Week Eleven Story: Tantrums

 Author's Note: For this story, I drew on the tale of Krishna, Brahma, and the cows wherein Brahma steals away with some of Krishna's friends and a couple of cattle as a devilish trick. Krishna gets the last laugh, however, as he creates a whole community of people and cattle so that no one notices that anything is missing by the time that Brahma returns to see what chaos he has created. I found the whole idea that Krishna can literally create fake people and animals to be very creepy despite the fact that he uses his powers for good. Thus, in honor of the spooky season that has just passed, I decided to give his character a little twist. What if Krishna didn't use his powers for good? What if he was a bad child who had a tendency towards throwing fits to get what he wants and just so happened to be equipped with all of the same powers? These are some of the questions that I dealt with when crafting this story and I am quite pleased with how nerve-wracking it turned out. In this story, Krishna is not a god. He's just a little boy with crazy powers who likes getting his way. I hope you enjoy!

Tantrums

        A middle-aged woman sits hunched at a worn, circular oak table in the middle of a kitchen that's lit only by a fluorescent strip light above the sink. Her elbows rest on the faded wood grain of the table, so old that it's glossiness has long since rubbed off. This very table, the woman recalls, has been with her since her wedding day twenty years prior. She was even sure back then that it had lived a long life way before it had found her. It definitely outlasted her real husband, at least. 

        The table tilts slightly under the weight of her elbows as she clenches her fists harder into her graying mousy brown hair. This reaction of hers comes in response to the sound of a child's cry erupting from somewhere above. Her fingers dig deeper into her hair, nearly pulling it from the roots as the cry grows louder, becoming a roar. 

           The woman growls and shoves away from the table, knocking the rickety chair she had been seated on to the linoleum with a clatter. The cry stops. She stomps down the darkly wallpapered hallway and up the stairs, clutching the handrail with malice as she goes. Her bare feet stop at the very last chipped wooden door on the right. She doesn't bother grabbing the fluted glass door knob, but instead she nudges the door open with the big toe of her left foot. It creaks on its hinges as it swings open to reveal a little boy of no more than six sitting cross-legged in the middle of a massive, four poster mahogany bed. 

        There are no tears on his pale little face, framed by that sweet tousle of curly ink-black hair that his mother used to nestle her face into when he was a baby. There are only the wide pupil-less black eyes that reflect the woman's own face back at her in the lamplight now. They stare at each other for a moment: the boy hunched over in his baby blue, striped pajamas with his hands curled in his lap and the woman standing in the doorway with the ball of her left foot still hovering an inch or two above the wooden floor where she had nudged the door open. 

        "Kris," the woman says, placing the ball of her foot down in front of her like a crouching animal ready to spring. Her hands are balled into fists at her sides. She goes no further, letting the boy take up the task of talking. 

        "I'm bored." His lips form a thin long line after he speaks, accentuating the crescent moon dimples on either side of his mouth. 

        "You should be asleep," the woman replies, unclenching her fists to cross her arms. 

        "I'm. Bored." He enunciates each word, cocking his head to either side with each invisible period. 

        "Conjure up one of your little friends to play with you," she says, hunching her shoulders a little more and scratching the back of her neck. She begins to twirl her toe in an S across the cracks of the floor without noticing that she is doing it. 

        The boy smiles and it gives his eyes a devilish squint. The woman jumps as someone steps out from behind her and grabs her waist, pulling her close. 

        "Honey," the man says, kissing the top of her frayed head as he squeezes her to his side. He then proceeds to go jump on the bed in front of the boy, laying on his side with his head cradled in one hand while the other drapes down to rest on his thigh. His legs are together and straight out across the bed in front of the boy. "What's up?" 

        The woman begins shaking with rage as the man grins at her. Her fingertips stretch the wool of her sweater in the insides of her elbows as she yanks at the fabric in small jerks. 

        "You look angry mommy." The boy remarks, his lip curling up on one side. "Are you upset that I didn't give you a friend too?" 

        His black mirror eyes bore into hers as suddenly she hears a shrill cry come from the floor next to the bed. Her head jerks towards the sound. A six month old baby clad in a light yellow, long-sleeved onesie now lies in the middle of a big quilt spread out over the floor. He thrusts his little arms up and down, kicking his chubby legs in and out and wailing so loud that it reverberates throughout the room. His face becomes so pinched and red from the screaming that he looks like a cartoon character about to explode. 

        "Kris, stop this now." The woman's voice shakes. She is now pulling on the little hairs at the nape of her neck, snapping them off between her fingertips and rubbing them together. 

        "Or what?" The resounding sound of the letter 't' lingers in the air amid the baby's screeching as the boy begins to gnash his teeth together. He has gotten so caught up in the moment that he lets the man disappear from the foot of the bed as if he was never there to begin with. 

        "You'll leave me? Is that what you want?! To leave me like the rest of them? Would you prefer it if I was your actual baby again just like that one?!" His little body nearly tumbles sideways as his hand jerks towards the flailing infant. The voice that has just emitted from his body does not belong to that of a child.

        The woman appears to deflate. She slumps to the bed and draws the little pajamaed boy into her thin arms. She cradles him, rocking him slowly back and forth. She presses her face into his soft dark curls and he doesn't fight her. The screaming baby on the floor fades away into background noise before disappearing entirely. 

        "You are my baby, Kris," she whispers into his ear, but she doesn't whisper it with certainty. 

Sweet Baby (Source: Pixabay)

Bibliography: Krishna Humbles Brahma by Epified. Website: Krishna Humbles Brahma by Epified on Youtube.