If you enjoyed the recent film about a child overcoming adversity, you may like this heartwarming story. If you hated that film, you are a misanthrope, and may like this story about the triumph of a child’s will. I would like to thank PFC author Subrat for being kind enough to edit my attempt at short fiction. You will be sad to hear that his retinas have burnt from the effort.
They had a special kind of love. Sometimes, it resembled hate. Most of the time actually. Marriages may be made in heaven but they are stoked by the hate-fires of hell. Aided by the searing passion of hate-fuck, and nurtured through a moment of bliss - as short-lived as a firefly’s life - they were accessories to an act of creation, a beautiful one at that. The knocking from the compressor of the icemaker quietened down to a gentle hum after kicking off another regenerating cycle of chlorofluorocarbons. Watching, as the seething gas liquefied and cooled down. Sated, now that the seed was sown.
This story is about a little girl and her refrigerator.
Her oldest memory was of the big white thing. It was imported. This meant that it was produced in a different country from where it was finally used. A lot of people got rich due to this transaction because in those days it was not easy to import things. No one understood why.
She remembered that everyone in the colony stopped by for cold water from their frizz. It was her parents’ pride and in some way the deal clincher for their union. A “present” from the bride’s Uncle in Singapore. A rich wedding gift for a poor marriage.
People always commented on how cute a couple her parents made. They were cute. Their arguments cuter. It was usually about how much detergent to use or events of similar import. After a few years it turned into this -
“Bitch, bitch, bitch – you aaarr a fucking bitch!”
“Nenu bitch aithey, meeru enti? Bastard. Bleddy bastard.”
But, it always ended like this – “aah, aah, aannh.” That was cutest.
And so on it went mellifluously, as their sweaty bodies thwalped into each other; sliding, plucking and clashing, as their symphony climaxed with the refrigerator watching conducting.
In some sense, Mahira had always felt its presence, even when she was cocooned inside her Ammi. She would always remember the first time It tried talking to her. That was a rare day of peace at home. It may have been the only time she saw them smile. Daddy had asked her to fetch an ice cream from the bedroom.
As she walked down the long corridor that connected the living and sleeping rooms, she felt the blood rush to her stomach, and farther down. Gravity and biology working in harmony. Every step echoed, and she could hear the faint sounds of the night. She wasn’t even walking, simply gliding, like iron filings to a magnet. Clearly, the bedroom was designed for adults since the light switch was at the other end of the room forcing one to wallow and grope in darkness.
The fridge had a green glow, like gossamer moss, one that she had never noticed before. It didn’t really coat the surface or stick to it. It sort of hung in the air around the fridge. Catching what little light it could, making its presence felt. Then It spoke.
They were gentle hums and knocks at first. She held her breath, waiting for it to pass, but they only grew louder with determined vehemence. She rushed to the refrigerator, and yanked at the door, but it wouldn’t open. The compressor kicked into a new cycle and the gas molecules collided and pushed the piston. Then, that knocking! Like skeletons dancing on a tin roof. She attempted to overcome the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
She fled the room, desperate to get away from the malevolence of the green noise. She told herself that she was being childish, and it was only a refrigerator. She would come back armed with daylight.
But Daddy would have none of that. Tantrums were not tolerated in his house. She couldn’t possibly tell them that the fridge was alive, if that’s what she thought. Was It haunted, possessed, or was she being delusional? Of course, none of these adult thoughts had crossed her mind at the time. She had only felt fear, at its purest, nakedest; cold fear that made her innards grind and the bile defy gravity. But, there was something else, something new; a tingling in an unexplored corner of her body-temple.
As she trembled back to the fridge, there was none of the ghoulish racket again. Just the eerie glow, eyeing her, lurking. The refrigerator reluctantly opened its arms to her, and let her reach in, deep within, to grab the ice cream. She felt the cold mist caress her, and the green enveloped her and that tingling was back again. This time in company of moistness.
She ate the ice cream in silence as her parents rowed again. Later that night, she had a peculiar dream, if that’s what it was. The first of the many to follow. The fridge came to her, accompanied by the sounds of her parents making hate. It entered her, wholly and completely, penetrating every pore of her temple, speaking to her in knocks and caressing her with gentle hums.
She didn’t remember what happened to her at nights, but she always felt differently the next day. It had taken the refrigerator twelve years to learn to communicate to humans, and even then the grammar was not perfect. If ever there was a chance, it was with this little girl, created to bridge man and machine; the inanimate and the living-breathing. The fridge continued the visitations into the girl’s nights, and Mahira took it gratefully, experiencing the womanhood her body was ready for, but not her child’s mind.
