reed laghari / d7 / (fin)

after the middle, there was that stretch of black water between that and the ending, a part where salvation showed itself or the tragedy ran rampant. for reed, it was the latter.

after da, ma, and thistle left, the district grew and grew—and the war rose, like river-water. rebels dotted every inch of the district, tattered and worn in the way clothes got, sunken faces that reed hoped his saints could bring happiness back to again. but during a war, happiness was a butterfly that always eluded hands. reed understood that with surprising quickness. but still, from some deep part of him, he hoped that da, ma, and thistle were happy. that they were dancing somewhere else, away from the gunsmoke.

he danced too, for hours and hours sometimes. there wasn’t much going on yet when reed was twelve, when he spent the days with his grandmother, helping her cook, lying his head on her knee by the fireside. the laghari, in a way, were born to dance—their bodies lean and angular, with soles that were always sure-footed. ma told him once that if he kept dancing, he would never fall. reed hoped that was true.

when he became fifteen, that was when it all began to fray. he was a fool back then; he should had been prepared himself for imminent disaster the moment his parents disappeared into the dark woods – but saints, reed was a child. he had soft hands and soft dreams, a head full of storybook ideas, a heart full of faith. only the faith remained now; only the faith eddied in him.

grandma’s fever began after she came back from the market: hot flashes and a sallow face, aches that ran down her time-withered arms. she sank down in her seat, then asked reed for tea. when reed came back into the living room with a hot, steamy cup clutched in his hands, she was already asleep. she woke up hours later, coughing in fits, gasping for breath, then asked reed for some sandesh. when reed came back into the living room with a cardamom-coated ball of sandesh, she was already dead.




he didn’t understand any funeral rites back then, only a couple of hymns his ma had taught him that he sang to his dead grandmother through broken, broken sobs. the neighbors helped him bury her.

the house became silent then, the laughter and the warmth gone. there was no one but the saints to keep reed company. prayer couldn’t fill reed’s stomach.




he perused the district for odd jobs, openings at bakeries or farm-boys that lent a help to cultivating crops, but at the precipice of war, no one hired. reed went on for days with a growling in his stomach that he’d become too used to. even now, in this damp cell, he felt it, a faint gnawing at his innards from within. his mouth longed for jamun with saffron-coated syrup, or sandesh, even though eating it always dredged up the picture of his grandmother, dead in her seat. sweetness, to keep the bitter taste away from the back of his throat. but reed quickly whisked the thoughts away.

he'd learnt to not be hopeful long ago.

there were no jobs, and each day reed grew thinner, ribs like blades, a growing chasm in his stomach. that was the state he was in when he stumbled upon one of the rebels, smoking a cigarette in an alley. he had a gaunt face, with scars littered across fair skin, and wore a garb of tattered, dark robes. he was staring at reed, a strange glimmer in his eyes.

“you hungry?” the man asked. reed nodded with a clear desperation, then swallowed down the growing lump in his throat when the other fished out a slab of dried meat. saints, he remembered its divine taste. anything was delicious when your stomach was so empty it’d begun to hurt itself. 

“you a soldier?” another question. reed shook his head. “no,” he whispered. “figured. pretty thang' like you would die in the fields in a sec.” he wanted to protest, say that he was sturdy and strong, but even the thought felt false.

reed stayed quiet.

“there’s, eh, more what that came from. i just need catcha’ to do some thing for me.” reed’s eyes glimmered then – a job. maybe his saints were looking after him. “anything,” he said through the bits of food in his mouth, plastering a smile. “alright. come.” the man beckoned before trailing off. he followed him to an abandoned house, where he seemed to had made a make-shift station, the floor littered with supplies, a small bedsheet rolled out in the corner.

reed was fine until the man began to claw away his robes. until he began to strip. then he was wide-eyed, hands trembling. “come on’,” the male’s raspy voice cut into him like a knife. it sounded all too grating.

“you wan' serve the rebellion, right?”