Creased, Folded Things

By Nidhi

A yellow towel. A warm cake.

That’s all it takes to time-travel.

One frame from Ramayan

folds time in half.

The bench returns.

So does the hand-

offering sweet something

into small, greedy palms.

The air smells of haldi and fried onions.

The stories-

of Eklavya, of gods,

of kings who never broke their word-

drift again like incense.

A voice echoes

the same way every memory does:

“beti”

even when it wasn’t meant for me.

Mornings stretched in sacred silence,

prayers drifting well past noon,

bells softer than breath.

The walk to the bus stop

grey pants pressed,

shirt pocket stuffed with little packets

folded, preserved,

always prepared.

One leg folded,

the other drawn up

the way old bodies settle

when they've carried more

than they could say.

A sneeze in the next room.

A laugh that startled the television.

In that room where I slept,

breath was a kind of lullaby.

Some lives

wait decades

to stop surviving.

This one did.

Just not in time.

The next day

was meant to be ordinary.

A return, not a silence.

But grief doesn’t care for discharge slips.

It keeps inhalers

and soft wrappers

in drawers that no longer open.

Now, all it takes

is a spoon clink,

a myth on screen,

or the shape of someone sitting just so.

Grief arrives,

not loud - familiar, punctual.

As if it too remembers

the taste of that soft cake,

the folded leg,

and doesn’t want to leave

before dessert.

By Nidhi