As a matter of fact, I am outside at someone’s place today. Here while on my breakfast table, I read the translation of this story in a local newspaper. When I read it with the author’s name Hughes on the left corner of the paper with his smiling young picture, it brought a smile to my face because I was reading his poems two days back at my place.
My breakfast is being prepared inside by my host and I have no idea what will be served. Though I am hungry and I am in utter haste to have my breakfast in front of my searching eyes, I am pretending like a courtly and decorous guest with my legs crossed one over the other on the chair. so that If my host glances at me furtively from the kitchen, she must think as if I am reading a highly noteworthy piece of literature with utmost focus.
There are two ripe bananas, crouched down one behind the other on the platter on the table. I won’t eat them empty stomach. After breakfast, I may reconsider my thought of devouring them though. Meanwhile, I have finished this story and I am telling you I went bananas. This is a cute story. The first paragraph is exactly this…
“She was a large woman with a large purse that had everything in it but a hammer and nails. It had a long strap and she carried it slung across her shoulder it was about 11 o’clock at night dark and she was walking alone when a boy ran up behind her and tried to snatch her purse. The strap broke with the sudden single tug the boy gave it from behind. But the boy’s weight and the weight of the purse combined caused him to lose his balance. Instead of taking off full blast as he had hoped the boy fell on his back on the sidewalk and his legs flew up. The large woman simply turned around and kicked him write square in his blue Jeaned sitter. Then she reached down with the boy up by his side front and took him until his teeth rattled.”
Thank you, M’Am
This is a story of a young boy who is out in the dark mugging old ladies. But he got in the wrong hands this time. This lady catches him from his collar and drags him to her house before sending him to jail. There they try to breakfast together. There is a message in the story and though the message is universal, still it has been served in a very alluring manner. It’s out of the ordinary. It immediately caught my attention.
I know some of the themes of L. Hughes’s poetry; I guess this story can be inspired by some of his experiences in America. Here, some behavioral psychology dynamics are involved in their conversations. What happens between the lady and the boy that at the end of the story so he had to say to her, THANK YOU, MAM?
You can certainly read it while on your breakfast table; it’s short and simple with a homespun philosophy involved!
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