Lemon Tree: A symbol of prosperity and demise alike

A tree that was human, inhuman, and a symbol of nature at the same time.

Heya Everyone,

Hye this is Kallol Poetry on the other side, I am very sorry for this delay. First of all, thank you to all of my wonderful babies who are loving and reading my stuff. I hope you guys are well and good, shining and beaming. Sorry for being so late, it has been difficult managing time with work and some other affairs. Today’s treat has to be a short story that I have written, it is filled with ebbs and flows of raw emotions. If you need a crying cleanse this will be the best read to latch onto. Have a great day to you all and happy reading.

Your affectionate,
Kallol Poetry
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Kishan is just 6 years old. He has started doing the trick again. He is quite like his grandfather adamant and stubborn. I am always speculating whether he will make friends or not. No one wants to play with him, he beats up everyone if they come home for a playdate. Ma (my mother and Kishan’s grandmother) was so helpful. Her skin has become cut loose, softer, and bulkier from all the aging. She always said How much work and toil they had to do back in the day. They used to farm, sow and even cut crops to get them to the market and sell them for a living. It was always fascinating to learn what she has to say. She was also one of those oldies of the previous generation that hated How new gals had it easy?

I stepped into my home. Ma was not there and neither was Kishan. This is why I miss my husband, How much can we do around? I and Ma cannot after all pick up heavy items, does not happen at the flick of a second or a snap of the eyelids. I seriously missed him. Kishan also has a sister Krishna, who is older than him. She was our first child. Now she is in the hospital for a minor treatment. Alas, I might have to go and check with my mother and my son, why is it that they are taking so long?

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As I moved away at least 10 km from home, my mother calls. She asks, “Where are you?” I replied, “On route, Mother to find you.” She asked again in a much higher tone, “Do you intend on caring for your child?” I replied, “Yes Mother, I love my kids so much.” She asked me again, “Come home fast and prepare lunch for him.

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I looked at the panorama from my tinted car shades lower my head and said, “I am sorry Mother but can you not be condescending every time.” She told, “Just come back and make you Goddamn dinner for your whining kid.”

I was passing through the route pondering the many moments I had on the route. I remember kissing Kabir for the first time here. We fooled around behind the Maize farm, and he always liked to caress me at the back of the tall maize plantation. It is all so subjective and beautiful. I wished Kabir to come back, but he cannot. I miss him always though. As I was moving straight to the end of the curvature of our home’s bylane, I stopped for a second in our backyard and looked at my lemon tree. I stayed there for a while and looked at it. As I sat at our dried wood bench, someone opened the back door, I did not know the person. I asked, “Who are you?”. The person replied, “Mam, We are cleaners and we came from Wilson’s.” Wilson was a great cleaning service that became operational in 2018, a good place, and such a great service provided. I loved it hence called to get some cleaning done.

My mother called me again, She asked angrily, “God damn it lady, where the hell are you! Can you not hear me when I am talking on the phone? Have you gone nuts like the time in Disney land?” I said, “Mother it was not my fault.” I am outside. Someone came again to our backyard and I heard a sound, ‘Mam?’ I looked back and said, ‘Yes’. “We cannot clean your mother’s room as the door seems locked” he replied with a blank look on his face. My mother was super clean and she does not provide any person access to her personal room. It has an entire world in itself. She build it as she loved my dad, who am I kidding he was an abuser. She made that to survive alone in that room to run from my dad. Sometimes she got so terrified that she took me and my sister along with her. She had unlimited protein bars that we would feast on. And, then we used to come back again in other rooms when our Father stopped abusing us and breaking chairs and tables in bouts of his excessive anger.

For a while, I slept like a baby and as I woke up, I went in, the room was clean. I went inside Mother’s room but did not open it. Uh who am I kidding, But please do not judge me. So, I take Coke and heroin; I am addicted to them. Lately, I am just overdosing too much literally surviving by luck. The reason being, well I like it. You know when you take in drugs as potent and strong as Heroin, your body accepts it. When it mixes with your blood you feel an outward projection. I have hated my body always. Loved taking drugs, it just worked better for me.

I thought Ma was sleeping, I went again to our backyard and I sat again looking at the tree, The roots are so deep. It bore lemons, yeah it's a lemon tree. The lemons used to come out too sour with yellow skin. After some time the lemons became greener and greener I too don’t know How and Why?

