The perfect plate of fried fish.

Heya!! =)

This is my first attempt at a short story, please comment!

Lea.

The Perfect Plate Of Fried Fish

He sat at the dining table with his customary evening drink in his hand. The plate of fried fish in front of him reminded him of Sakshi…

He remembered how much Sakshi had always enjoyed shopping, even if it was for something as mundane & uninteresting as fish. She loved rushing to the market & haggling with the vendors over a rupee or two. She’d come home with a triumphant smile on her face & then get down to cleaning & cutting the fish she knew he loved. She would hum a happy tune as her nimble fingers expertly skinned, chopped & rinsed over their kitchen sink. Her kitchen sink, he reminded himself. She had always loved her kitchen; after all, she spent half her life in it, cooking, cleaning & then planning his next meal…

He picked up a piece of the fried fish & put it in his mouth…

Sakshi had always been scared of frying things, an unfortunate predicament that marred the image of her being the perfect domestic goddess. The possibility of having hot oil splatter on her pretty face was too much for her to risk she’d always joke.”And in any case, I’m not frying anything that’s going to fuel your drinking …you really should control yourself Adnan….”These lines had become familiar enough to resound in his head even when she wasn’t around.

The fish was cold & too salty…

Sakshi was a brilliant cook, even when it came to frying things. She always made sure her husband had the perfect plate of food served to him. He had always wondered how she managed to figure out exactly how much salt should go into whatever it was she was making…she seemed to know by grace & not by law. The way her long well kept fingers swirled gracefully over her cooking pots imparting just the right amount of ingredients to a dish never ceased to fascinate him…in fact, he had noticed it just that afternoon. He had walked into a kitchen that was singing of the makings of a delicious dinner & had asked her to fry fish for him to go with his evening drink. She refused him with the usual ramblings of how he should control his alcohol consumption…she stood there with her back against him & continued to hum that annoyingly cheerful tune.

The fish tasted awful. “Pft! There goes my drink…..”

She hadn’t noticed the black frown that was growing on his semi-drunk face. She hadn’t expected angry growl she heard, neither did she expect him to grab her by the hair & fling her across her kitchen like a rag doll. He hadn’t expected her head to hit the wall as violently as it did….

He looked over to where her limp body now lay; her blood congealed on her kitchen floor, staining her kitchen wall. He smirked as he remembered how she’d always boast that people could eat off the floor in her kitchen, her spotless kitchen.

“I must remember to never buy fried fish from Ramu kaka again…..what a waste of money…”

Adnan suddenly felt a strange queasiness as he looked at Sakshi’s lifeless body. A funny pang of….remorse? He felt so sorry for having done this to her. His whiskey didn’t taste as good without Sakshi’s perfect plate of fried fish…