| Suchitra Sukumar | January 2025 | Flash Fiction |

Bulbul is stuck in a giggle loop. 

Dinner is not a good time for giggling. She is sitting at the dining table between her two mothers. She has nicknames for both – one is ‘nice mother’, the other is ‘angry mother’.

Giggles have a mind of their own, though. Mischievous things. They gurgle up and down her throat, slip between her milk teeth and use their ghostly fingers to prise her lips open. 

“Why aren’t you eating?” Angry Mother huffs, clanking her fork on the ceramic plate.

Nice Mother reaches a hand to tuck Bulbul’s hair behind her ear and says, “Remember what I taught you, one small bite at a time.”

Bulbul’s ears grow hot because the giggle is running around her mouth now, enthused by her effort to keep a straight face. 

“Why won’t you answer me?” Angry Mother continues. She sighs and crosses her arms. “No one will move until you take another bite.”

Bulbul tries to swallow the giggle. It dives inside her throat eagerly.

“Let’s see what you learnt in school today,” her nice mother says, reaching into the school bag that’s lying on the floor next to her. 

“Oesophagus.”

Oh no. Not that funny word. Ee-saw-fa-guss, she thinks and that makes the giggle wriggle. Bulbul’s face goes tomato red.

She sticks her pinky up and looks at her nice mother.

“Go.”

Bulbul’s chair shrieks as she pushes it back and goes running to her room. She climbs under her bed, opens her sequin-studded shoe box and pours the giggle into it, shutting the lid before it escapes. Then she falls back, exhausted. The giggle box shakes, thinking it’s a game.

Bulbul counts backwards from twenty to one and walks back to the dining table.

Angry Mother is now sitting at the table with her bottle of dark-brown juice, the one that smells bad. 

“We discussed that you won’t drink in front of her,” Nice Mother says.

Angry Mother’s eyes burn red. She whacks the bottle to the floor, and the liquid sprays all over Bulbul’s legs. 

Nice Mother screams, stands and picks Bulbul up. She places Bulbul on her waist, picks the plate of food up and walks into Bulbul’s room. She puts her on the bed.

“All I asked you to do was eat slowly, poopoo,” she says, and her shoulders start shaking. Something wants to escape from Nice Mother’s mouth as well. Bulbul watches as her lips quiver. She knows it’s not a giggle.

Bulbul picks up a bite of food, takes it to her mother’s mouth, waits for the lips to part. A tear plops onto her hand. Quickly, Nice Mother makes another bite of food and holds it up to Bulbul’s lips.

“One. Two,” she says, nodding her head slowly. “Three,” they whisper in unison, and both take a bite.

Then, Bulbul cups her mother’s face, gently wipes the tears away and kisses her on the forehead.

“Am-ma,” she says with a deliberate voice. “What happened to my poor amma?”

Her mother whimpers silently, trying not to let the cry escape.

“Gimme a sec,” Bulbul says, just like grown-ups do.

She then bends to pull the giggle box out from under the bed.

Her mother’s wet eyes glint as she sees the box. 

Bulbul brings the box close to her mother’s face and opens her mouth wide before speaking.

“Say aaa”.

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Suchitra Sukumar is a self-taught writer based in Bangalore, India. She has published short stories in the Bombay Literary Magazine and Tasavvurnama. She is currently working on an adult fantasy novel. She pays her bills by running her own brand consulting firm. In her spare time she discusses philosophy with her two very wise dogs, reads, writes and collects second-hand books at an alarming rate.

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Feature image by Alex Plesovskich via Unsplash 

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