PART 1
Before Tangles was born, her father was absolutely sure of
him being a boy. He was jublious about becoming a father and nothing could
convince him that he would be a father to anything less than a son. Mighty
preparations were made for the welcome of the family’s heir. However, the would-be
mother was scared and uncertain. She could hold with such conviction as her
husband, the fact that her unborn child was a boy. What if the baby is a girl. What
fate awaits her then?
And with the birth of Tangles, her mother’s fears were
realized. As the little baby girl slept blissfully in her cradle, a grim shadow
of gloom fell upon the family. It hovered over them for about a day, when
suddenly the next morning, the father went up to the cradle, took the baby in
his arms and said, “Its no matter. She will have the longest tail. Longer than
mine or my father’s. This I’m sure of. She shall be the glory of this family.”
But as years went by, it became evident that Tangles would
not have the longest tail, simply because she did not have one at all.
Every child would develop a little tail by second year of
birth. A tail which steadily grew in length thereon and which would be the
glory mark of every kid and his family. Different children had different kinds
of tails. Of various colors and types and lenghths. The grandness of this tail
was directly proportional to madness of the proud parents. Some children had a
long and strong tail, like that of a panther. Others had furry or feathery
ones. A lucky few even developed a peacockish tail, brilliant, huge and fancy. The
parents of these fortunate children would almost twitch in pride.
All of Tangle’s family members had exemplary tails. Her
parents. Aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone. So when it became apparent that this
child was tailless, the graveness of the calamity that befell the family could
not have been described.
A lot of endeavors were made to aid Tangles grow a tail.
From medicine to magic, everything was tried. It was a matter of great shame
for the family to have a child, that too a daughter, without a tail. To their
exasperation and utter disappointment, nothing worked. However in the meantime
something was happening to Tangles. Her ears, unusually large, even at birth,
were continuing to grow larger. By the time, she had to start school, they were
as large as the palm of her hands.
The father couldn’t believe his misfortune. First, a
daughter, then tailless and then with such funny, ridiculous, flappy and large
ears! He could never have imagined that his firstborn will cause him such
agony. She had taken away from him the joy of being a father, a proud father.
All that people ever did was laugh at her. They were amused and bewildered at
how different she looked. He was so distraught by these instances that he grew increasingly
distant from her. There came a time when he stopped acknowledging her presence
and in case he was forced to do so, he would react with anger and irritation.
Tangles, though an incredibly loving and affectionate child had by now begun to
understand that she would have to stop craving for the love of her father and
any sort of friendship from the society. By the tender age of six, she had
realized that she was an anomaly, an unwelcome misery and an outcast. Her
classmates looked down upon her and laughed at her and her teachers treated her
as invisible. The only person that loved her unconditionally was the mother.
She was her only refuge, the only person who knew that though Tangles did not
have a tail, her ears were very special in their own way. While the rest could
only hear, Tangles could listen. She could listen to the music that others were
deaf to.
She was not
defective, she was different.
