In the spring, the streets flooded with litter.

Dhriti went out daily, rummaging for anything either their family could use or sell. For this reason alone, the scent of sewage and rotting fruit was bearable. If anything, Dhriti seemed to love that time of year the most, because there were less days when her family went to bed with aching, empty stomachs.

But it was also a season of dangers, of stories of women doing the very thing she was–trying to support their families–only to be swept away.

Every morning when she left, she kissed her children with the fervor of a woman who knew she was never going to see them again. And every evening when she returned, she filled her ears with their laughter.

Are you okay, maan? they’d ask.

And she’d pinch their too thin cheeks and smile. It’s nothing.

* * *

Everyone warned her not to go. The rains has fallen for three days now, and even though there was nothing in the forecast calling for anything like a tsunami, there were reports of a child who’d gone missing.

But the night before Dhriti had been painfully aware of her husband’s absence, in a way she had not for a long while. They’d eaten biryani, no meat, not because they were vegetarian but because it had been a lean week, with few discoveries and piling debts they could not afford. When her husband was alive they had often been poor. But never this poor.

As a widow at only 36, Dhriti felt very young and old at once, and her status as a widowed mother of three made it impossible to get good deals at the market, where men would charge her more simply because they assumed things.

If she did not go today, there would be no food. Her children would not complain and that made it worse. They would hold their sides and do their chores and not ask for food, even though their stomachs ached, because they knew they had experienced nights like that before.

But Dhriti didn’t think she could bear that. The sun was blood orange as it rose, the heat already visible in the sky. Her oldest, a daughter, lingered behind longer than usual.

Is everything all right?

It will be, Dhriti said, and she tried to believe her own words.

* * *

Someone had been killed, but not by the flooding.

A rubbish pile, stacked stories high, filled with soiled linens and fruit peelings and decomposing things. This thing happened, it was not shocking. But it had not happened for over a year, and Dhriti had foolishly believed someone had taken care of the problem.

She didn’t care much for politics–her husband had been a very traditional man, and so had her father, and they both had discouraged women from talking about such things. But at moments like this, she thought about her fear of the flooding, how she’d been terrified about the wrong thing all along.

This didn’t feel like politics. Nor did the fact that they rarely had enough food, no matter how many rugs she tried to sell. And the rugs were selling worse everyday.

She stood beside a group of women, all of them in saris, like her, that her dusty brown or gray or orange, faded from years of use. The heat was choking but the stench was worse, and it was impossible to say if it was from the rubbish or the body or both.

Bhagavaan madad kare, the woman beside Dhriti muttered. God help us.

She knelt in prayer, but Dhriti remained standing. As it turned out, the victim was another mother, nearly as young as Dhriti. They could not see her body, nor did any of the women want to.

Because, given a twist of fate, a few minutes different, it might have been any one of them.

* * *

Dhriti didn’t go home. Instead she wandered the dusty streets, trying to settle her stomach. Elections were coming up, but she couldn’t say who was running. She hadn’t bothered to listen.

She was thinking of her father and late husband but also of her children and the floods and the garbage. She was thinking she had once believed, if she tried hard enough, life could be better.

She didn’t understand what the candidate was saying. But for the first time, she was at a rally; for the first time, she was listening. A man nudged her she but she stayed where she was, her chest heavy and her body worn but her mind alert.

Soon her children would be coming home and then they would have to find a way to eat. But for now, she would listen, and see what, if anything, she could learn.

# # #

Erin Jamieson received an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University of Ohio. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in After the Pause, Into the Void, Flash Frontier, Mount Analogue, and Foliate Oak Literary, among others.

Photo:  Nicola Fioravanti