Flash fiction and the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival...

Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta's weblog tells me about the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2007 (KGAF) They have four areas where they seek entries: SMS Poetry, Flash Fiction, Graphic Flash and Poetry Slam.

Flash Fiction must be within 300 words. The theme for this year is : Message. This is a submission I made (I rattled it off in fifteen minutes - one can submit multiple entries)


The Brown Paper Packet

She knew he would be there. He had promised her. And sure enough, he was true to his word. When she reached the spot at 8 p.m. he was standing there. And by the looks of it he must have arrived at least half an hour earlier. "Hi!" she said. He smiled in reply. "Have you got it?" she asked. He handed her a brown paper packet. She took it and opened it. She smiled when she saw the contents. “Thanks,” she said and walked away. He stayed back for a few minutes and then made his way back home. She had defeated him.

The message had arrived at six in the morning when he was asleep. It was brief. “I want to meet you. Usual place. Usual time. But get me the present you have kept safe for me all these years.” He had trembled when he read the message. He knew that there was no way he could disobey her. That was the kind of hold she exercised on him. He sent her a message promising her he would be there.



It had all started ten years ago when they were courting. She had given him a packet. It was wrapped in brown paper. She had asked him not to open it. And he had promised her that he wouldn’t. As their courtship had progressed he had been consumed by the desire to open it. And he had told her about it. “Never,” she had whispered with an urgency in her voice, “never, ever do that.” He had got scared when she had said it in that tone. “Tell me,” he had pleaded, “what’s inside it?” She took her time answering him. “You,” she had said with a strange smile on her face.
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I hope Neti Neti doesn't disown me!