The beard

He stood in front of the mirror. He had grown a beard. He never thought he was capable of growing a beard.
He never thought he was capable of a lot of things.

"Bad things happen to good people sometimes, child. But good always wins" His mother had said that. When at the age of 18 he saw his parents divorcing each other he lost faith in that statement. It was a lie, he decided. His mother was either not good enough, or it was a lie. It was definitely a lie.

It was not that he did not love his mother. He loved her, even when he stormed out of the house soon after his father left, leaving her alone and stranded in a large, cold house. He loved Maya too. Back when she laughed at his jokes and lay her head on his shoulders, back when they exchanged marriage vows, back when they bought a new house, but also that hot summer day when the sun was so bright it made you think strange thoughts. But it wasn't the sun. It was he himself.

He held the blade in his hand now. He felt an urge to feel its edge. See how sharp it was. Would it cut skin? Was it enough to reach an artery? The blade he had used then was a kitchen knife, that most ubiquitous of weapons. He had been in the grip of an uncontrollable rage, he told himself later. The sight, the thought, that Maya loved another, was too much for him, he told himself. He told the people around him again and again. But it didn't make the nightmares go away. He could not forget the blood on the knife, the blood gushing out, almost laughably, like a water from a broken pipe, only it was redder, thicker, more vindictive. And surprised, alarmed; Maya's eyes were staring at hime the whole while, even as she fell. He stared back at her, stared at her and the knife, the knife and her, unable to comprehend that the blood on the floor meant that something bad was about to happen. Unable to comprehend that he was taking a life. Unable to comprehend that she had her hand in his sometime ago, that they had exchanged vows, walked round fire seven times, that her hair had fallen on her face just so, that she clicked her tongue to dismiss him when he teased her, that she was no longer here because the blade had killed her. He had killed her.

Through his prison sentence and even now, he saw her face again and again. Not her laughter that he had fallen in love with. Her terrified face, staring back at him, like him, speechless, too speechless to ask questions. Every day this past week he had held the blade in his one hand and the razor in the other, and he had remembered the blade of the kitchen knife. And had just stood frozen there, his hands shaking terribly as the whole day replayed in his mind again and again....

His mother was in the same house she had always been in, although creepers had begun to climb the walls and the drain in front of the house was perennially blocked. He hadn't talked to her since he left the house in the rage. He went back today. His mother opened the door. She was very old now, almost blind with age. She peered through her glasses at the face of her son. Do you need a coffee child? I can make one right now. She went to the kitchen while he looked around the house. She gave him the glass of coffee and sat on the sofa. He sat down beside her. He looked at the coffee. She had always made the best coffee in the world.

He lay down with his head on her lap. They sat that way for quite some time. She caressed his head, her wrinkled hands no longer possessing the strength of old. Yet it was just as the old times. Back when good always won.

He began crying. "I am sorry, ma" he whispered between his tears. She continued to caress his head. "Bad things happen to good people sometimes, beta. And sometimes good people do bad things. But good does win..." She smiled. "You are capable of a lot of good, A. Don't lose faith".

He looked at the mirror. He was capable of good. He looked at the blade in his hand and the razor. He put the blade in the razor and began to shave.

Endnote: Tried my hand at a very short(by my standards) story :)