Girl With Large Eyes

Anita had not fully unpacked the things when he returned from the office in the evening. The process was long, uninspiring, and tiring. Necessary utensils, clothes, and toiletries had found their homes. Books, curios, and fancy crockery still lay in the carton boxes, waiting for their turn.

- Sangeetha G

"How do you find the new place? Did you meet the neighbors?" Mithun asked while sipping the hot tea.

"I did not get time to move around much. The unpacking is taking longer than I had expected," she said.

"A girl had come during the noon time to meet me. A thin girl with large eyes.

She stays in the neighborhood," she added. She looked slightly excited about having met at least one person during the day.

"A girl?" He expected more information.

"She should be ten years old. She was timid and barely spoke anything. She did not even smile at me. Kept staring at me with her large eyes. I offered her the sweets we had bought for our previous neighbors. She did not accept them and ran away quickly," Anita said.

In the subsequent days, Anita kept him updated about the girl when he came back from the office. She was the only visitor Anita had all those days. The girl had started speaking to her, but she never smiled back.

"Her father is an alcoholic. She and her mother stay with her uncle. The father had dumped them at her uncle's place and left," she said.

"Her father also is an alcoholic? Why are these men wasting their lives as well as the lives of others in the family?" he said.