Photo by Randy Rizo on Unsplash
Honorable Mention in Gooseberry Pie’s First Writing Contest April 2024
by Sudha Balagopal
Indian gooseberries are in season which is why Ma sends me to the market so she can pickle the striped-green fruit in salt, oil and chili powder―no idea why the ball of sourness is called a fruit―and when I protest, she lists the virtues of the marble-sized orb, “It’s got lots of vitamin C and has been used as medicine for centuries.”
I walk to the nearest vendor because I’m hoping to coax Ma into giving me money so I can watch a movie with Raj―a neighborhood college-student who makes my heart go pitter-patter with poetic texts―but I plan on telling Ma I’m getting together with my classmates, all girls, since she’ll never let me go alone with him saying, “You’re only sixteen and too young for such things.”
Last time I went to the movie theater, she didn’t ask, “Who with?” but she sent my eleven-year-old pest-brother to accompany me―for protection?―and Raj snapped his teeth together, but bought three tickets anyway, only my idiot brother sat between the two of us, crunching his popcorn, talking loudly, slapping Raj on his shoulder, so naturally, Raj said, “Why did you bring that gooseberry, this should be just the two of us.”
After I return from the market, I release the carefully-chosen fruit, also called amla, from the bag and they gambol all jade and pretty-looking on the counter, distracting Ma, while I hide the borrowed halter-neck top in my bag because Ma’ll shout, “Don’t you dare wear that!”
Ten minutes into the film, Raj’s hand snakes around my back, nails scratchy-rough, plays with the throat-strap of my top and next thing I know, the metal button rolls onto the floor of the dark theater, so there’s nothing to hold up the top, at which he laughs like the situation’s hilarious, while I want to cry, I want to disappear, I want to ask what happened to his tender words, instead, I gather the fabric with one hand, my bag with the other, shiver-change in the bathroom and repeat-repeat-repeat, “Do not see him again!”
At home, I find my pest-brother tasting the freshly-made gooseberry pickle, giggling and squinching his eyes as the tartness hits, so I grab a spoon, dig into the bowl, and when Ma wiggles her crescent eyebrows, I ask, “Didn’t you did say this is good for me?”
Sudha Balagopal’s writing appears in CRAFT, Split Lip, swamp pink and Smokelong Quarterly among other journals. Most recently, her novella-in-flash, Nose Ornaments, was chosen runner up in the Bath Novella in Flash Contest.
