alone, but it could not have been helped.
"Stella, the computer is still open!"
"That's OK. Just don't touch it. It'll take care of itself in five minutes."
She hid her socks inside boring brown shoes and gloves inside her pockets. Now she was invisible. She started walking, beyond the curved railway tracks, beyond the lonely sweet shop eagerly sought after by the flies, beyond Mr Henderson's big house on whose son she had a crush on during middle school and beyond the park where everybody else went for an evening walk.

Stella has been this way since before she was born. Many times she looks down at the pebbles and wonders whether she had stamped those particular ones before. Just in case, she stamps them again. When Henderson Jr used to live with his parents, he would take tea with his parents in their balcony facing the road. He was in college already and his name in the newspaper had confirmed the local gossip of him being a bright student. She used to be careful regarding her walk and attire back then. Her mother used to accompany her and it used to be very hard to steal glances of Henderson Jr. But now Henderson Jr worked in a farm in another state. He has a pretty wife too, if Facebook is right. And Stella has grown up and grown out. 
Her orange-red gloves were peeking from her pockets. She quickly scanned the passers by whether anybody were looking at her. Negative. She was relieved. A little disappointed too. She doubted Henderson Jr's wife went so unnoticed when she walked by roads like this. Stella reminded herself she did not want to be like Henderson's wife. She felt better and continued.

In the conservative little town, she always allowed herself one small non-conservative luxury. She kept her hair open and let it swirl against the wind as she walked by. It was more of a fact that she had unruly hair which won't be tamed. But she took pleasure in saying it was by choice. Last time she went to market, she had seen an orange-red hair ribbon. It looked gorgeous. But she didn't dare to purchase it, because it couldn't be hidden if she wore it. A little itch in her mind had told her that she could hide it if she wore helmet always and went on a bike. But she stamped it. Just like she stamped the pebbles. Only that her itches give away more easily than the pebbles. She looked around; in the grey winter evening, she almost could get mixed. She wondered, if the fog could get the exact same colour as her sweater, whether it could render her partially invisible. Would she be able to see her body? How would she recognise herself? And she told herself, she needn't have worried because she could always see her bright orange-red gloves to make out her own body. By the time she realised her musing was totally unworthy, unnecessary and unreasonable, she had already completed thinking all these things. Her lips cracked to a grin and snapped shut as soon as she realised she might look like a fool out of nowhere. 

Suddenly the street lights came to life and the yellow bulbs chased the grey of the evening away. Stella looked up at them basking in the warm light. Although the new town has, now, the LED street lights and it looked posh according to the world, Stella loved the old Sodium Vapour lamps. They were still standing in the old town, in protest of monochromtising the colour of the whole town in all shades of grey.

It was time to return. Stella kept her orange-red gloves successfully hidden for one more day. Nobody knew she wasn't fully grey. Nobody sought to find out.

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Stella name has been extracted from the Facebook sticker of  "Stella Supernova: Dodge comets with this space genius on her interstellar adventures." She's very melodramatic, hyperactive and of course, a genius!