Just in a flicker of seconds, I remembered my baby boy Kishan and I found him nowhere. I yelled at the top of my voice Kishan! Kishan! Kishan! Oh God, I forgot about Kishan, I stomped and beat at Ma’s door yelling Kishan Kishan Kishan…. I still do not know what’s happening. My mother’s door was locked I had to break in. The sight that I saw shook me. My mother had dried saliva on her right cheek.

The marks of it have become visible. I took my steps back taking one at a time with a disfigured face and hands on my mouth. In another room, I fell on my heels crying with deep agony and sorrow. I tried to calm down and composed myself and wanted to call someone. I checked her pulse it was not there. Regardless I called for help, ‘The Police came in and took her to the hospital. Amidst all this, I had to regurgitate thoughts, “Where the hell is Kishan? Has the killer killed him too? I wished not. As I was crying and talking to myself. I went and sat again near the tree, And wept for the entire night. At 12:00 pm-midnight the police had confirmed that my mother died. With red eyes, I went off and went running to get my car.

I dozed off on our bench and while I opened my eyes in the morning, I ran to my car, telling myself, “I had to get my Kishan somehow.” I told the police and lodged a complaint. Just 20 km away from my spot I found a police convoy. The policemen came to me and called me to the police station.

I went with them and in the station, I ran towards the Station in charge, and asked, “Did you find my Kishan yet?” I was escorted inside the jail and I asked them “Did you find my son?” like a repeating tape recorder. A strange rush of electricity came running through me as I jerked like a body getting burnt from the inside, I fell flat on the ground, and I could hear one of my jaws breaking before completely zoning out.

And from the same space, this compound, these high walls, and impenetrable buildings have been my gateway to escape. I am writing this, after a long time, I never read what I had always written, for I want my life to be my surprise. The last time I remembered writing was when I was in school drafting a love letter for Kabir. Nowadays, I feed myself with verses from Pablo Neruda here. I read a ton of things from Kafka to Hemingway, Darwin to Austen. Every book fed a new sincerity in me. My sister was about to visit me that day. I read some of Neruda’s poems and waited for her. Gosh, I forgot How my ‘Baby Ruti; looked like. But, she wanted to come. I wrote till here because I knew till here. Beyond that, it was this cell, Kishan and Ma’s and Baby Ruti’s memories, and my books that lay with me. They do help me to be meditative.

The next day at 10 am I was called into the meeting area, and I saw my sister coming in, gosh it was so long that I forgot how she looked even. She saw me touch my fingers off the railing and asked me “How are you?” I replied, “I am good ‘Baby, Ruti’. I called her Baby Ruti because she was tiny when she was born. She had a very important role today. I gave her the notebook I kept with me in the reading area which we got access to in the wee hours. Every morning I planned what to write and express and go to the library in my free time and pen my words. She started crying, I could see her tears droplets flowing to the tip of her lips. I sneaked my notebook off of the library. You become acquainted with all sorts of Jail tricks after spending 10 years in jail. I called up ‘Jessica’ to get the CCTV connection off to pass on every written page rolled up to be transferred through the railing hole. I slipped her the entire book by pushing it through one tiny hole one torn paper at a time. It was 50 pages all transferred. I told her ‘Baby- Ruti’ I filled all the pages I knew. Now you have to do the rest.

She went away……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

My sister and I had such wonderful memories. We would always sneak out and have the same type of junk food. She was my role model, protector, and my support system without her there is no ‘Baby Ruti’ she nullifies my existence if I am not alongside her. She is so important to me.

We always went out and had fun till 9 PM hanging out with my friends. No the streets were completely safe. But when we went to our home a dread persists.

There was a demon there, and he was a criminal. It was when I was 5, I realized that my father was abusive to my sister.

Little and little, I saw him behaving badly with her. My mother was just so scared to say anything to him. I still do not know, why he would touch her thighs and brush his hand when she looked so uncomfortable. I was too small to understand How murky the situation was? I would sometimes see my father dragging my older sister to a separate room and then he always left her crying.

I would go and hug her, console and comfort her. She wouldn’t look me in the eye.

