The Tale of the Wind Chimes and the Disgruntled Demoness
This piece was inspired by a painting of The Demoness of Tibet at the Rubin Museum of Art, upon which I based the three female characters in my flash fantasy fiction story. The protagonist, Rose, is an Asian American girl who helps her grandmother run an Asian antiques shop.
You can tell when someone enters by the sound of the wind chimes on the door. If it is a light, slightly airy sound, this person takes caution and does not want to disturb anyone whilst entering. If it is a more abrupt, robust chime, it’s either a person in a rush to catch the train or a person who has stumbled here by accident to our antiques shop full of Asian merchandise. However, if it is a long, continuous string of chimes, it is probably the wind. The wind howls especially when the temperature drops in the middle of November.
They say the people of Hollow Township are warm-blooded folk; if only that extended to me. Armed with my fluffy red hat, layers of brightly woven and intricately tied scarves, and two pairs of wooly brown socks, I was ready to fend off any storm.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the onslaught of chimes that came from a disgruntled human. I tried to muster up the courage after being shaken by her appearance. I smiled and politely asked her if she would like any help. When she blinked, instead of regular eyelids it looked like she had snakelike slits and green tints in her skin.
“Well, do you have any trinkets?”
When she smiled, she reminded me of a reptile. Yet she had more grace and stature than any human I had ever met.
“We have some in this chest, if you’re interested.” I pointed at an ebony black chest painted elegantly with gold symbols by my grandmother, who was a master of calligraphy. My grandmother told me she wrote the word “entrances” on the chest in Bengali, a language connected to my family.
“Yes, I am definitely interested.” She suddenly appeared closer to the chest. It was jarring to see her move so abruptly. She threw the lid open, flicking trinkets over her shoulder. Soon there were no trinkets left, as she threw the chest away carelessly. With a cold smile, she materialized out of the shop, leaving me in a daze. Except for the trinkets on the floor that looked like a gold mine exploded and the slight ring of the chimes, there was no indication that anyone had been there.
When I kneeled down to pick up a coin, it disappeared. Whilst occupied, my grandmother appeared in a spring-green dress behind me. Considering how close our apartment was and the ruckus that occurred, I wasn’t surprised that she came down. She assessed the situation with a smile on her face as the floor looked less like King Midas dropped by. In moving her hand, I glimpsed a part of her skin that looked discolored; the cause might be the burden of running the store. That’s why I agreed to help out part-time after school and on weekends.
“You look like you had a lively morning. Don’t worry too much or else you will get wrinkles just like your old man,” she said, referring to my grandfather, who worried over the smallest things.
I peered at my grandmother’s face. She had a few wrinkles around her eyes, but what was striking were the faint swirls on the side of her face. I took in her posture and her face that closely resembled my aunt’s. Her long fingers were covered in the same type of swirls that adorned my aunt’s fingers. They both had fingernails that could cut your face into ribbons. When my aunt dressed as a demoness from Southeast Asia during cultural festivals, she painted her skin light green with flecks of gold. I later learned that my grandmother dressed up in a similar manner in her youth.
I recalled the stories about the Southeast Asian demoness that my grandmother often told me in between takes of her charcoal black pipe. Stretching out her legs toward the crackling fire, I would lay my head on the blue pillow as she told me tales of a culture that was still an integral part of our family. Remembering the warmth of those stories, my mind filled with pity for the demoness that was betrayed by her own people. They were scared of her strength rather than empowered by it.
When the last coin evaporated, I turned my attention back to where my grandmother had been standing. She disappeared into thin air. I assumed she went to the kitchen that connected the store to the rest of her apartment. Rather than finding her there, steaming beef ramen and a note was laid out. The note read, in my grandmother’s perfect handwriting, “You did well on your first task, Rose. Congratulations.”
I looked down at my hands to see glimmers of small green scales that felt rough to the touch. Puzzled, I took the ramen to the old-fashioned dining table and sat down for a hearty meal. The demoness my grandmother told me about was more familiar to me than I’d previously thought. I couldn’t tell if I should be worried about the encounter with the green customer or brush it off as my grandmother would.