Pitching A Scene To My Dad

by Mugdhaa Ranade

First published in American Literary Review on 31 August 2022. Click the arrow (>) to learn more about this piece. Content warning: death of a parent

Imagine a MONTAGE in a film (don’t ask what genre of film, it’s still being written): we open with a WIDE SHOT of a busy airport, and suddenly in the midst, we see a pop of fuchsia—ZOOM IN, it’s a girl, about twenty, wearing a fuchsia cardigan—while the VOICE-OVER (I don’t know whose) says, “The thing about embraces that envelop and encompass is that they are said to have miraculous healing powers of the emotional kind,” and there’s CLOSE-UPS of the girl’s red-rimmed eyes, trembling lips, tears dripping down her chin, while the VOICE-OVER continues, “Embraces of this kind, you’re lucky to have a variety of, but finding one, The One, means you’re blessed,” and we CUT TO the girl seated in the plane, head against the window pane, ignoring the fluffy clouds—INSERT a shot of the fluffy clouds—and MATCH CUT TO storm clouds, TILT DOWN from the angry sky to the girl dashing out of the airport followed by QUICK CUTS of rain pouring, the girl getting into a taxi, travel shots, the girl getting out of the taxi, splashing through puddles, coming home to a roaring of mourners, and the stillness of death—a man lies in a casket, while a woman weeps (that’s her father and mother) and the girl crumples to the floor and we CUT TO BLACK over which the VOICE-OVER says, “And you’re cursed, if the One embrace you seek in your moment of grief belongs to the one you grieve.”

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Mugdhaa Ranade wakes up every day hoping to find dry leaves to crunch underfoot, and stray cats to pet. She can be found in person in Mumbai, India, and online on Twitter @swxchhxnd.