One afternoon, while alone at home, she felt It beckon. There was no controlling the impulse. She emptied the contents of the refrigerator, every last one of them, including the plastic grates, and got in. She shut the door and savored the cold darkness.
There was the same tingling of that first night, but with an intensity alien to an eleven-year-old. The green mist embraced her, and made its way in, taking her savagely. All the pleasure centers in her body were active, neurons chitter-chattering and synapses firing away, and the throbbing ecstasy frightened her.
She tried to get out, afraid where it might lead to, but It wouldn’t let her. Her kicks didn’t budge the door as the vacuum created by the gray insulating rubber held. She panicked and pushed against the door with all the strength her little body could muster.
That’s when the knocking started again. She cried and screamed for help. She vowed to be good if she came out alive. No inordinate demands, no wishing ill of her rowing parents and no sneaking in to watch them make hate. It wasn’t exactly a prayer. A dying girl’s plea to anyone that would listen. None up there listened. There was Nobody to listen. This, she thought, was her comeuppance for all the naughty pleasures experienced.
She rattled inside her cage gasping for the limited air. What was it - the equation for the amount of air occupied in confined spaces? For some reason, along with completely useless information about Avogadro’s number, she remembered the news story about the 8-year-old boy in America that had drowned in a washing machine and another little girl in Poland that had charred in an oven. She knew what they were doing in there.
And it got worse. The frizz was torturing her, laughing at her. The blood came out shyly at first, in little drops, and then with great enthusiasm. Hell had opened its gates through her, and she was going to bleed and suffocate to her cold grave. And then that dreadfully familiar knocking!
It all ended just as quickly and quietly as it had started. The door flung open as her limbs flailed and she tumbled out of the refrigerator.
She wiped the fridge clean of all evidence and replaced the plastic grates, and the food. She washed the menstrual blood off the face of Daffy Duck on her underwear. Of course, her parents learnt nothing of that afternoon.
Familiarity is a numbing force. Even the most horrific seems innocuous when cloaked in its dreary garb. Life went back to its charming dullness like before with two minor changes.
In the outside world, three wise men had to pledge the country’s gold to a foreign bank to prevent insolvency. Suddenly, anyone could bring anything into the country affordably, and everyone could start a business without a license. Very few people understood how all this was possible and nobody understood why it had taken so long.
And at home, her parents did not sleep together anymore since they had stopped rowing. Hate is a special emotion to humans. It can be used to turn brothers against each other, enslave souls, and impose the will of one on several. But, like everything beautiful, it must be nurtured. The refrigerator had limited understanding of humans and ignored Mahira’s parents. It would cost the fridge dearly.
Those were the best days of her life. There was calm at home. Not the fragile peace of early mornings, but the unruffled tranquility of the comatose. The fridge came to her every night, but she never remembered it in the clarity of light. During the day, It tried talking to her but she never understood, language barrier and all. She continued being naughty, and was punished for it every month.
Her parents separated shortly after. A child didn’t question those big adult decisions and no reason was ever given. It wasn’t fair to a little girl. Then again, to expect fairness is a human frailty.
She went to live with her mother at her grandfather’s home. She visited her father’s house, the house that he won along with Ammi, the house she grew up in, every weekend; and the refrigerator waited. And so it went on, very cutely.
It would have all been rather unremarkable had she not attended the last day of school that year. Having taught all the chapters, her Science teacher elaborated on the application of all that they had been learning. He picked the Morse Code, and played a sample of the dots and dashes, as radioed by a lost sailor from the high seas.
Mahira felt that familiar cold tingling when she heard it. It translated to this – SOS…SOS…SOS. It was a distress call, popularly known as Save Our Souls.
The smart child that she was, she quickly deciphered that the frizz had been trying to talk to her, among other things. She also translated the knocks and hums from that frightening afternoon to mean – “Don’t be afraid.”
It was not the agreed upon day for her to see Daddy, but she had to meet the fridge, and listen to what It had to say. Before her father could ask the what-how, she was in the bedroom.
And there it stood. In all its gleaming, red monstrosity. She was informed that It had turned particularly noisy of late. Since good imported fridges were now available for so cheap, her father had exchanged it for something new…and red. Her fondest childhood memory was lost to yet another adult decision.
Mahira grew up to be an unusual young woman. Some might even call her frigid.
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