[dVerse] October 26 - A Woman Drinks the Hunter's Moon

On the terrace, the Hunter's Moon rises behind the neighbour's water tank. It is orange at first, then red at the edges, like a fruit beginning to spoil. I watch its colour change and think of all the stains a woman is expected to remove before anyone notices. The turmeric on her fingers. The blood on her clothes. The evidence of having possessed a body at all.

I fill a steel tumbler at the tap. The moon settles on the water without asking permission. I lift it carefully. For years, I have been told what not to put in my mouth: too much food, the wrong words, an answer to a man older than me. Nobody thought to forbid the sky. I drink. The moon breaks against my teeth, travels down my throat in cold mouthfuls of ordinary water. A little spills onto my nightdress. Somewhere below, a dog barks at the real thing, still hanging intact above the rooftops.

I go inside with an empty glass. Ma asks whether I have eaten. "Yes," I say, and do not elaborate.

after the monsoon

ants carry a moth's torn wing

through fallen petals

~ Oizys.

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday: Hunter's Moon/Halloween, hosted by Frank J. Tassone on October 26, 2026. The prompt asked for a haibun referencing Halloween or the Hunter's Moon, with prose and a complementary seasonal haiku. I chose the moon. It looked edible. I have been hungry.

[dverse] October 22 - Art Direction

Art Direction

I was sitting with directors and filmmakers,

discussing an event of several plays,

each production requiring a visual presence of its own,

when someone proposed yellow. Or perhaps

yellow had already been proposed when I began objecting.

Imagine, I said, the promotional material

for a major event, all in yellow. Every poster,

every design, everything. Can you imagine?

I had something else in mind. Or rather,

something began to take shape as I spoke.

Gulkand red, or gulmohur red...

the distinction between the two still troubling me...

and white cutout designs against it.

Please, no illustrations drawn over the red, I said,

but cutouts. The white taking shape where the red

was interrupted, its edges becoming clearer

as the colour continued around them,

occupying every portion the white did not.

Then an icy blue. Perhaps for another production,

with illustrations composed of white dots,

although dots, when printed too carefully,

begin behaving like separate little objects.

That wasn't it. The ink needed to be pressed,

perhaps smudged a little, the dots spreading

at their edges without losing their dotted character,

the intervals between them growing less definite.

No, don't make each dot so distinct.

Let the pressure of the ink do something to them.

And there was another blue whose name

I cannot now decide upon. Squalid blue?

Or was it cobalt? Squalid...?

Was that even the colour I meant?

Anyway, a blue with white in it.

But the white was not to remain entirely white.

There had to be green within it, the green

of dark, rubbery leaves, a green which seemed

to possess a thickness of its own.

And yet translucent, mind you, translucent—

—not spilt across the white like another colour

printed afterwards, but showing within it.

The green should be visible, yes, but not quite

conceal the white; nor should the white

entirely conceal the green. And the blue?

The blue must still be there, holding

the two within the same design.

And for my own play, I returned to the red.

A white background, first. Then, against it,

the block figure of a dargah, gulkand red,

or gulmohur red, its shape taking up

the white space. And within that red figure,

symbols. No, not symbols superimposed

upon the red, but white cutout designs,

the shapes cut into the figure itself,

their outlines made visible by the red

that remained around them.

Whether to call it gulkand or gulmohur

was another matter.

~ Oizys.

Written for dVerse's Open Link Night and dVerse LIVE! on 22nd October, 2026.