#391 A Temporary Matter- Jhumpa Lahiri
Shukumar and Shoba were struggling with their marriage. He
was working on a dissertation and she was working to support both of them. They
were still mourning the loss of their prematurely born child. They lived together,
but were still very much apart.
“Instead he thought of how he and Shoba had become experts
at avoiding each other in their three-bedroom house, spending as much time on
separate floors as possible…He thought of how long it had been since she looked
into his eyes and smiled, or whispered his name on those rare occasions they
still reached for each other’s bodies before sleeping.”
They got a notice that for the next five days the
electricity would be turned off for an hour each night to manage repairs. Those
nights where they ate over candlelight, a forced setting of intimacy, they
seemed to work on their own repairs. They were more truthful on those nights,
in the dark then they had ever been with each other. Some things cant be fixed,
some things shouldn’t be said.
This story comes on strong at the end, like a sudden wave in
a reflecting pool; emotional, heavy, heartbreaking.
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