GREEN FLASH AT SUNSET

OPAL JESSICA...that was her rel, full name for reasons she alone could fathom.

"It's a frivolous name," she would fret and later on would justify the essence behind it.

"According to the dictionary, OPAL had varying hues of red, green, and blue..." But despite

the complexities of the origin of her not so romantic name, she lauded that it was flattering

to be called after "a mineral consisting chiefly of hydrous silica."

"JESSICA would have been more serviceable!" she heaved a regretful sigh and pondered the history of their ancestors.

Her grandmother always thought of the BETTER DAYS. "Once Oakland Hall

belonged to us," she mused and reminisced those memories that could never be forgotten.

Because of this, Jessica was forbidden to go near the grounds of Oakland Hall even if she was mesmerized by the gigantic place.

But one dreary day, Jessica could not help her curiosity and indeed went to the grounds of the Oakland.There, she accidentally met Ben Honniker, the new owner of the place. It was

her mother who oriented her about the HONNIKERS having bought Oakland from their family.

Sizing up Ben closely, Jessica knew he represented anything but utmost luxury.

While they, the Claverlings, had a remorseless theme of poverty in their household.

Jessica stepped an inch forward and asked the fervent man, "What is your profession?".

"My dear, I'm an opal miner... he said lovingly and reached for her hand.

"What is that?!" she snapped, seeming uninterested.

"Every miner dreams he's going to find the most beautiful stones in the world.And there's nothing more beautiful than an opal."

"Where are the best opals?"Jessica queried with renewed energy.

"Australian opals are the best,they're harder and lucky stones..Long ago, people

used to believe opals brought good fortune.Another story was that they cured blindness."

"Oh...",Jessica seemed to blurt, apparently overwhelmed by the power of the stone.

"There sometimes comes a stone that no matter what it can bring you, you just can't sell. You get a sort of feeling for it.It belongs to you and you'd rather have it than all the money

in the world."

"Do you know anything about our old, ancestral home?" Jessica switched topics,and pined for hints about her forefathers."I think in very family there is one who is different , the one in the litter who doesn't bear much resemblance to the rest."

"I can tell you something about your mother," he guided her in her walk and tilted his

proud chin."She was found in the stream. She was lying face downwards..The water was quite shallow.It just washed over her."

Tears welled up in her eyes and she brimmed with angst and repressed anger. "They

let her die in the wasteland?".

"They don't bring suicides in consecrated grounds."

She began to wipe her hot tears. "She was good and meant no harm to anyone."

Still in tremor, she declared fitfully. "I shall clear her grave and grow plants on it and keep them watered."

After saying her hastened excuse to the visiting old man from Australia, she scurried to the Dower House and threw her ailments at her supposed mother.

"First, I should like you to explain why you have pretended to be my mother all these years and why why you made her life miserable that she drowned herself."

"The one she loved! cried my mother,"A thief,a seducer, and stupid girl."

"So you're my mother's sister...tell me, what happened to my father?"

"Your father had gambled away the family fortune.He stole a very precious opal!",

she said in hysteria,"And your lovelorn mother let him get away!".

"Show me her grave...where can I find the remains of my mother? Please, tell me..."

And so Jessica rushed to the towering bushes hidden from which was her mother's

godforsaken tomb.

"There, there she lies at last..."her aunt pronounced with indefinable mourning.

"Whoever lay in that grave not only bore my name but had died at the time of my birth."

"She never would fallen in love
love with the thief,"Jessica mumbled to herself in consternation.

Ben Honniker met again with Jessica not so long after and this time she was more adamant to dig into the heart of the matter.

"Who had stolen it?" she posed the precarious inquiry.

"Someone who knew the combination of the safe."

"Do you think he sold it?".

"Queen of Opals...there'll never be another one like her.Your family lost it forever."

"What do you mean?'

"She had a terrible fascination for everyone who saw her.In spite of all the talks of bad luck, everyone who laid eyes on her wanted her. GREEN FLASH MEANT DEATH."

"You talk about Green Flash as though she were a woman."

