The Devourers

by Indra Das

I tell him about my parents’ approval of Shayani being a pretty Bengali girl, and the various elaborate lunches and dinners and receptions over which our two families bonded and became one, using our romance as an excuse. About the collapse of all our plans and the cancellation of our impending betrothal—a tortuous, mutual decision to respect the beauty of our courtship and not have it be rotted away by the boredom we felt after our relationship became a performance for our families. About the rift between my family and me that followed—my rejection of their hysterical reaction to this breakup. The inverse of Romeo and Juliet: two families so eager to be one that the star-crossed lovers can’t stand it anymore.

When in the droning air of red evening we saw a falconer traipsing by the road, ringed by a variety of colored birds seated upon the hoop hanging around his shoulders, calming them with song from the flute at his lips, I wondered if I was like those birds, soothed by an invisible song, following an inscrutable being that might well barter me off to another even worse, or devour me. The falconer passed us by, trailing the nervous flutter of brittle wings.