Short Story: A Woman on the Beach by Sudha Padmaja Francis

Sudha Padmaja Francis narrates a beautiful tale capturing the wounds caused by trauma that run deep into our hearts and the scars, we carry lifelong.

Nimmi had no way to gauge if this was the last time that they were going to meet. She wished she had some thermometer-like device, with the mercury rising up to indicate measurements of how hot or cold their relationship was at that moment. The thermometer that hung in the living room of her mother’s house had long stopped working.  Her mother never cared to repair it after her father had gone. It was her father who had bought it.

She sat on the edge of the hotel bed staring at a shoddy painting on the wall, a badly printed copy, and watched the feather-like wisps flowing out of her eyes. She could hear him bathe. But the sea outside was louder.  She slowly walked into the balcony of the hotel. You could see the sea from there.