The Death of Children

“Now, at three and a half, you’re a little lady. You have your own friends, your own stubborn opinions. All this is super. But, I’m sad because now you come and tell me about the Buddhi Mai coming to get you, the ghosts in the dark, and a hundred other fears. My baby, you grew up loving the dark, enjoying the sea and you reached out to people. Now you withdraw from people, looking for Buddhi Mai in disguise. You cry in the dark and you are afraid of this magnificent sea. Who put all that garbage into your lovely head, baby? I shouldn’t be asking. I know this answer. It’s the other children, your friends, who tell you this. And how can I be angry with them? I can only be angry at the twisted minds of the grown-ups who put these fears into the minds of children to make them behave.”

— Excerpt from “Ramblings on a beach” by Kabir Bedi

death of children

Adults are so boring that they’re destroying the innocent with them.

We complain that children are losing their innocence; they know more than we did when we were their age, they act differently — which some adults claim to be mature, and they are no longer children.

Some blame technology, but it’s really our wrongdoing.

My parents let me explore, learn and discover the elements of society — both evil and good ones. They didn’t scare me away from wandering with stories of madmen hunting children. They didn’t threaten me with monster attacks just so I wouldn’t be myself. I was a child, and children are curious. They are mischievous. And just because parents can’t handle children for the way they are, doesn’t mean they have the right to curb a child’s nature — in the name of discipline.

We’re losing our children. Soon, we won’t have children anymore — just smaller people who are too afraid to explore and express their potential. Just as adults are.

And all we would do is complain. Just because we couldn’t accept innocence for what it is.

And so they wait

They all loved her, the embodiment of selflessness.

She was always there, just a phone call away, waiting to listen — to sympathize and to make anyone feel better about themselves.

She was neither a nurse, nor a psychiatrist. She was a waitress, waiting tables for a job and pacifying people for mere satisfaction.

So many people knew the waitress, not her. She had been a waitress for three years, and it didn’t matter where she came from or what she did before that. She lived alone and never went on vacations. Some thought her an orphan, and anyway, she was too busy during weekends. She hardly had the time for anything except the ones who asked for it. They’d call her for money, to pick up an urgent present for a loved one, for advice, and to whine about love . And every time — she would listen.

And she seemed happy. She would smile and nod in acknowledgement. She would sit on the couch and give her rapt attention to anyone who needs it.

She knew of the love lives of all her neighbors, and of Mrs Nextdoor’s problems with her dog. When kid upstairs told her about the new girl in his class, she smiled, ruffling his hair.

She would come in early for work and stay until the manager closed the restaurant late in the evening. If anyone needed her, they knew where she’d be.

One fine day, she didn’t show up for work.

Her phone was dead, and no one knew her address. They waited. The needed her to listen; no one else would.

But she never came back.

Again, I’ve clubbed this week’s Writing Challenge with my usual Flash Fiction series. Let me know what you think.

Looking back…

He used to be lot more.

A much shorter story. My first six word story of the Flash Fiction series. Let me know what you think, and share your stories too.