Marianne de Nazareth, Short Story 2022 Shortlist

The Cicada's Song

At the edge of the brackish water, where the bulrushes rustle in the breeze, the song of the cicada rises up to fill the somnolent , humid air. Claire’s fine black hair was lifted off the nape of her neck by a playful little breeze which floated down the Paw Dee river Her dark, doe eyes gazed dreamily down the rippling river as she swung her legs from the edge of the pier. In the deep dark depths of the river, she knew there were alligators and snapping turtles and so was careful, watching for any unusual movements in the water below.

She was on holiday with her parents on Pawley Island in North Carolina, for the 4th of July weekend. All the hotels were booked up to full capacity in Charleston , which her parents loved visiting, so the next alternative was George Town and Pawley’s Island.

“ What a weird choice!” growled her Dad to her Mum as they unloaded their stuff from the car boot, into the room.

“ How many stars has this hotel been rated?” asked her sister Olivia grumpily.

“ Three stars!” said her Mum, very matter-of-factly.

“ Three?” squealed her sister. This is an Inn, not a hotel. I hate it.”

“ Stop it Olivia,” said Claire sharply. “ Please stop whining through the trip. We will hardly be in the room all weekend so the room is really quite unimportant.”


“ Rubbish!” said her Dad, taking Olivia’s side, making her mother flair up as always. Her family was never happy anywhere. Fighting and grumbling all the time, exhausting Claire and making her sunny disposition recede into the dark.

Seeing the snowy white sheets in the room and the bouncy mattresses, Claire’s smile returned and the whole family trundled off for lunch. An Inn was not so bad after all she thought, but did Olivia and her Dad think the same way?

“Let’s go to a restaurant with a river view,” said her Mum.

“ Tons of mosquitos and alligators!,” grumbled Olivia and her Dad seconded her grumble. Immediately her Mum began to check her Yelp app to find a place close enough for them to go to. Olivia and her Dad only whined and grumbled, not helping in any way.

“Austin’s Harvest sounds good!” said her mum, “ with 5 star ratings.”

Her Dad hummed along to “ This Girl is on Fire!” being belted out on the car radio by Alicia Keyes. In minutes the whole family was singing on the tops of their voices, as the car smoothly glided down the city main road, with its avenue of ancient old Oak trees festooned gaily with creepy looking Spanish Moss.

The humidity kept the moss growing and spreading across the branches of the trees and it was a great feeling of exhilaration for Claire, driving under the canopies of trees, that had seen generations of visitors pass under their branches over the centuries.

“I can just see a swashbuckling plantation owner riding his horse down this road which probably was just a path a century ago,” said her Mum.

“ Not a very happy idea!,” said Claire who had watched several exceedingly shocking films, about slaves and their miserable lives under nasty and mean plantation bosses in the history of the South.

“ He must have been a nasty man wielding a whip, with a pack of dogs which helped him stop the slaves from escaping,” said Claire.

Entering the crowded restaurant Claire and her family searched for an empty table closer to the view of the river. A haze hung over the water that slapped against the jetty and under the pier.

“ Looks like they have live music at night,” remarked her Dad seeing that a guy was setting up a small stage with musical instruments,

“ We could definitely come back here for dinner.”

“Änd Karaoke!” shouted Olivia excitedly.

“ Yes, let's do that !” said her Mum as they slipped into comfortable chairs while a smiling waitress in the skimpiest of shorts, offered them Menus. Poor Claire hated karaoke as she was tone deaf and could not sing. What was worse, her Dad would force her on stage and then yell at her in front of strangers, if she did not keep the note.

So Claire wandered off to the pier and stayed away while the family fought and bickered over the menu and what to order as always. It was embarrassing and Claire preferred the quiet of the pier and the lapping sounds of the river.

“Ready to order?” asked the waitress while her Mum rattled off “She Crab Soup! Stuffed Mushroom and Grilled Grouper fish fillets for herself and her husband. She ordered regular burgers with french fries for the girls.

“Claire! Your meal has arrived, come in and eat!” called out her mother and Claire who was daydreaming did not hear her. She was sad thinking of how her family could never agree and there was always nastiness swirling around wherever they went. Here they were on vacation and yet! Bicker and fight and never a good word between any of them.

