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IN THE AFTERMATH OF FINDING SEA HORSE FOSSILS

Last April when I checked into room 14 on the first floor as usual, dad and son were already there in the adjacent room, playing chess through sultry, sticky long afternoons.

‘Are you still on the lookout for marine fossils?’ I asked the son who had grown surprisingly tall in just a year.

‘I got a treasure this time,’ he had the smile of a rock star. I wondered if he looked like his mother.

I looked curious enough for him to pull out from a brown packet the flattened, dried remains of tiny sea horses, a full family it seemed, and display the collection with thrill in his eyes. Lined up on a mossy stone, the unsuspecting family, united in death. Limbs and tails mostly intact, heads severed in a couple of cases.

‘Wow! These can make it to the city museum, young man!’ I exhorted him.

He blushed upon hearing my words of praise for him.

I saw him putting them back with care, with dedication, as though these were live saplings which would grow over time. The young man clearly didn’t discriminate between life and death.

Later at dusk, his dad asked if I would like to accompany him for a walk.

I wouldn’t quite prefer that but I gave in to his wish.

On our walk through cramped dingy roadside shops smelling of over-fried seafood, our heads and shoulders brushing against loosely hanging second-hand scarves and stoles, our eyes firmly fixed down on that uneven stony path where street dogs fought each other to grab leftovers, he asked, ‘Do you still love being alone?’

‘Who won the game today, dad or son?’

‘Stalemate.’

‘Did you learn chess because you were always a patient person?’ Didn’t exactly want to get personal but I was in awe of his chess skills.

‘Every summer, I check in at least a day before you do, although you never let me know your travel date. Isn’t that remarkable?’

‘An entire family of sea horses gets killed and crushed by a furious, red-eyed wave in a nanosecond, isn’t that tragic?’

‘You never answer me, why?’

‘I shall, the day I find the lone surviving member of that family of sea horses. I bet there is a lonely one alive, revisiting the accident spot alone, every now and then.’

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Shrutidhora P Mohor (born 1979, India) has been listed in several competitions like Bristol Short Story Prize, Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, the Bath Flash Fiction Award, the Retreat West competitions, the Retreat West Annual Prize for short story 2022, the Winter 2022 Reflex Fiction competition, Flash 500.

Her writings have been nominated for Best Micro fictions 2023 and the Pushcart Prize 2024.

A collection of short stories titled A Moon-Measure of All Things (Alien Buddha Press, February 2025) is her latest publication.

Her Twitter/ X handle is @ShrutidhoraPM

Her Instagram/ Threads username is @shrutidhorap

On Facebook she is @Shrutidhora P Mohor

On Blue Sky she is @shrutidhora.bsky.social