3 Tiny Tales For A Quick Dose Of Wit

Life on Repeat
by Falguni Kothari

Dawn.

“I’m sorry.” He kisses my swollen eyes open, wets my bruised lips with his tongue.

I try to roll out of bed but he holds me strong. His eyes are clear. His face,  contrite. Sober. He begins to make love to me. My heart betrays me.

I love him again.

I sing through my daily chores. Stars in my eyes, I remember the shelter of his smile, the promise of his apology. My heart races with hope and…hesitation. Hardens when he staggers home.

Again. His eyes are bloodshot. Despicable. I serve him dinner.

I hate him. Again.

Dusk.

Unlike
by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

They called her the Food Nazi. She ruled her more than 100,000-member food-lovers group with an iron fist: deleting posts and blocking users for even liking something she didn’t like herself. Her Facebook profile picture was a duck, and she was notorious for not accepting friend requests. Restaurants trembled before Nina Das’ virtual opinion court.

Offline, Nina was Ninoo, 13-years-old and the youngest member of a restaurant-owning family. They never connected the days they scolded her with the days they got bad reviews. Those days, Ninoo was sent to bed early, but she lay there, smirking to herself in the darkness.

A Job
by Priyanka Mookerjee

The salt spray washed him clean even before he hit the water. But he dove in anyway, swimming way out deep, feeling fresh and hopelessly insignificant — the perennial anhedonia of man at sea.

He needed this. Usually it was cigarettes and sharp, short knives. Sometimes a political magazine, rolled-up tight. But today, he had pulled out an unfamiliar black tube as he checked the goods before stealing them in. The prison was gun-guarded; maximum security. No room for error.

He had held up the black tube. It had pulled apart at the middle, it was pink inside. Lipstick.