It was the 2nd standard when I first saw my father doing things to her that felt unnatural, I thought he was hurting or punishing her. The scene shook me and compelled me to run away from home. I still remember I had no food to eat, I was dried out. I was a small 7-year-old. My sister I suppose was looking for me in every nook and corner of the world. I went to Granny’s condo and stayed there until College.

I could not but feel sorry for the fact that I let her alone be abused like that when she protected me at all costs.

And our mother was the most treacherous woman was to ever exist on the planet. She let all of this happen under a roof. She became habituated to his abuse, but we had to suffer too.

My father was a drunkard, though my sister left high school without graduating she loved writing. I would always love to read what she wrote. It was precisely clear she was the best author for me. During my high school graduation party, my father looked all civil. He was the best daddy, husband, and mentor for everyone, for that man knew how to pretend with a straight face. As soon as the party ended he was heading over to my sister’s room. My Father can stop for alcohol anywhere if he sees somewhere a wine bottle or a beer can.

I made sure to buy his favorite wine and placed it above the dressing table. I know he will stop and he does all his subhuman acts after intaking copious amounts of alcohol. When Grandma came she kept her car in our backyard, there was some oil spillage already there. I just added to that spill. I poured our entire backyard with gas. He was about to go from our Guest Room to the alley where our personal rooms existed sideways. But midway he stopped while gazing at a wine bottle. He took the wine bottle and started wobbling in our backyard. He fell on his face.

I prepared his route to hell already. As I knew how unstable he can be after all that filth he had gulped. With red wine oozing off his mouth opening, staining his crisp white shirt, he was wobbly already. All I had to do was light a matchstick and just throw. And I did that. I could hear him scream at the top of his lungs. I used gloves and used one of his used cigarettes and planted it on the fire onset position. Went inside and burnt the gloves too as the chemicals off of them were seeping and drying in our sink. By the way, that’s where our lemon tree is where I burnt my father.

Every neighbor woke up from his screams but my sister and mother were sleeping. They had their first good sleep after 20 years. My sister could not deal with the abuse she was going through, after dad’s death, I went to college, but my sister and mother stayed home. I got married last year and my sister could not even recognize me. She faced memory loss and imagined our childhood by placing alternate kids characters as ‘Kishan and Krishna’. She always wants good memories to preserve as the actual denudation is beyond words. She was always high and then even my mother started using hard drugs. I could not look at their faces at How beyond repair they both became.

Yesterday, the police called me and asked about my mother. “Is this Mam Ruti?”, the station officer asked, I replied with another question, “Why what happened?” He replied, “Mam, your mother has been found dead due to a drug overdose. Does your sister have any criminal records, seems like these drugs have DNA samples of her we cross-checked with our huge Populus database?” I said ‘No’. I asked, “Can we work something out here? I want my sister back.” He said, “Your sister has to go to prison, there is no way out. As the phone slipped from my hands, I was bawling and my husband came in and paused. He asked, Hey what happened you sad for some reason?” I wiped my tears put on a smile and said to him, “I have prepared food for you will you have it?”. He replied, “Yes, I am hungry.”

I went to jail to meet my sister the next morning. I could see her pure eyes and jolly nature, the flower she was crushed by the demon that I had slayed. I stood peacefully and just listened to my heart's content voice. Amidst the deeply meditative voice she was speaking with, I heard, “Can you please fill in the spaces of my memory that I have left in this written material?” I uttered, ‘Yes’. I looked at her while tears were flowing down my cheeks, I said, “Hey take care okay, You will get out of here soon.” She smiled at me as we both touch our heads on the railing separating us, She uttered,

“What have I always told you Baby Ruti? I replied, “Never cry Baby Ruti ever! I remembered my sister telling me this after my father came out of her room. I would cry with her and she used to place my forehead with hers and tell me the exact same words. “Never cry Baby Ruti ever.” After a few seconds, someone came into the meeting area and told her, “Your time is over.”

My sister wiped her tears and went back to her cage, as it was still safe from the grotesque experiences she had in the outer world. I waited there for 5 minutes thinking about her then I left with her pages put in my purse………………………………………………

Last Quotes written by Baby Ruti in her Sister’s Notebook —

“I loved her, wanted to die for her, 


longed to nourish her. 


For she is also at the drop of a hat,


reminiscent of all that was bad that happened to her, 


which to my gut affected me. 


It’s a trap of misery”

I hoped you liked this piece guys, I am signing off for now take care…