"You will be immortal", Auguste promised. "Till Eternity, people will cherish your beauty."
I was reluctant. Auguste was firm. Jean Baptiste had insisted the model be only me. I did not want Jean Baptiste near me. After passion and promises, he always left me nursing a broken heart.
But my mother had tuberculosis. I needed money for food.
Auguste was no ordinary sculptor. He sucked out my essence, imprisoned it in stone. I'd ended up selling my soul for fifty francs. Jean Baptiste can never leave me again. But is there no life beyond this embrace? Will Eternity ever end?
______
Drabble(n) - an extremely short work of fiction exactly one hundred words in length.
This was written for the Valentine Feature of the Burrow
4 comments:
utterly brilliant
Thanks Marian. Wrote it almost exactly a month back (still remember the day - it was when I was going to South Bombay to collect my running bib).
Such a sad story, beautifully drabbled.
Thank you, Dipali.
One of my personal favourites. Incidentally, I saw the statue for the only time in the Birla Museum of Arts on Southern Avenue. Was in '83, I think.
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