Short Story: The Jungle within me by Oindrila Ghosal

Oindrila Ghosal is back with yet another powerful story that takes the reader along on a journey to experience the joy of a new mother only to end it in an unexpected twist.

   I

The depths of the forest had forever been a mystery to her-something that she could feel breathe and change forms but fathoming its dimensions, had always confused her. She found her home there-behind the leaves and between the entwined woody branches of centuries gone by.

Nandita stood on the verandah and breathed in the characteristic dampness of early morning. The fog was slowly ebbing lifting from the confusing myriad of undergrowth, first. The sunlight was spread out in patches of yellow throughout and the giant spider webs between the trees were glistening bright from the evaporating remnants of last night’s rain.

“Six thirty,” she whispered underneath her breath. She came back with the cell phone and repeated the same customary conversation that included the weather, with her ageing mother like every other day. And like every other day, the roughened, parched surfaces of the barks in front reminded her of their horrific resemblance to her mother’s puckered up face-the flappy skin sinking deep into the toothless hollowness of her mouth, beneath the slit like spectacled eyes. The archaic rigidity of the woods was as if singing a ballad of the cycles of life to her.