Bow and Arrow...

  I have been serving my Master for the last 10 years. Strong as the gusty winds with a flexible spine and intricately drawn flowers adorning my wooden body, I have been my Master’s most faithful and prized possession, his constant companion in victories and defeat, his pride and joy of yesteryear's youth. Placed delicately over the mantelpiece, I would often look on haughtily at his other trivial possessions, my scorn almost palpable at their uselessness. I was beyond their reach, detached and invincible, their friendly bonds a disgust and abhorrence to my very soul. I have been carried on my Master’s shoulders, laid defeat to inflated archers, pierced the very hide of thickly veiled creatures and my indomitable spirit, unbending and unyielding, could not comprehend the necessity and splendour of humility.

  Yet my spirit felt restless for it craved her presence. After all these years I still couldn't feign detachment and prove myself immune to her beauty. I have touched and felt so many of her kind, guided them skilfully to their targets and left them to my Master’s mercy to do as he pleased. They had been discarded with ruthlessness after repeated exploitation, their slender and fragile frames worthless and futile after incessant exercise and their pleas had failed to stir my soul. She had never begged, never ever looked my way except to critically access my demeanour with a conceited disdain. Her touch left me breathless... Together we had brought down so many, rejoiced in our glory and had still remained apart. I often searched for her amidst the rows of arrows Master kept neatly arranged in the drawing room, hoping beyond hope that Master had not racked her beautiful body apart. Slender yet strangely alluring... Open yet strangely detached... She had left me rankled and distressed with her quiet mystery. She kept coming back to haunt my dreams and left me peculiarly vulnerable to her charms time and again.

  Master, ofcourse, was getting on in years and he no longer wielded the awe inspiring skill and expertise of his youth. His hunger for glory was now satiated and as I lay there on the mantelpiece day after day, inactivity and idleness softening my lifelong vanity, I found myself yearning for the warmth of friendly attachment of the others around. But pride held me away; my loneliness unwilling to accept their sympathy.

  Drowning in this self inflicted loathing and nostalgia, it took me by surprise when I felt Master’s hands on my body. Adrenaline rushed through my body and excitement filled my core. Maybe after all this time Master too had been unable to resist the temptation of reliving those moments of past glory, maybe his hunger was not yet satiated. As his purposeful steps crossed the expanse of the drawing room, I breathed in the scent of the air around me. But Master had other plans. He unlocked the door to a hidden room adjacent to the drawing space and all the breath left my body. There she lay placed gracefully over the mahogany table, her spiked ends glinting in the light filtering from the windows around. Her striking willowy frame was a little worn out, yet I could still trace the design that had adorned her beautiful lithe body. And as her sight filled my famished eyes, I felt humbled. I felt the futility of my vanity and as Master left me to rot in this unknown abyss, my pride came crushing down from the clouds above to fill me with peace.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.