Prompt: Coming undone | Word Count: 1043 | Genre: Contemporary
The concrete bench by the Rachenahalli lake was old. Cracks were ominous at places but the section close to the gulmohur tree was quite intact. Madhavi cleared the stone bench of its yellow refugees and sat. These flowers leave stain on the clothes. She didn’t want to soil her white salwar with it. She had had enough of stains on her clothes for the past 51 years. The first four decades and half vomited the nights of alcohol and the last four years spat blood & sputum. Her family of Saraswat Brahmins at Mangalore had cleanliness fetish. But she fought her congenital revulsion for filth and foul hard, very hard, as she didn’t want anyone to say, “We knew she had chosen a good match. Horoscope said so. An English teacher she is, who’ll argue?”