Sita sighed into her hands as she sat exasperatedly before her empty Word document. Listening to an album of one more heartbreak only caused her own painful memories to be stronger. Of course, hers wasn't really a heartbreak anymore. It was years since the fatal car crash which took her younger brother. Some other guy was driving under the influence and didn't see the red light where Akhil sat waiting at the wheel. The loss of her sibling took as great a toll on her as it did her parents. She remembered the silence of her parents when they opened the door to the policeman. He only could utter "Mr. and Mrs. Patel, there's been an accident" before her mother slid down to the floor, sobbing. Its a mother's instinct to know when something dreadful has happened to her child, Sita supposed.
It had been years since this night. Sita went to college, but with her absence, her mother could take it no more. Mrs. Patel begged her husband to move back to India, to a city in South India, Bangalore. Here they had family, friends, no memories. After Berkeley, her parents implored her to move back to India with them, to get married to a suitable boy from a family, to work in some office from 9-5 each day. It echoed hollowly of the life Sita had never wished upon herself. Instead, she moved to San Francisco, working as a journalist for a local paper. Then the recession and the internet hit, and her paper shut down. Disappointed though her parents were, she began to write free-lance for various magazines and newspapers. Sighing defeat, Sita exited out of her empty word document and opened her email. In her inbox was another email from her mother, asking her to meet this son from a good family in San Francisco. She shook her head with an incredulous smirk. It amazed her how her parents could try to boss her around though she was halfway across the world from them.
Sita was an average height woman with a light brown complexion. She had great big, chocolate brown eyes with long curly lashes, and a small, thin mouth. Her hair was like a mob-lord: tangled and perpetually threatening to blow up to afro proportions without proper hair products. Since college, she wore clothes like an Indie spirit. Her favorite uniform was a great big cardigan, with a floral dress, and wedges. She thought she was pretty, but not enough so for the men in her life. Rarely did she meet new people, let alone go on dates. She had not always been like this though. There was a time when she was care-free, charismatic and charming. That was considered the Before Accident era. The day of the accident, she would never ever forget. Sometimes, her parents wondered why she took it so hard. Afterall, he was only a brother.
Akhil was a great guy. He was in high school, Sita recalled. He was a little under 6 feet tall, with identical chocolate brown eyes and long curly lashes as Sita. He always looked up to her, always was proud of his sister. While he was not as smart as she, he was clever and kind. The boy volunteered in shelters to feed the homeless of the community. At the local center, they all knew him as the Indian prince. He was tall, tan, and truly considerate. Sita spent most of her time playing music, studying, and working all towards her dreams of going to Berkeley. She rarely spent time with her little brother, believing him to be a distraction that was best not in her life.
There was once upon a time, when the siblings would run down to the neighborhood park to play with the other children. This was when they were very very young. One day, a bully by the name of Stan took Akhil's bike. Akhil sobbed running up to Sita and in a garbled mess of a speech declared what had happened. Sita looked as Stan rode away with her little brother's bike; he was so big and would crush her in an instant. So Sita took Akhil by the shoulder and said "I've got a plan". The next day, Stan was showing off his "new" bike when Sita ran up to him. She began to tell him to return the bike, etc etc etc. The bully threw the bike down, and approached threateningly. Behind them, Akhil ran and stole back the bike and rode off. Before fists were thrown, Sita ran into view of the parents. Stan cracked his knuckles, but once he turned around, he angrily tried to run after her to make them return his stolen good. This time the parents were there to stop any more actions.
Sita remembered how Akhil was a good kid. It was a sunny afternoon. He was lying down after getting SAT scores. Their father had yelled at him for not scoring well enough to place into an Ivy League. "You will not get anywhere with your low score of 2050! This is it! Your life is ruined!" Parents can be extremely overdramatic. Fuming, Akhil just wanted to leave and so he stomped to Sita and asked her to go on a ride with him. He was angry, but knew he shouldn't drive in such an emotional state. It was such a pretty day, and everyone was so mad, and I was just...busy, Sita tried to reason with herself. She had been repeating this lie to herself every day for the past seven years from the time when the policeman opened the door to her mother's bloodcurdling sobs, to the funeral with the large line of well wishers whose lives had been touched by her brother. Sita had been busy, his death was not her fault.
She chucked herself away from the emotions and the computer. Pacing around, she noted how the weather was beautiful, the wind was lovely, midst the self-loathing of herself. Seven years ago, Sita's brother had asked her to take a ride with him and she refused. She just didn't want to be around him, but she claimed she had homework. That night, he sneaked out of the house, taking her car keys: she suspected he was tired of being held hostage in the house. Now Sita felt as though she was there with him, as she saw the traffic lights pass by. He would've rolled down the window, because the air would've let him feel like he was flying away. She watched as he slowly braked, pulling his hand back onto the wheel, with a small smile on his face. She knew that he probably still had the glint of that smile as he saw the lights heading towards him. She prayed he didn't feel a thing.
The next day, a servant picked up a phone call in India. "Ma, I want to take a pilgrimage to India," Sita calmly said to her mother. "I dont' want to be set up, and I'm not moving there. I just want to see you before I move to Europe. There's a job I want to interview for in London." Sita spoke quietly with her mother. She was very excited to see her parents again, despite their asserted and unnecessary bossiness. As she packed up her quirky jewelry and clothes, she turned back to her computer, opened up her document, and began writing about the guilt she felt over her brother's death. She should've been in the car with him. She knew she couldn't change the past anymore, though she spent most of the last seven years trying to. She knew she survived when he hadn't, and she couldn't stay here anymore. Sita didn't know where she was going anymore, but all she could say for sure was that she was never going back again.
~My first attempt at a short story. I tried to write about what I knew. While I haven't faced the death of a younger sibling or even death to such a personal extent, I do know that pain like this can change a person. See how the parents left America in defeat and agony. At first I nearly had the main narrator die in a fatal car crash as she recounted the story of her brother's death. I think that such a deep sorrow as loss can do one of two things: lead you to your demise, or lead you to your greatest achievements. What Sita (and in extension me) realized is that sometimes loss leads to a middle ground which is neither greatness nor downfall. I'm not very good at this writing thing. At least I tried, right?
Good night from the blogger.
