The Headless Buddha

Prompt number thirty-five:

The picture is the prompt.

***

"And so I told her that I wasn't happy and that something needed to be done about it."

Mark was drifting in and out of his wife's monologue like he was listening to a bad radio reception. It was always the same: something wasn't right; someone needed to be told. He very rarely listened nowadays, offering a supportive "Mmm" in what he thought was the right spot and then cruising right back into whatever he had been thinking about.

He preferred the space inside his head.

He didn't always feel this way about Val. He's not sure when she started to become so negative. Couldn't pinpoint an exact moment where she started to tarnish. He supposed it was just life. Wear and tear. You couldn't keep that glow forever. Although he did think that his life would probably still have a lustre if she didn't relentlessly rub it away.

"Have you seen the extension that the Joneses are building? What an eyesore. I can't believe they ever got planning, can you?"

Mark "Mmm" 'd again and drifted back into his thoughts. He liked walking. It gave Val the chance to air her grievances of which there were many and he was allowed to be distracted. Not like at home. No, eye contact had to be maintained at all times otherwise she knew he wasn't paying attention and look out! If he was caught, he'd get chastised. Again.

He looked around him as they plodded around the town. There was always something to see. You got to see so much more on foot. Funny little features at eye level, the slowness of pace meaning that you could go panoramic and pick up weathervanes or strange rooflines or distinctive door-knockers.

Or headless statues.

On the wall bordering a house that they frequently went past, there was a buddha. Now headless. Actually, it still had its head and was cradling it, almost reverently. Someone had placed it in its lap. With a sense of humour? Its serene face was the same but its decapitation was awful. Its essence was there still but it presented as something else.

It had power and was powerless.

Strangely, Mark identified with that buddha.

***

365 words

The picture is my own. It was a bizarre thing to see and even stranger to see where the head had been placed. I could have talked about the violence of how the figure had lost its head but instead, I've focused on a character seeing it.

If you would like to read some of the other stories, I've written so far this year:

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