പൂമുഖം LITERATUREകഥ Brushes with the departed

Brushes with the departed

Jasmine startled awake, her breath catching in her chest. The faces she’d painted that day remained in her mind, a gallery of expressions now haunting her dreams. Some offered faint, unsettling smiles; others held a quiet judgment. She lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, the echo of her own laughter from earlier now feeling hollow. By morning, she would shrug it off, using humor like a thin coat against the chill of memory.

It had started with Riya. The woman next door, the quiet enigma everyone spoke of in hushed tones. Riya worked as a mortuary makeup artist. A title whispered as if saying it too loudly might invite bad luck. Jasmine had always thought Riya was a little offbeat, someone who walked comfortably in places most people avoided. So when Riya called her over one afternoon and handed her a brush, Jasmine assumed it was a one-time thing. Until then, Jasmine had received some guidance from her aunt, who worked as a makeup artist in a small salon.

Illustration: Varsha Menon

The room was dim and smelled of antiseptic, the air heavy with the kind of stillness only the dead bring. “Help me with this one,” Riya said, as if asking for help with any ordinary task. Jasmine stared, her stomach twisting. Her fingers trembled as she took the brush, feeling like she was crossing a line she didn’t fully understand. She muttered, “Well, at least she won’t complain if I mess up,” hoping to puncture the silence. Riya’s lips twitched, almost a smile, before she returned to work. Jasmine clung to the humor like a life raft. It kept the fear at bay.

Not everyone understood why Jasmine kept returning to Riya’s studio. When her friends asked, she’d respond with a deadpan joke: “The clientele doesn’t complain, and I’ve got job security like no other.” They’d laugh, unsure whether to be amused or horrified.

Then came the day when Riya fell ill. Jasmine received a call to handle things alone. A renowned actor, a man with his larger-than-life roles, now reduced to this silent figure. Jasmine stood over him, trying to reconcile the image she knew with the reality before her. She whispered, “You’ve got the best seat in the house for this makeover”.

That night, she dreamed of him. He sat across from her, his gaze steady and unyielding. She reached out, but her hand passed through him, and she woke with a start. The joke from earlier replayed in her head, now thin and brittle. But she leaned on it anyway; without it, she wasn’t sure how to keep going.

One afternoon, as she worked with Riya, the older woman paused, looking at her with those unflinching eyes. “Are you scared to do makeup on the dead?” she asked, her voice soft but pointed. Jasmine laughed. A quick, reflexive response. The memory came suddenly: she was a child again, sitting cross-legged with her friends as one of them spun a ghost story. Shadows, whispers, and a ghost that crept into beds. She’d laughed nervously, but when the story turned darker, she’d bolted, sprinting all the way home without stopping. Back in the present, standing in that dim room, she shook her head, an ironical smile playing on her lips. “Scared? No, not me,” she said, the lie floating somewhere between them.

In another memory, Jasmine stands beside Riya, watching her work with a calmness Jasmine couldn’t comprehend. Riya moved with an ease that seemed impossible, as if the weight of what they did barely touched her. Jasmine cracked a quiet joke, hoping it would lighten the room’s oppressive air: “Guess she won’t mind a little extra eyeliner.” Riya barely reacted, but Jasmine kept talking, each joke a small rebellion against the gravity of their work.

Over time, Jasmine’s jokes became part of her rhythm. But the faces she painted started appearing in her dreams, expressions fixed, eyes watching. She’d tell her friends, “It’s a 24-hour job when you work with the dead,” and they’d laugh, believing she was fearless. But at night, in the dark, the laughter faded, leaving her with a growing unease.

One evening, she walked alone through Fort Kochi’s quiet streets, stopping by the water’s edge. She stared at her reflection, distorted by the ripples, and muttered, “At least none of my clients ghosted me today.”

The next day, she returned to the studio. She spoke to the silent faces, quips that only she could appreciate. Her fear and humor coexisted, a fragile balance that made the work bearable, even if it didn’t make it easy.

People started to whisper about her work, about the woman who brought something indefinable to her final portraits. Her humor stayed, woven into her process, even as she kept the dreams, the anxiety, and the fragility hidden. Each dark quip, each joke whispered into the silence, became a part of her story — a reflection of the contradictions she’d come to accept.

In the end, Jasmine did it with a knowing smile. A way to keep the darkness at bay. Her craft was about breaking the silence, staring down fear, and finding room for laughter, even in the shadows.

Cover: Jyothis Paravoor

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