Here is my 250-word flash fiction for the following prompt by Artoons Inn
All over a plate of pani-puri
I watched the two gobble up the pani-puri, unmindful of the stray juice drops sliding down their chin. That’s my forte… the customers here shed their etiquette and inhibitions, only to focus on the blend of the tastes bursting in their mouths. For years, I have witnessed relationships bloom over a plate of this delicacy.
While I stuff the ragda in the slightly cracked puri and dip it in the green minty waters and then in the orangish sweetness of the dates, multiple times I also hear and imbibe the surrounding conversations.
Afsana and Vasudev are now in their late 30s. I pride myself on the fact that they first met at my stall as teenagers, strangers, but fell in love gradually, all over a plate of pani-puri.
I saw them come hand-in-hand as their romance blossomed, to the day she cried because Saffron and green couldn’t blend in their households unlike in my puri. Probably the taste of my concoctions helped them forget their plight briefly. My heart broke too. All over a plate of pani-puri…
They met stealthily, regularly, as years passed… sharing their marital grievances right here amidst the din of the other customers so that no one would know, all over a plate of pani-puri.
A few days earlier, Afsana’s husband passed. Vasudev had been a divorcee for years. Today, to my utmost relief, he asked her, “Afsana, will you marry me…?”
Tears meandering down her cheeks, she said, “Yes”
All over a plate of pani-puri.
