| Naga Vydanathan | January 2026 | Flash Fiction |
“Do you know there’s such a thing as good blood and bad blood?” I declare to Raji as we begin our thirteenth round around the gigantic banyan tree at school. While the rest of our friends are busy sweating it out at the playground, we prefer to stick to gossiping-while-brisk-walking, giving equal exercise to our mouths and legs, until the auto-man comes to herd us home.
Raji’s eyes grow wide. “Blood has types? Like a good student, bad student?”
I puff my chest. “Exactly. When girls become big, some of the blood inside turns bad every month. And you know what? This bad blood needs to come out.”
Her jaw drops open. “Out? How? From where?”
“From somewhere there.” I wave vaguely near the join of my legs.
“In the urine? Will it become red? So much blood coming out – won’t we die?” Raji’s eyes look as if they are going to pop out.
“Arrey, no silly! Not the urine. Another place near there.” I am not sure myself, but I don’t tell her that.
She frowns. “Hmmm…then what happens?”
“You keep a pad to soak it.”
“Pad? You mean a notebook pad?”
I roll my eyes the way Akka does when I mispronounce English. “Not that pad. It is a white rectangle cushion made of cloth or cotton. I have seen my mother get some at the shop. They sell it in black plastic covers, like it’s a top secret. Haven’t you seen aunties or your mother buy it?”
“Hmm … No… But why in a black cover?”
“Shhh,” I lower my voice. “Because no one should know you are buying it.” I like this game of knowing more.
The auto horn blares, announcing its arrival. We grab our school bags and run to the gate, eager to go home.
—
“AKKAAAA! Where are you?”
I pant for breath as I run to every corner of the house – not in the hall… kitchen… our room…. Amma’s and Appa’s room – not even in the bathroom. Where could she have gone?
I finally find her in the dusty side-room where we dump broken chairs and forgotten things. She is sitting on a bare wooden cot – no mattress, just one tired leather pillow and a thin blanket. I am reminded of jail scenes in movies, where prisoners stare at bare walls all day. She looks up eagerly when she sees me.
I grin at her and lift one foot to step in when Amma bellows. “Don’t go inside, Shantha! Don’t touch her.”
“Why?”
“Impure,” Amma whispers.
I glance into the room curiously, careful not to step in. Akka has a separate plate and tumbler. She has washed them herself and kept them near the cot. It dawns on me that she really is a prisoner.
As I step back into the living room, I hear my Paatti hissing. “Plants will die if she touches them now. Curd will curdle. Pickles will rot. Make sure you don’t step into her room, Shantha”.
I go back quietly when no one is watching and peep again through the crack. Akka is drawing circles with her toe on the floor. I go close to Amma and ask in my most timid, pleading voice, “Can I at least play cards with her?”
Amma glares.
—
On the fourth day, Akka suddenly becomes pure again, just like that. Amma massages her with oil, and gives her a long hair-bath.
Then comes the celebration. Relatives troop in like ants. There are lots of sweets and music. Everyone is smiling. Akka sits on a stage in a silk saree, lips painted, eyes black with kajal, looking like a reluctant cinema heroine.
“She is a big girl now. She is ready.”
Akka does look much bigger and grown up now. But, “Ready for what?” I ask Paati and get a smack on my head.
Akka gets a mountain of gifts, but they are all boring adult-gifts. Stainless steel plates, bedsheets, mixie – whatever will she do with these – grind chutney for the whole colony? Akka looks like she wants to crawl into the mixie box and disappear.
—
“Enough studying,” Amma declares one day, after a few months. “Already she is big.”
“You mean she has grown tall?”
Another smack on my head.
Marriage comes very soon – to our own uncle. Everyone seems to think this is a clever idea. Except me and Akka. She looks confused. And before I can understand anything, my Akka is married!
—
A year and a half later, one evening, as our auto-man pulls up to our gate, I see Akka standing there with her baby on her hip. I jump out of the auto, all excited. I barely get to see Akka these days, after she moved to my uncle’s house.
“Hello Akka! Long time!” Raji says, waving brightly.
Akka’s cheeks flush red. For a second, her eyes meet mine. Then she drops her gaze, mumbles something no one can hear, and hurries inside.
Raji frowns. “Why did she run away?”
I don’t answer. But I think I know. Akka doesn’t want anyone from school to see her like this.
That night, I lie awake thinking about the two types of blood.
Bad blood makes you impure. Bad blood spoils rice, kills plants, dirties cloth, and locks you away. Good blood lets you laugh, eat from any plate, pray, study, and live. Good blood is invisible. Bad blood drips red.
All that thinking makes me sleepy. Yawning, I go to the bathroom. There, on my panties, I see a faint stain. Red.
My heart stops. I pull off my panties and shove it under the bucket. I don’t want to sit alone on a bare cot. I don’t want saree ceremonies or black plastic covers. I don’t want to stop school. I want to study. I want to laugh and chat with Raji under the banyan tree. I want to be happy like now.
Maybe, if I hide it, no one will ever know…
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Once a computer scientist, Naga Vydyanathan now trades in stories instead of code. Always a lover of language and books, she likes to pen stories that delve inside the minds of her characters, exploring their quiet fears, bold choices, and hidden thoughts. Her work has been published in Twist and Twain, Flash Fiction North, Literary Yard, Ink Pantry, Literary Stories, Spillwords, and MeanPepperVine.
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Photo by Sed “Creatives” Sardar on Unsplash
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