From a Liar's Child

The woman was sitting by the window of the crowded train. She had a medium sized bottle in her hand with a rolled up paper inside it. She thought twice and thrice if she should open up the rolled stuff which belonged to someone else though it somewhat interested her.

She was traveling with a 'Happy camp' team to a well-known Sea site. She joined them in order to relieve her stress that was upsetting her from the past few days. Genuinely it was suggested by her husband. This time they were on their way back to the capital city were they live.

 Initially, they all had the same motive "To reduce stress and depression ". It seems it all worked for most of them except her and few couples of people who were still silent with shrunken expressions.

While paying a visit to the sea shore following their camp schedule, she was having a lonely walk all by herself and her teammates were busy running back and forth playing with the waves like teenaged kids letting their souls free of all tensions that gave them the reason to join the camp. That was the time when she found this bottle partially dipped into the sand. It made her thoughtful.

She knew, people from years ago used to leave bottles with rolled up papers by the sea shores. Letters not papers, to be precise. She wondered if it was a letter or was it someone’s marksheet with failures and low grades that was left behind to avoid some kind of embarrassment. But leaving it here would make no sense. Some sort of feelings raised inside her that made her pick the bottle up. She kept it with her till they finished the night camp by the fire with a dinner consisting of sea foods.

She was asked by another woman while sitting by the fire “Oh, is that a newspaper rolled inside that bottle in your hand?”

“I am not sure”, she replied with a weak smile, “I found it by the shore.”

“Hmm, seems like a letter”, the another woman giggled, "a love letter perhaps!"

“I wonder”, she threw back.

They were suppose to pass the night inside tents at the beach which was too a part of the camping schedule.

When she finally washed up and was ready to sink into her sleeping bag she recalled she wanted to unroll the paper from the bottle that she had preserved safely inside her backpack. Should she? Why did she even picked it up?

The night passed.

Now, sitting in the middle of crowd with the instrumental noise of the train mixed with an old song played inside the train she wondered if it was the perfect place to pull the paper and unroll it. She kept hesitating. Should she?

At length, the woman pulled out the paper and unrolled it as her curiosity was at it's limits.

It was A LETTER.

"Dear Mother,

I hope you are doing fine wherever you are. I am fine too!

You will be glad to know that I found a job. They say getting a good job was my luck as I could not continue attending high school because I had no money. That day I saved a tourist from sinking into the sea who was shoved by the waves and was not a good swimmer. I was able to seek attention from the head of lifeguards who offered me to join the rescue team that was eligible for a student like me. I had to take few strict trainings hoping to see better days than chopping onions at the sea side restaurants.

I realized that you lied to me when we had little food and you offered me to eat the whole part claiming you are strong enough and so you do not get hungry, you lied about buying clothes for me that was actually the cut and sewed portions from your own clothes, you lied that you will pay my school fees soon and it were not a burden to you, you lied that father was not dead and either he will come back himself or he will be sending us money soon. Also the last time when you asked me to play and wait by the sea shore and said you will be back within a couple of minutes, I realized that you lied. Even your beautiful smile that was forced from your side, was a beautiful lie. I know it all.

Mother, I'm grateful that you lied to me when I was a child and so I lived happily believing you without understanding or feeling the hardships back then. I want to return this favor. Now nothing is like before. We do not need a father either. If you ever find this letter, come back. I will wait by the sea shore just like you had asked me to do years ago.

-Shima"

The woman rolled back the letter and pushed it inside the bottle.

She decided to get off the train on the next station. She will board on another train ensuring that it will take her back to the coastal site. She was going to leave the bottle were it was because Shima must be waiting for her mother to receive the the letter.

All she needed to do returning home after this was to revisit the asylum where she left her son because her family suggested to. She is going to bring back her son, he must be waiting.

She will fight her In-laws and wait for her husband to join her realizing that every child awaits their parents to protect and love them and they want to return the same out of gratefulness.

It was what she learned from the letter of the liar's child.

The woman looked out the window, the gentle breeze was pushing her hairs back. That greenery scenery outside the window takes her back to the days when she often found her son dipping seeds inside plastic bottles filled with soil trying to plant saplings. He had a beautiful mind even though he acted stupid.