The song of the cicadas rose to a crescendo and Claire loved their churring, rasping song which rose and sank in waves, washing over her senses. A fish plopped back into the black depths of the river and the balmy and tranquil waters seemed to be inviting her to join its depths. It was like a spell had risen out of the peaceful depths of the Paw Dee, entwining and enfolding her in its soothing embrace.

“All the fights and bickering will go away forever !” whispered the lapping waters.

“ You can find joy and contentment in my arms,” promised the gently murmuring waters eddying and rolling against the pier.

“Just gently slip off the pier and join us,” urged the bull-rushes and the birds flitting between them.

“ I am coming, I am coming,” mouthed Claire, staring unblinkingly into the black depths, in a seemingly hypnotic trance.

“ Claire! Where are you?” floated her mother’s voice in the breeze overhead, while Claire just launched herself into the cool swirling waters, which swallowed her into their depths in minutes.

Marianne de Nazareth, Short Story 2020 Longlist

A Murder of Crows at Dawn

Sugandhi was rudely awakened by the loud cawing of crows. Her eyes flew open when she realised it was early morning and still dark and yet the crows were cawing madly on the tamarind trees outside her bedroom window.

“What the heck?” she thought, squinting at her Fitbit in the dark. “It’s only 4:30am and why are the crows cawing so crazily? Looks like they are having a conversation about COVID-19,” she thought smiling wryly to herself.

She plumped up her pillow and laid down again, trying to get back to sleep but no such luck. Her brain was wandering around, wondering about the cawing birds which sounded desperate. Almost as if they were having a conference on what to do. What to do about what, she thought as she slowly fell back to sleep.

Waking at her regular 6:30 am with her phone alarm going off, she tiptoed into the bathroom so as to not wake the others in the house, while pulling on her running gear for her early morning jog. Thankfully that was one part of her daily routine she had not given up in spite of COVID-19.

“Tie those laces firmly or you will be stopping midway, trying to lace them up on the road,” she sternly said to herself. The shoehorn she bought in Bangkok helped slip on the fitting running shoes quite effortlessly.

Her mind went back to the crows cawing at that ungodly hour that morning, as she jogged up Hayes Road. We humans are not the only one disturbed with COVID-19, she realised. The crows were definitely hungry as they were scavengers and now with all human movement locked down or locked in, well they were really and truly hungry.

We humans had made them dependent on us along with the stray dogs that roamed the streets of Bangalore. Trash and garbage which included waste food was always thrown around our roads and street corners. That’s where the dogs and crows feasted and thrived.

She jogged along the beautiful St. Mark’s Road TenderSure pavement, revelling in the abundance of flowers growing on the street medians. Masses of gem coloured bougainvillea flowed over the Bishop Cottons Girls’ School stone wall. And she let her eyes feast on their colours and abundance.

“For once they were left to bloom rather than being picked clean by the flower pickers every morning,” she thought.” Definitely the positive side of COVID-19 that nature was being left alone with no man around to disturb her.

Suddenly she saw a low slung Hoysala police car cruising along the road. “ Oh no! Let them be merciful and leave me to jog,” she thought worriedly.

Letting out a sigh of relief as they silently drifted past, she was glad she was not told to turn back and ‘get home’ like the reports in the press said the cops were doing. The cops apparently were sending back dog walkers and runners, if they found them on the road, which was silly if true. There was no question of breaking the social distancing rule here. She was literally the only one on the road!

She rounded the State Bank of India curve peering in at the just opening water lilies. A royal purple, the lilies grew in a large pond in the SBI garden. Here too the gardens look lush and bursting with flowers, with no humans to decimate them. The pourakarmika smiled a good morning while he wielded his handsome looking coconut brooms, as he swept the pavement.

“I must call Nirmala and ask her if she has heard the crows too,” she thought to herself as she took the home stretch back to the gate. “ She probably would have a theory, like she always did!”

“They are not ‘flocks’ of crows Sugandhi, interestingly it’s known as a ‘murder’ of crows,” she said in asnwer to Sugandhi’s phone call.

“Well they are screaming blue murder every morning, so that’s really an apt collective noun!” replied Sugandhi with a laugh, chuckling to herself as she hit end to her call and headed for her shower.