Talk:Novum Acies Chronicles/A Final Goodbye

First of all, don't blame me for doing this in a similar manner like did for his own Weekly short; The Best We Can Make of You. I was only going to add a short section to the main article itself, but Sona himself suggested me to use the talk page for creator's notes.

In my school three years ago, we had a small poem in the Hindi Language, called "Ek Phool Ki Chhah"; which roughly means "A wish for one flower". As a few of you here might know, in the Indian culture in the past, there was a caste system, with the lowest caste people regarded as 'untouchables', isolated from the rest of the society. Now buckle up, as I'm gonna give you a summary of the poem itself, which is quite a tragedy and an emotional one when you understand Hindi. The era is sometime in India's ancient eras, possibly the medieval times.

A single father lives isolated along with the other 'untouchables', living with his only daughter. Once, when she's playing outside, she suddenly falls down (or so I remember). On examining, it is revealed that she has contracted a fatal disease that cannot be cured, and she will last a week or so. Slowly, her body becomes weak, and she becomes bed-ridden. One day, she asks her father for one last wish; to see one of the flowers offered to deities in a Hindu temple, and touch it.

The father is in a fix, as the 'untouchables' aren't allowed to enter temples and other religious places. He, however, disguises himself and gets into one such temple, gaining the flowers. He almost succeeds until he is recognized as an 'untouchable' by someone in the temple. The man tries to escape, but fails and is caught, beaten up, and thrown in a jail.

I don't recall how many days he stayed there, but as soon as he was released he runs to his home, his mind full of worry and tension as he guesses his daughter is going to breathe her last soon. On reaching, much to his shock, he finds that she had died the day before, and they cremated her too, only hours before his arrival. The poem focuses on the part that he couldn't even get a single speck of the dust of her ashes. The last lines are about how he gets shocked, and grieves her, having failed her and not able to fulfill her last wish.

Now, why am I telling this to you, you ask? Well, when posted the topic for Week 90: Quarantine of the Weekly project, I first tackled with doing my own narrative for John's feelings for Linda when she was clinically KIA in the Fall of Reach novel. Just recently, I stumbled upon my old textbook with the poem and was inspired by it, hence resulting in this short. Even if this piece doesn't have even ten percent of the intensity and gripping nature the poem had till the end, I do feel that I've done a fairly good piece, focusing on Elliot's emotions as he slowly took in the new reality he had to face. Even if this story doesn't win this week's prompt, I'm still proud of writing it, though that might also stem from the fact that I was inspired by that wonderful poem.

Cheers! 12:04, January 28, 2018 (UTC)