Caliban - a vignette

The Island Innocent


Reflections don’t lie, especially something as honest as water. The water reflected the lucid grey sky, the green branches swaying and clearly showed Caliban what he couldn’t bear to see. He looked like he was what he was, an aberrance. His form served as warning of what could result from a deviant coupling, as in his case, of devil and woman. If the woman was more human and less wicked, maybe her progeny would have fared better. His was a form which could not be classified as beast or man or fish. It was as if elements of each was chosen at sundry and thrown in together to a horrific outcome. Caliban was nature’s mockery of everything unnatural.

Caliban essentially grew himself up, like a resilient weed in the island. He hunted with the animals, swam with the fish and slept under the blue black sky of the island. He didn’t think, he didn’t feel. He just was.

Then one day like pieces of driftwood, two humans came floating into the island. Caliban gaped, when he saw the ship-wrecked, bedraggled Father and daughter stared at him. Stupid as he was, somewhere deep inside, he could sense their instant revulsion. Feelings he never had flooded him; pain, a keen awareness of surroundings, fear and anger.
His anger later turned into a blind animalistic lust, when he noticed Miranda’s sweet flesh. He had seen the island animals do it. Just as he pounced on her and grappled her to the ground, he heard silence. Her silent revulsion suffocated him, for an instance he saw himself for the beast he was and for that millionth of a second, Caliban was shamed and with the shame came anger. Anger made him want to continue and he would have too, he told himself now, if her father hadn’t chanced upon them.

He’d slunk off the woods, into its comforting darkness and did something he never did before. He had begun to think.

Caliban started noticing things. Things like how the fishes in the stream swam together, how the bear cubs always walked with their mother, how the birds in the trees protected their young ones and he wished desperately, that he like them could also belong. He also noticed how different he was from Prospero and Miranda, how Miranda smelt like the morning air, pure and fresh, how the island seemed so still when dusk came.

The reflection on the stream rippled when his tears fell on them. The sky began to darken, enveloping the island in a shroud of black. Prospero felt relief when his reflection dimmed in the water. He got up heavily and made his way back to the woods, his ungainly feet weaving clumsily, as he tried to avoid treading on the flowers.

tell me your story

Tell me your story
I know you have one

I see it in your eyes
When you sigh and smile
I hear it in your heart
Whilst you gaze away

Tell me your tale
I want to know it

I know it is dark
With spaces between
That you care not to fill
Till you ready yourself

Tell me your story
I am willing to wait