The God of Small Things - Get a Free Blog

stubby convict in striped pajamas and a Fountain in a
Love-in-Tokyo. He, in his cotton vest and underpants. His vest,
taut and stretched over his round stomach like a second skin, went
slack over the depression of his belly button.
When Rahel held her frothing toothbrush still and moved her
teeth instead, he didn‟t say mustn‟t.
He wasn‟t a Fascist.
They took it in turns to spit. Rahel carefully examined her
white Binaca froth as it dribbled down the side of the basin, to see
what she could see.
What colors and strange creatures had been ejected from the
spaces between her teeth?
None tonight. Nothing unusual. Just Binaca bubbles.
Chacko put off the Big Light
In bed, Rahel took off her Love-in-Tokyo and put it by her
sunglasses. Her fountain slumped a little, but stayed standing.
Chacko lay in bed in the pool of light from his bedside lamp.
A fat man on a dark stage. He reached over to his shirt lying
crumpled at the foot of his bed. He took his wallet out of the
pocket, and looked at the photograph of Sophie Mol that Margaret
Kochamma had sent him two years ago.
Rahel watched him and her cold moth spread its wings again.
Slow out. Slow in. A predator‟s lazy blink.
The sheets were coarse, but clean.
Chacko closed his wallet and put out the light. Into the night
he lit a Charminar and wondered what his daughter looked like
now. Nine years old. Last seen when she was red and wrinkled.
Barely human. Three weeks later, Margaret his wife, his only love,
had cried and told him about Joe.
Margaret told Chacko that she couldn‟t live with him
anymore. She told him that she needed her own space. As though
Chacko had been using her shelves for his clothes. Which,
knowing him, he probably had.
She asked him for a divorce.