By Bidisha Catherina Chowdhury
The lady on the broom surveys the night sky
hovering above the city
at a safe distance from civilization.
Below where population thrives—
She sees two entities drop something hurriedly
into a ditch by the side of a road and depart.
the lady on the broom descends to take a closer look.
In the ditch she finds a third entity scarred and broken
and in that countenance, she notices a likeness
to her own she finds most absurd.
Two eyes bloodshot, a nose bent out of shape
lips smeared with blood.
Realization dawning, the lady surveys the lifeless form.
She discovers more similarities still.
Misshapen fingers with missing fingernails,
feet twisted backwards.
But the look of terror on the face banishes all doubts of a possible affinity.
Her kind aren’t easily scared.
No, that is but half a truth.
The truth is her kind are hunted.
With flaming torches and sharpened blades.
They too, feel the twinge of fear
but do not proclaim it for the sake of their diabolical reputation.
The lady on the broom clenches her fists.
The entity is what they call a ‘human’
one of civilization’s own.
she knows they are hunted too.
Sometimes in similar yet more insidious ways.
She recalls the other two entities
that had left in haste, they are human too.
The lady remembers their faces. She wants to remember them.
Quite uncharacteristically, she is nauseated
by the smell of blood enveloping the inert figure.
One…two…three the minutes crawl
four…five…six the lady waits
perhaps, for a glimmer of life.
At length, the lady drags the body out of the ditch.
She conjures a thick blanket
and wraps the human in it.
Then whoosh! they rise higher above the tree tops
perched on her broom.
She descends again before a structure with walls
that glow with artificial lights
The air around it is heavy with self-importance.
It is populated by more humans wearing strangely uniformed attire.
As if to suggest, that they belong to the same tribe in a way,
that the lady belongs to her coven.
The night holds sway and the place emits a sense of humdrum dutifulness.
They are busy writing in ledgers
or speaking into strange contraptions.
Yet, for all their supposed efficiency,
she detects in them a spirit of tardiness.
Gently, she places the body at the doorstep
The lady retreats behind a tree and lets out a loud
bone-chilling shriek. She sees a few of that strange tribe
stumble out the door leaving their work stations behind.
They huddle around the lifeless body.
At day break, she disguises herself as a human
but finds appearances are rarely simple,
Some humans are always under the gaze of other humans.
She realizes that the human she had found
belonged to a tribe accursed.
The damned of the Earth,
straddling the lines between
distressed damsel, divine goddess and femme fatale.
But, despite all the gaze that is thrust upon them,
They are never truly seen,
or considered human.
At night, the lady sheds her humanness.
Her eyes turn a darkish red.
Like the consolidation of her anger.
Her lips curve into a malicious smile,
the scent of blood intoxicates her.
She licks her lips in anticipation of the hunt.
The scent grows strong upon the trail.
She follows it to a house not very far from the ditch,
where she had found the unfortunate human.
There in a habitation with worn-out walls
and greasy windows,
she finds them
intoxicated with ale and cruel confidence.
They do not notice when she walks in.
Too late they fathom her intentions.
Once again, the broom rises in the air
high above the tree tops.
The lady lets out a cackle of delight.
At their doorstep the following morning,
the members of that efficient tribe find two lifeless bodies.
Blood-drained, and mangled.
(Staying so close to the woodlands
had almost led me to the conviction,
that I was one of the wood sprites
inhabiting a tree.
Thankfully, you came and shook me
out of my reveries
Or else they would have
consumed me.)
(There is a schism between my heart and my soul
My heart is loyally Catholic but my soul is fiercely pagan
all too eager to absorb myths, folklores and legends.
I took up needlework to stitch the ever-widening schism.
But, the thread snapped quite suddenly.
I felt an awakening, a rupture.
For the first time, I grieved the passage of time
and acknowledged how little our circumstances had changed.
For the first time, I mourned the death of my ancestors,
and felt in its entirety, the feeling of being utterly dispossessed.
My sylph-like identity dissolved into ashen nothingness.
I stepped on cursed land
and wrote the following lines because
parched lips cannot sing sweet hymns.)