NaPoWriMo 2018 Day 15: Missing

Prompt:  Write a poem in which a villain faces an unfortunate situation, and is revealed to be human (but still evil). 

There were a lot of possible choices for this prompt. But Asifa Bano wouldn't let me go. So I gave in.

In all 15 days of NaPoWriMo, this has been the hardest gut punch of all to write.


MISSING

The temple roof has sprung a leak. It will need patching before the rains come.

The women’s wails reach his ears before he arrives at the house.

Her mother’s cries rise above the rest; Parvati finding her child decapitated

Upon running out of her bath.

Only six and taken by the gods, someone laments.
Here the gods are vicious, carrying dengue on swift wings

Within their striped, tiny bodies.

His  neighbour’s child, smiling and bright-eyed no more.

He offers prayers, awkward comfort. No more waving to him 

No more gap-toothed smiles.

No more laughter. Her little body lies decked in full solemn ceremony

Eyes wide shut, her sleeping expression gravely surprised.

Her mother’s grief washes over him, mingles with his own.

Have you seen my child?
There is fear in this father’s eyes, the weight of racial feuds

Creased into his weathered skin. Tensions poison the blood, sicken the brain.

Asifa. She’s eight. She went looking for our horses. Have you seen her?

He shakes his head, no. Perhaps she’s gone to a relative’s. Perhaps she’s eloped.

He locks the temple, goes home, leaving behind her small huddled body

Drugged, raped, and battered under its mound of plastic mats and rugs.

The eyes of old deities watch from the devsthan, tongues silent from disuse.

The temple roof has sprung a leak.