By Mehreen Ahmed
Bones remembered. They read like an open storybook. Of creatures, of habits, of cultures; if bones
were to be reconstructed, and retraced, a narrative of a forgotten race could emerge like a dancing
dream. In my deep sleep who I dreamt was no more predictable or consequential than my skin-deep
complexion. Just as well, The face I dreamt of last night was inconsequential and unpredictable.
Yet, I dreamt of someone in my unconscious, subterranean self; I dreamt of a hobbit slamming a
door to my face in not-so-subtle ways.
I know this hobbit, I’ve known him for years. Who often chided me, and laughed at my button nose
and the dark tone of my skin. Until one day, I stepped on his toes for being churlish. He was in the
throes of a maddening mid-life crisis, and I, was in my sweet twenties. I grumbled, I was grim, and
his grimy comments tormented me; he told me that I had a pig nose, that I was the black baby of
this fair-skinned family, without any hope of ever securing a husband. Who would marry me?
Thankfully, I wasn’t the black sheep, because I had the graciousness to repeatedly forgive him for
his rudeness. I was better than him. He was such a tease!
Well-groomed, the hobbit harboured a desire to become king. He was our neighbour’s grandson.
Growing up, he pulled my pigtails an awful lot. I never took him seriously, particularly because his
waywardness affected me. I realised that but I was also helpless to avoid him because he would be
everywhere—by the lake, barking up the same or the wrong tree, too, sometimes which I also did in
the forests, the mountains peaks, the old haunts as it were; as though he could read my mind. As
though he timed me and he knew exactly where to find me.
Liked him? I did not for calling me a black, button-nosed creature of the night. But what could I do?
When I tried telling an adult, they ignored me, laughed it away, calling me a button-nosed Krishna
as well—the dark girl. I heard it so often being called the ‘dark beauty,’ the ‘night,’ even ‘dark
knight,’ that the word “dark” sunk into me like a stinging fly as a telltale sign of the adults grinning
at me like Cheshire.
The suspicions began to stir my sensibilities; a confusion arose within me as to the use of that
adjective: elevated me sometimes as one who possessed exuberant “dark beauty” or lowly
condescension to “dark ugly.” Nice try. But my fortitude and optimism quelled such misgivings and
gave me the strength to rise above such double-edged touches of sarcasm/compliments, apportioned
by the adults.
I stood tall, lifted my brows, and held a button-nose high as I went about my way, bracing myself
from any negativity seeping into me. I was a beacon of resilience. I began to laugh with them. My
family fed me well, took me to the best forests, and told me the best fantasies about our elves and
fairies. I listened to the best flute music and vocals. My cave room was full of the rarest forest
flowers, and gifts of precious gems, rubies, lapis lazuly, and diamonds glittered, everywhere I
looked. My family taught me well, to be fearless and proud.
The hobbit spent an awful lot of time with my family and me. His mind soaking up all the toxicity
around my looks. While I had a clear plan as to what I wanted in life, he had none and
often floundered in the most wicked dreams. When he teased me about my looks, I also played
along laughing and gave back some in banter; fruitless and impervious as he was to a purposeless
life. While I wanted to be a healer, he? Well, King of terra nallius. For he was just that—a King of
nobody who only excelled in churlish behaviour.
No wait, not entirely. He did have some interests. One afternoon, I walked over to his grandfather’s
big cave next door, I entered, and not a soul was in or around. I entered a library full of all kinds of
dead species, birds, and insects. Some rare butterflies, were also, dreadfully pinned against the cave
skirt walls. Stuffed animals of hunted tigers, speared lion heads, and curved elephant tusks.
Grandfather and Great, Great, Grandfathers spared no animals in all the jungles as they went about
their infamous hunting and gathering ruse without compunction. They looted the nearby forests and
left nothing for other hobbits.
Looking at these, I wondered what else they collected. I ventured upstairs to the other rooms.
Trespassing? Sure it was, but I have been walking these great halls forever, too, never this far
though, not even the library, always closed. The hobbit’s bedroom doors were ajar, just when I
heard footsteps at the entrance downstairs. He entered with a folded bark under his arm. I retreated
deeper into the dark walls.
He ascended the jagged stairs, two rapid steps at a time, and went into his room. The door was still
wide open. I heard a dropping noise. I peeked from behind him and saw some bones rolling out of
the bark as it unfolded. Were they hobbit or animal bones I had no idea. I came out of my hiding,
and descending the stairs, I fast-paced through the mountain passes, and back into our cave next
door. It was my deep secret, I discreetly held within myself until I decided to find out more. I was
taught to be fearless and free.
It was crazy. Why would nobody be present when I was in there? Was this deliberate? I went to
their cave many times, but never did I see anything like it. Did they want me to see those objects? I
always thought they were great hunters and travelers. Whose mother died at childbirth. Whose
father and grandfather raised him to be a hobbit of the world, and sent him across several seas to
learn more about life? They grew up in a family without bonding with any female, who, in his spare
time came to our place; a joyful place, our little cave teeming with my aunts, uncles, cousins, mum,
and dad with whom he bonded. Of course, me. He bonded with me too.
The hobbit never cared to speak much about anything. He was a vapid soul, an empty shell
unaffected by the bones he collected. Bones belonging to those who would routinely try to find gold
in throw-away rocks after a clean dig of the hobbit-owned goldmine grounds. Where such hobbits
living in abject poverty would hammer away on these empty rocks in the hope of leftover gold dust;
until death claimed their souls; and their bodies lay amok. No gold was ever found or ever meant to
be found in those hard rocks, except their bones.
Hard rocks. The fanciful hobbit goldmine, a deadly cesspool of exploitation where other hobbits
worked themselves to death in the hope of more meat and food through the deadly hours of the
dark, hot mines; honing skills for more gold out of the rocks; blood being vamped, bones being
chewed until their teeth clenched, muscles relaxed, and the dwarf bodies lay pale and petrified.
Bones brought home stripped off any traces of soft tissues, or faintest skin colour.
Down to the bare bones. Our hobbit friend suddenly died. Where they were collected and preserved
in a bone library of all kinds of Neanderthal, Homo floresiensis, australopithecus, paranthropus, and
the earliest-known Homo Erectus skeletons; his bones, even in extinction, proved to be infinite;
every inch fossilised in the purest, solid form, his tales locked in. Unlike others, I didn’t have a
single bad bone my mother always said. It’s all in the bone. The rest were fantasies, lost in a vapour
of ice.
Mehreen Ahmed is an award-winning Australian novelist born in Bangladesh. Her historical fiction, The Pacifist is an audible bestseller.Included in The Best Asian Speculative Fiction Anthology, her works have also been acclaimed by Midwest Book Review,and DD Magazine, translated into German, Greek, and Bangla, her works have been reprinted, anthologized, selected as Editor’s Pick, Best ofs, and made the top 10 reads multiple times. Additionally, her works have been nominated for Pushcart, botN and James Tait. She has authored eight books and has been twice a reader and juror for international awards. Her recent publications are with Litro, Otoliths, and Alien Buddha
Hot Pot Magazine 