Flash Fiction 2014 Second Prize Paresh Tiwari

Beyond (A Haibun)

My evening walks often take me around the short neglected boundary of a cemetery. As the urgent horns of passing vehicles weave through the potholed roads, I can almost hear the pooling silence of the time-ravaged tombstones inside. None of my loved ones are buried here and yet the overgrown weed, the bare limbed trees, yellowing grass, a forgotten bunch of flowers, the puddle of wax from dead candles and the half-obliterated epitaphs in calligraphic Urdu beckon me like an old forgotten friend.
Every evening, I halt beside this collage of shadows and melting sun before moving on…

dew web…
the feeble struggles
of a housefly