anjali menon / flash fiction

The Kindest Casualty

In the months after my heartbreak, I loaned every shoulder in sight. I cried in office meetings and bridal showers, occupying center spaces, performing my freshly scripted and recklessly improvised opera. 

People offered me their patience like temporary and collapsible folding chairs. Some took notice of the shrill and kept a safe distance. Some gave in as the audience, hoping for a backstage payoff. Some complained my pain didn’t hit the right note, that there were hungry babies on the road, and took off to feed them.

But Manoj never left.

Manoj was my office cab driver.

Every morning, 8:05 sharp, he’d text, “Downstairs, madam.” Every evening, he’d wait exactly five minutes past my delay, engine idling, AC already on. He never commented when I cried behind him. Never asked who or why.

That’s why I chose him.

Our barter was simple: I filled his taxi with my perfume and problems, and he gave me those eyes in return. His eyes, brown and bare, meeting mine only through the rear view mirror, brought me a sense of peace. In his eyes, I wasn’t on decay, I looked precious, something worth watching, worth savouring. And I needed that. Our short trips through the citylights felt like a roadtrip retreat.

Sometimes, I’d wear my maroon blouse, the one that slouched slightly off my shoulder when I leaned forward. He never commented. But I knew he noticed. That was the point, I was feeding an uglier kind of hunger. That’s how I chose to heal.

One Thursday, he asked, quietly, “Would you like to stop for coffee?”

I waited long enough to remind myself I had control, then said yes. We sat at a roadside café, drinking watery filter coffee in steel tumblers. He paid. He looked like he was proud of that. 

The next day, he brought me lunch, rice and beans packed in foil, clearly made by his mother. He said, “I told her you skip meals.” I didn’t refuse it. And when he texted later that night, “Just wanted to check if you ate”. I knew exactly what I was doing. It wasn’t a mistake, it was a maneuver.

I belong to a world where divide is not just about the difference in bank balances. It is about what our ancestors owned and owed, within the brownness meter how much brown we showed, and where every micro shade difference vastly separated our roles. I belong to a world where Manoj and my lives would only intersect in the backseat of a taxi. The filter coffee was an anomaly, it doesn’t happen in the regular realm. Was I proud of breaking the norm, or was I making things worse? Because I let him care. I let him imagine.

And I wasn’t in love. I wasn’t even close. I knew exactly what I was doing. I told myself it’s harmless to be watched like art, admired, and untouched. But I kept juggling with the edges, just enough to make him wonder.

And when that day came, when he sent me that text, “I can’t stop thinking about you”, I changed my cab driver in a frenzy, like a quick fix, without second thoughts.

The next morning, my ride was waiting. His name was Prashanth. He played loud EDM and live cricket, murmuring about traffic and toll hikes. I cried in the backseat again, but this time it didn’t matter.

Manoj never followed up. Never texted again. And maybe that’s the only grace I deserved.

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Anjali Menon is a writer and spoken word artist based in Tallinn, Estonia. Anjali travels around Europe performing spoken word sets at slams and local gigs.