The streets blazed like fire dressed in flowers.
Kalki walked home from the market with Amma's cloth bag tugging against his hip. The lanes had turned themselves inside out: marigolds spilled from doorframes like molten gold, powders burst into clouds of vermilion and indigo, kites flashed their colours against a pale sky. Loudspeakers crackled with festival songs older than the buildings they echoed from, while temple bells strained to shout above them.
Drones whined overhead, their voices flat and nagging: "Overdue credits… surcharge applied…"
Children darted barefoot between stalls, palms smeared with rangoli powders, laughter shrill as flutes. Vendors bellowed their prices. Sugarcane juice foamed green from the press. Drums rattled without rhythm.
The whole city looked aflame with joy, straining to convince itself nothing had ever cracked.
But inside him, the day pressed like stone.
The priest's hollow chant scraped in his ears — "Prosperity! Progress! Dharma protected!" — while a beggar's hand was waved away like a fly.The boys' mocking laughter clanged sharper than cymbals — "Forestry and Fairy Tales!" — their sneers still lodged under his ribs.And beneath it all, the dream burned — kin betraying kin, temples set alight, oaths dissolving into ash.
The world blazed festive. To him, it felt fractured.
He turned down a quieter lane, searching for air.
And then he stopped.
A boy stood on tiptoe, garland in hand, reaching toward the neck of a cow. His fingers fumbled, petals tumbling into dust. The cow lowered her head with the patience of an elder, dark eyes steady as the earth itself.
The boy giggled, pressing his cheek against her hide."You look beautiful, amma," he whispered. "Go well. Bring us luck. Make them happy like you made us."
The cow nudged him gently, nose damp against his face. He laughed louder, wiping it away as if she had kissed him back. At last the garland hung, lopsided but glowing bright against her dark coat.
Kalki slowed. Something in the tenderness rooted him to the ground.
Then the coin in his pouch grew warm.
Images not his own spilled through him like sudden rain:– Dawn light catching steam as her milk filled brass pots, a woman's shoulders loosening in relief.– Children tumbling across her back, squealing, tugging her ears while she stood steady.– A forehead pressed to her flank after prayer, words whispered into her hide.– Festivals where bells jingled from her neck, flowers knotted across her horns, laughter circling her like garlands.
Kin, not animal. Amma, not beast.
Kalki's chest loosened. For a breath, he almost smiled.
Then a man's voice cut through."Enough," the father said, tugging at the boy's arm. "Let her go."
The boy stroked her ear stubbornly. "But—"
"We'll buy laddus."
At that, resistance melted. The boy kissed her forehead quick, whispered something too soft for anyone else to hear, and skipped away, already laughing at the promise of sugar.
The cow's eyes followed him. Calm, almost content, as the boy pressed his face against glowing jars of sweets. His cheeks puffed, his lips sticky with syrup. His laughter rang down the lane, pure and bright.
The cow twitched her lips faintly, almost a smile. A blessing in parting.
Then voices drifted from the butcher's lane:"Good bargain. She yields no milk now.""Better meat than wasted fodder.""Desert folk pay thrice for holy cows."
Her ears flicked. Her body stilled.
The words cut like knives. The garland slipped, petals scattering like broken hymns.
And she knew. Not with thought, but with the deep knowing carried in her blood.
So this is my end. Not in the courtyard lamplight. Not with children tumbling at my side. Not with whispered prayers into my ear. But here, among merchants and knives. Sold, not for hunger, but for price. For laddus. For numbers.
Her chest trembled. A single tear welled, heavy, and slid down her cheek, glinting in the dusk.
Across the lane, the boy laughed, mouth sugared, waving as if she were already safe.
The coin burned against Kalki's skin, carrying her gaze into him — love, grief, and forgiveness all in one.
The tear struck earth, darkening the dust.
Kalki's chest flared as though struck. The boy's laughter, the butcher's bargain, the cow's single tear — they tangled until his ribs felt aflame.
By the time he reached home, Amma's bag thudded against the pillar, forgotten.
The courtyard waited. The neem swayed above, whispering. At its center lay the witness stone — granite polished smooth by vows so old they no longer had names.
Kalki set aside his clasp. His fingers closed around the shorter staff. Its darker grain burned in his grip, weighty as if more than wood. He stepped onto the stone.
Feet squared. Breath drawn. Balance exact.
But balance did not come. Not tonight.
The priest's chant.The boys' laughter.The dream of kin cutting kin.And above them all — her eyes. That tear, shimmering with betrayal yet blessing. Forgiving, even as forsaken.
The staff shook in his hands. His breath came ragged.
Kin betraying kin.Fathers selling innocence.Priests selling dharma.
Nothing changed. Nothing ever changed.
A growl tore his throat. His body moved before his mind framed words.
The staff roared down.
Wood struck granite. The witness stone split. A fissure carved deep, dust lifting like ash from a pyre.
For an instant, the world paused.
The sparrow froze on the neem branch.Street bells stuttered mid-chime.Even the fan inside the house skipped a beat.
Kalki staggered, chest heaving, staff trembling in his grip. His arms shook, but beneath the tremor burned something sharper — resolve, unyielding.
The fissure pulsed faintly in the half-light, steady with his heartbeat.
The stone should have felt broken.
Instead, it felt awake.
And so did he.
A breeze stirred the neem branches. Dust curled like smoke across the courtyard.
From inside, Dev's laughter rang out — but faltered mid-breath, as though something unseen pressed against the walls.
Ajja lowered his newspaper. His eyes fixed on the fissure. Lines deepened on his brow — not fear, not surprise, but recognition older than words.
No one spoke.
The silence pressed close, heavy, listening.
Not just the house. Not just the neem.
Something vaster leaned nearer. The world itself, waiting.
And faintly, as if carried beneath roots and walls, the resonance stretched outward.A shrine's oil lamp guttered without wind.A temple bell swayed though no hand touched it.Somewhere in a classroom, chalk cracked mid-word.Small, scattered signs — but enough.
The world had felt it too.
Kalki's chest burned with it. The priest's chants, the boys' mockery, the dream of kin betraying kin — and above them all, the cow's single tear.
Nothing had changed. Not across centuries. Not in the city's streets. Not in the hearts that called themselves faithful.
His hand tightened on the staff.
If nothing changes, he thought, then I will bring the change. I will be the source of it. Even if it must be carved in blood. Even if I must cleanse this rotten world with my own hands.
The fissure glowed faintly, as though the stone itself had heard him.
The silence deepened, not emptiness but attention.
As though the world itself had leaned closer, listening to the vow he had just made.