The Language Of Smoke

Category A: First Place (2025) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Vysnavi Sivasuthan

The earth was red—not just dust that stained our ankles but soaked in the memory of blood. That bitter stain settled deep in cracked soil, whispering through the bones of the land, refusing to fade.

Trees stood like brittle ribs, bark peeling like old scars, shadows thin beneath a pale, frightened sky. Smoke curled far away, weaving through the air like a lost ghost seeking home.

Then came the notice, nailed crookedly to the school gate:

Sinhala Only. Tamil Materials Removed.

Our teachers said nothing; they only obeyed, eyes hollow. Pages were ripped from books—maps, poems, stories—and thrown into roaring barrels where ink hissed and crackled like dying breath. I watched a poem I loved turn to ash in a moment.

Behind Appa Mohan’s tea shop, Kanan and I built a secret shelf from scavenged planks, stacking stories stitched with Amma’s red thread—pages embroidered like lifelines. We read in whispers, by flickering candlelight.

“If they steal our language,” Kanan said, voice breaking, “they steal us.”

At the checkpoint, soldiers stood like shadows—guns lowered, faces unreadable behind dark glasses.

“Name?” one barked.

Without pause, Kanan answered, “Kumaran.”

My throat tightened. I swallowed hard, whispering my brother’s name—the name I had stuttered and lost forever.

“Devan,” I said.

The soldier scribbled something wrong but let us pass. Behind his back, Kanan’s fingers brushed mine—a quiet promise: I’m here. We’re still here.

When we returned, the tea shop was a ruin—roof gone, books blackened silence. On the wall, smeared in Sinhala paint, one word: final warning.

Kanan sank, cradling a half-burnt poem.
“We could leave,” I whispered. “Go to India. Somewhere safe.”

“They want us to run,” he said. “They want silence.”

That night, beneath banana trees, we built a transmitter from wire, scraps of metal, and fragile hope. We wrapped the coil in red thread—veins pulsing stubborn resistance.

Maranam Illai. Deathless.

Every night, Kanan’s voice cut through static, naming the lost, reciting forbidden verses. Candle flames flickered—tiny stars answering.

But fire never sleeps.

On the thirty-third night, I awoke to a sky bleeding orange, smoke choking my lungs, the roof gone.

“Kanan!” I screamed.

He stumbled through flames, clutching scorched pages.
“Take this,” he gasped. “Go. They need someone left to speak.”

“I won’t leave you—”

“You must. For the words. For the language.”

He pressed the bundle into my arms—edges blackened, red thread holding—and turned back into fire.

Into silence.

After the war, they called it peace.

But Tamil remains a whisper.

Now, by the sea, I sew stories into sari hems, slip poems under temple doors, hide verses in bread loaves.

Children find them.
They read.
They remember.

Somewhere, a boy hums a line he does not yet understand.

The thread unwinds—red, unbroken, defiant.

Weaving memory. Stitching resistance. Speaking, always speaking.

Because one boy ran into fire.

And I will never let his language burn.