The Old Ghost of Saria Lane

Smoke engulfs the air as she stokes the embers briskly. The last of the split wood snaps and crackles, disrupting the hush of a house still settled in sleep. Dawn’s pale light traces her rickety door as she quietly lifts the latch, ready to brave the cold in cotton, the few wet woollens weighing down the clothesline. Sickle clutched like an artist’s brush, she breathes life into the weedy canvas, piling perfect swathes of olive green. All in a day’s work – the barn swept,
the rooster fed, water fetched from the mossy well. Broken bones and hearts patched up with ash as ancient as her, burned on our temples and in our minds. By the first cricket chirp, the house huddles to a warmer embrace of food and fire. A lone shadow works under the towering banyan, appearing a wraith through the knotty haze.
I see her again, a picture frozen in time yet somewhat creased: face furrowed, sickle blade rusted, cotton sari frayed. An easy recognition in her partial sight and a murmur on her lips echoed by the wind in the trees. A whispered name called Sitabai.