Forgotten Dreams of Eternity: Lost Odyssey: Thousand Years of Dreams

(Short Story -XI.) *Letters from a Weakling*

One of Alex's uncles stepped out of the house, drunk.

"Hey, Alex, what are you doing out here?" he growled.

"The groom can't be absent from the reception!"

"Sure, I'll be right there." Alex said, turning toward his uncle.

Kaim tapped him on the shoulder.

"Make Myna happy, Alex."

"Leave it to me." He answered with a smile.

"Come on," said the uncle. "Hurry up. The groom's supposed to sit there the whole time! The entire family is here, and we're going to drink the night away!" He grabbed Alex's hand and dragged him back into the house.

The man was all smiles with Alex, but when he glanced at Kaim, his borderline polite smile could not disguise the gleam of distrust in his eye for an outsider. Kaim was sure he had noticed that same gleam, though perhaps not as openly displayed, in eyes that alighted on Myna.

So that was the kind of village to which Myna had come as a bride.

"You'd better make her happy, Alex." Kaim called out again toward his friend's receding form. "I'm counting on you!"

But now the uncle had his arm around Alex's shoulders, and he was noisily monopolizing his nephew's attention. Alex never heard those words from Kaim.

It was three months later when Alex came to visit Kaim at work on the pier.

"I'm in town on a buying trip. So I thought I'd stop by to say hello." Alex announced.

But, judging from the fatigue evident on his friend's face, Kaim had a pretty good idea of his real reason for coming here.

As casually as possible, Kaim asked, "How is Myna doing?"

With a feeble smile, Alex replied, "After the wedding...things happened."

Myna had been accepted neither as a member of the family, nor as a resident of a village.

There were too many differences: in daily customs, in culture. But the one thing that made Myna too different for the tiny village was the brown color of her skin.

"If only she could speak with people! Myna is trying her best to learn our language. But my mother and the other relatives make no attempt to learn hers. Not so much as a 'Good morning' or a 'Thank you.' They insist it's up to the daughter-in-law to do all the adapting."

Still, Myna was working hard to draw closer to Alex's family and birthplace. She would be the first one out to the fields in the morning, work without a break until the sun went down, and do sewing until late at night. She would try to talk to people in the local dialect that Alex had taught her, using gestures and body language, and she would apologize profusely, with abject smiles, whenever she failed to understand what they were saying.

Kaim could easily imagine Myna going through these exertions, which made Alex's report all the more painful to him.

"You should come to visit us now and then, Kaim. Myna would love to see you, too" Kaim responded vaguely with a silent nod. When Alex added "I want you to come and cheer her up," he said nothing in reply.

"What's wrong, Kaim? Are you angry?"

"I'm not going to visit."

"Why not?"

"You promised me you'd make her happy, remember? We agreed that you're the only one who can do that."

"But still..."