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Breaking Schedule: Inanimate Blogfest by The Red Angel

A break in schedule, because I’m Blogfesting again after quite some time. The Red Angel is celebrating 100 followers, and would like us to : 

” write an entry of NO MORE THAN 1000 words that somehow incorporates the personification of inanimate objects.”

Read the other entries here.

My entry:
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I keep things, hold them together, which is why you gave them to me. You knew I would, your mother had told you when she gave me into your keeping.

Over the years, I’ve been to places with you.

You took me to your school hostel so you could look at your parents if you missed home. Then I went back into your trunk and in to the college dormitory where everyone teased you when you gave me the snapshot of your girlfriend, all pink lips, blonde hair and peach skin and cheap perfume. (You brought me her kerchief, hid it behind me so no one would see.)

I moved with you to the first home you ever bought, along with your wife, who sniffed at me a little, and then let me carry her, and you. I watched over you as you talked, shopped, entertained, threw fits, fought with your wife, and made up.

Over the years the two of you squeezed into one part as the children came, and soon I had them alone, and they had you. I liked their baby smells, the chorus of their voices, their fights. My back broke the time your youngest smashed me against the cupboard, but you put me back together and stood me up out of the children’s reach.

Today I carry you again, though you are gone.

Your wife has had me polished, and my silver body gleams. I sit by her bedside, an antique frame, holding you and her.

When your wife cries, (and she does that once in a while, on random days and on your anniversaries and birthdays,) and sits talking to you, I tell her things you would have said. Every now and then, I fancy she can hear me, and stoops closer to listen.

 I keep things, I hold them together. That’s my job, and wherever you are, I hope you know I’m still doing it.

Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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