The Lost Treasure
Short Story
On a cold and dark night, thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed, strong enough to raise heartbeats in fear. Avani, a young bride, gulps her sorrows with determination. She was in pursuit of something in a deep cobwebbed corner of her mother’s storage room — a lost treasure.
Suddenly, rain began to pour, drenching her completely. Her mother, Radhika, was standing behind her, wiping away her tears while continuously murmuring, “Be careful, Avani; you might get hurt.”
Oblivious to every joy in her life, Avani is adamant to stop. She is determined to remove all the bricks from the wall. Her nails scraped against the cement; her beloved silk saree got tainted with the muddy water.
Avani paid no heed to anything else; she continued to dig. Her instincts assured her that the treasure was close. “It’s not far, Mummy,” she exclaimed with exuberance.
Avani abruptly woke to a car siren outside her house, far away from her dreams and her mother’s home. She felt restless. With swollen eyes, she was yearning to return to her dream where she could resume her search in her mother’s storage room.
“I’m heading to the office,” her husband announced, packing his laptop and searching for his earphones. “Don’t worry about breakfast; I’ve taken two apples. I’ll be back after the meeting,” he reassured her while putting on his shoes.
Avani was left alone with her thoughts as the door closed behind him. Venturing deep in her thoughts, she tried to untangle her messy hair with her fingers. After three unsuccessful strokes, she let out her frustration in a sigh, burying her face in the dampened pillow, drenched from her tears and sweat. The loss consumed her mind — all crafted from gold — a cherished fortune.
She reminisced about the day her husband had gifted her that long, exquisite gold necklace. She had adorned herself with it for hours, gazing at her reflection in the mirror, feeling like royalty.
The necklace was so opulent that it had made her immensely proud of her husband. The mere possession of those gold ornaments had made her feel affluent and content.
Their hard-earned savings and lakhs of rupees had been invested in those precious jewelry pieces. Avani had kept their acquisition a secret, especially from her in-laws, who had a tendency to exert control over everything. She had covertly handed them over to her mother, and with a sense of relief, she had embarked on a new life in a foreign land.
Then, one day, a phone call from her mother shattered her illusion of security. Her mother struggled with her memory and couldn’t recall where she had hidden the jewelry.
Several months earlier, Avani’s parents had gone on a vacation, leaving their home in the care of a nearby relative. To ensure the safety of their precious possessions, her mother had gathered all the gold, wrapped it in a crimson cloth, and secretively concealed it in the attic storage room, away from prying eyes, amidst the old utensils and forgotten items.
At first, Avani did not take the news of losing the ornaments seriously. She knew that even a single penny never leaves the house without permission. She thought her mother might be stressed and facing dementia, and they would soon find the gold.
The fear of theft darkened as days passed, and her parents couldn’t locate the gold after cleaning every nook of the house.
One day, Avani’s mother, Radhika, realized that a mechanic had come to repair the geyser located inside the storage and spent hours there.
Did he steal it?
But she hid it in a darkened corner, which was challenging for anyone to see.
Radhika asked her husband to call the same mechanic when they couldn’t find any jewels at home. Even if it meant rubbing the nose in front of him, she would do it, but she would get her daughter’s jewelry back.
The next day, the mechanic was called again under the pretext of a faulty geyser at home. As soon as he arrived, Radhika pleaded with him several times to return the jewelry, but the fear of her own mistake made her weak and helpless.
How can one blame someone without any evidence?
It’s her mind playing games.
The agony of truth and falsehood is such that the mind, entangled in its own guilt, seeks an answer while wandering far away.
As everyone had expected, the mechanic outright refused to take the jewelry and left. It was neither appropriate nor morally acceptable to do anything without any evidence.
Radhika and Avani’s last hope was also gone with the mechanic’s departure. While Avani considered forgetting those jewels to be the proper interpretation of her bad luck, Radhika’s heart became heavy with the burden of debt.
The days continued in its rhythm, but the search for treasure persisted.
Sometimes, Radhika would wake up from sleep and clean through the cupboards. Sometimes, she would immerse herself for hours in grief, wetting the edge of her saree with her tears.
Asking the same question herself and her goddess Lakshmi: How could she lose the entrusted treasure of her daughter?
What would her son-in-law think of her, how careless my deeds are!
Despite Avani and her father’s countless attempts to comfort her, Radhika was still engulfed in the deep abyss of sadness.
Even though Avani may have refused several times to take back any good, a middle-class family in India always tread carefully between what is culturally right and wrong. The wealth of a son-in-law is more bitter than poison.
Before the year ended, Radhika pursued to return some percentage of the treasure made on credit, but she wanted to get rid of the remaining burden from her head as soon as possible.
Alas, accumulating such significant wealth in a short period was like seeing pigs fly. Despite many fasts and prayers, she only felt disappointment.
Another year passed, and the treasure became a hoax for Avani and an unpleasant topic to exhaust her energy. Radhika’s mind was still searching for her daughter’s lost jewelry in the corners and crevices of the house, and whenever she felt defeated, she cried for hours in front of goddess Lakshmi.
One day, as this cycle was repeating, Radhika was arranging her daughter’s scattered wardrobe when a box of bangles suddenly thrashed and opened on the floor. A yellow light from the box illuminated the room and the chambers of Radhika’s heart.
Radhika’s suffering came to an end as she found she had been looking for years. This time, tears of joy filled her eyes instead of sorrow. She gathered every piece of jewelry back in the box and kept it in the safe.
She wrote a message to Avani, “Your treasure is no longer lost.”
She locked the house and headed towards the temple barefoot. Perhaps the burden has been lifted, and her wish has been fulfilled.
Unfortunately, the mammon is the nature of greed that reignited Avani’s lost will to acquire more gold after receiving the news.
Though she felt a sense of relief as her mother conquered her chest, Avani couldn’t resist her rushed thoughts about the allure of accumulating more wealth, a sly grin creeping across her face.
It’s nice to find you reading all the way to the end. I pour my heart into these short stories, serving them to you. Feel free to share your thoughts, and suggestions, and shower some love if you find joy in reading them.
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