Fifteen by Stuart Douglas

Author:Stuart Douglas [Douglas, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Prose, Book, Anthology, Short Story
ISBN: 9781909031159
Amazon: 1909031151
Publisher: Obverse Books
Published: 2013-10-30T04:00:00+00:00

Samsāra

James Manley-Buser

That night, we held a funeral for the old woman.

Iris had been an odd one, I admit. I remember, looking back, when she arrived in my youth. I was not quite a man but no longer a boy, roaming the streets for something to do, unsatisfied with whatever offerings the day had thus far held. She had stumped out of the hills and into town, ensconced in outlandishly garish garb, muttering incoherently under her breath. Seating herself on a weather-stained bench with exaggerated labour, making a great show of her bad back and tired knees, she had shouted me over in some foreign accent I never have been quite able to place even after all these years. Lighting a fag of something foul and pungent, she jet-streamed acrid plumes from her nostrils as I cheekily gave her bad directions to the local mandiram, shit that I was.

I of course had thought this hilarious, and had gathered my fellow too-old-to-be-urchins to say so, boasting at the ridiculousness of this foreign fop. Later, after she had somehow tracked me down and given my ear a tweaking, I lead her, chastened and embarrassed, to the mandiram as she had wanted. When next I saw her, several days hence, she had commanded me over with but a sideways glance and the snap of her fingers, exclaiming ‘Here will do’ and demanding a put up. Since that day I had been her constant companion. We'd had many a good and memorable time over the last few decades. Over the years she had become well and truly oors. I cried yesterday, when she breathed her last and I knew that would not see my friend again.

The pyre was large and on the beach, much the same way Iris had liked her days and her drinks. I watched it burn down over the hours, seated under an open bar cabana, nursing a pint of something Amerikyan, piss-poor in taste and strength, and half-heartedly munching on oorga as people from town paid their respects to first the effigy and then to me. The crowd slowly ebbed with the tide, and for a spell I was lost in reminiscence. When next I was aware, it was well into the night and I was alone with my empty bottles, the blaze long since gone low.

From the silent darkness I saw a brilliant flash of aurora light and I idly concluded that I had probably had enough, even as I poured myself another. Not long after, there appeared a woman I had never before seen, meandering up the shore to stop in front of me. She was wrapped in a beach towel and barefoot, her skin a strange coffee blend, and her mischievous eyes framing a small ouroboros bindi. I noticed none of this at first, because her black bedraggled hair was smoking, random tangles lit with flame. It took a moment to realise she had asked me something. Still stuck on the burning hair, which smelled horrible, I said nothing, my not-quite inebriated brain not-quite knowing how to process the information.

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