Hollow

 

Hallow

When today, Clove smiled he couldn’t remember when he had last time. His employer patted his head and the smile disappeared. The sensation of his head being patted wasn’t unfamiliar but deeply despised, now that the person who used to do it wasn’t anywhere but beneath the earth and at peace. The peace that person had endeavored all her life for Clove and herself.

Clove looked towards his employer, Mr. Smith again, trying to smile, trying to thank him for giving him, his first earning. But no, he could not. It felt like a curse to not be able to smile. His heart clenched when he tried to remember how he used to do that, what made him smile earlier.

her.

her presences. 

She was the only reason for his happiness. She was the reason for his life.

Happy, he didn’t even remember the word now far was experiencing how it felt. How it would feel? Would it feel like a plant, perhaps one with orchids, growing out of his heart and filling the hollowness in his life…or his body…or his contiguous, everything.

How it did, he could not decipher it.

Mr. Smith sighed and looked outside the window for a few moments. Clove looked at him in expectation to get some work to do, but he froze at how much this man’s features resembled his mother’s. His big, deep-set olive eyes and his skin, was dark. The way his jaw moved when he swallowed and the way his forehead crinkled, all resembled her ways.

Mr. Smith gazed back at Clove and smiled a little. ‘Young man’ continued the former in his deep but softened voice, ‘I think we should close now, it’s going to rain tonight and I don’t want you to catch a cold.’

Clove nodded in awe of how much even Mr. Smith’s accent matched his mother’s and his own but not his father’s. He started to walk towards the door, putting his first earning in his shirt pocket, but Mr. Smith began ‘Young man, I’m sure you don’t want your money to get soaked in rain and render useless, now, do you?’ And then opened his desk drawer and pulled out a small plastic bag. ‘Here, keep those in it and put it in your pocket then.’

Clove did as told and began to march off again, but Mr. Smith stopped him again ‘Do you have anything to eat at your home?’

Home, Clove would never call that a home, not after what happened there two months ago. It might have been barely capable of being called a house before, but now it had mere existence in Clove’s heart if he had any left.

Clove shook his head at the inquiry. He did not feel the need to fill the hollowness in himself that had become so familiar to Clove that he even thought of missing it if it ever left.

‘Young man’ said his employer ‘You remember that I’m your mother’s older brother right?’

Clove nodded.

‘Young man, let me tell you something about her, no don’t go…listen…good…when she was young, I used to bring her this candy whenever I returned from town, and she used to love it, and her apatite had no end. I’m sure she had the best childhood young man, and now if she would look at you if she could I’m sure she would faint at the sight. When did you have your last meal, huh? Never mind, you have probably forgotten. I’m sure we have some vegetables or something here in my restaurant’

Clove tried to make excuses but his kind uncle gave him another bag in which were some cans of food.

Clove took to the place he used to live at.

This place he despised and he despised what happened here two months ago. He was trying the key when the light shower began and in no time it became a heavy fall. He entered half soaked and looked at the small apartment.

He lit a candle and sat in the middle of the main room, for the electricity had been cut when Clove could not pay for it. He then thought of lying on his side and as soon as he did and his head touched the floor he began to cry, first were some stifled sobs, and then were cries, loud and cathartic.

Only if someone was to listen and console him. But he did not desire anyone but her and only her.

If his mother was there, she would have run to him and placed his head on her lap and would have sung him a song or two, the way she used to.

But the sad reality was that she rested, in her peace.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, he stopped his crying. He was shaking and was sore in the throat. But he sat there and after some time while recalling the happenings of the day he remembered the words of his uncle ‘I’m sure if she were here, if she could she’d faint at the sight of you’

His thoughts continued at the route and he said to himself, would she be happy to see me, if she somehow raised again?

‘No, she won’t’ said a beautiful voice behind him and he turned to see.

It was Clara, the girl who lived in the neighborhood.

She approached him with soft feet and sat next to him, ‘Why would you cry like that? I was so worried when I heard you, I ran’ then with a naughty smile added ‘Don’t act all so innocent now, do you really think your mother will be pleased to see you giving this death of hunger to yourself?’

He shook his head innocently at the inquiry.

Clara who had brought another bag kept it in front of her and took out various food items, the ones Clove used to love.

‘Now, you eat or make your mother and me angry’ Clara said dominantly.

Clove truly laughed at this and Clara froze. She had never seen him this way in the past two months, then she laughed too.

And Clove smiled.

                                                                                         ***

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