"I don't man the opal...the other green flash. They say there's a precise moment when

the sun goes down-just before it disappears-that there is a green flash on the sea.It's a rare

phenomenon.It's there and it's gone and you hardly know it's been.You've got to be in the right spot at the right moment."

"First, the stolen Queen of Opal.And now it's the Green Flash. It's all insane!".

"Why don't you confront your aunt about it.The fact that she's bitter about the past,

then she must know a lot."

Jessica goes to her aunt in an upfront manner and barraged her with incessant questions. Her aunt did not complain and instead served her feisty niece a heartwarming cup

of tea.

Out of frenzy, Jessica was shown a jewelry box and there in all its splendor lay the

the Queen of Opals.

"I can't believe it! It's you! It was you all along. Not my father, not my father...!"she managed to say in short breaths.She was in a dizzying state.

"This stone ruined my mother's life and now I may well die because of it. I have seen it

and that is enough for I understand what it can do. There is evil in it and it has taken possession of this woman." Jessica narrated, quavering from the slight touch of the opal.

The most magnificent opal of all time, the stone which had shaped her destiny,the unlucky one, the most beautiful jewel she had ever or would ever see in her life was right there in front of her stunned eyes. It was impossible to put into words the qualities of that stone, there was the deep blue of the tropical sea and the brighter blue of the cloudless sky.

"I thought you should see it before you died", her Aunt suggested,staring at her niece with cold-blooded fury.

"Before I died...?"

"It was something I put in your tea, nice, peaceful sleep,that's all."

"It seems strange to be sitting here discussing my burial."

"You too, will die just like your stupid mother."

"My willpower is stronger than your drug."

"I'll never give her up!" her aunt wailed.

"It is mine by right. I share it with jointly with my mother.Perhaps it knows that."

Jessica saw the real fear in her aunt's eyes. "See how it shines for me. The Flash won't

hurt me because I'm the true owner.It's mine."

"No! Never!" she shrieked imperiously.

"It's only a piece of opal...silica deposited at some time in the rock. How can you attach

special powers to that?".

"How dare you call it just a rock!".

"YOU'VE BECOME OBSESSED WITH A STONE, BY A LEGEND. YOU'VE BUILT

ALL THIS UP IN YOUR MIND, BUT IT DOESN'T REALLY EXIST."

"You haven't lived with it.You haven't held it in your hands. Look now..."

"Yes, let me see it. Let me hold it in my hands."

In an instant, Ben Honniker appeared in the scene and glowered at the mad woman.

"Give me what you're holding in your hand..." he implored Jessica's aunt.

Before they could stop her, she had dashed onto the terrace.When they picked her up

from the stairs below, she was dead, but still clutching the Green Flash in her hands.

"We're taking the Green Flash to Melbourne and we're presenting it to a geological museum there."Ben Honniker pronounced authoritatively.

Drusilla Delaney and the Unlucky Fan

Why would someone be obsessed with a fan? Because that fan can be a source of trouble or a symbol of bad luck. The great aunt in the Framling House,Ms Lucille, believes so with all her emotion intact.Because of the peacock-feather fan,her ardent lover is caught dead and she is forever deprived of the right to live fully and love tremendously.
But where does the ill-possessed fan come from? Ah, the answer is a preview to the meat of the story.
Drusilla Delaney has always been a loyal servant and trustee of the FRAMLING HOUSEHOLD.And the Framlings are originally from India. And they interact with the East India Company. Drusilla worships Lavinia Framling,an arrogant,selfish, and domineering heiress ho is so haughty with the servants. Because she fails academically she decides that learning is for those who lack physical charms. Lavinia is more of a tigress than a spoiled kitten.
People flock to Lavinia for her beauty.And since she is very impulsive, Lady Harriet,the mother, entrusts her daughter ,Lavinia, to the care of Drusilla. The two ladies go to the Meridian House to study together. In contrast,Drusilla is the bright child while Lavinia is the slow learner. While Drusilla is an asset in school, LavInia is a deterrent.A moody student, Lavinia would contemptuously chastise Drusilla,"YOU ....VIRGIN!".
Afterwards they go to a finishing school in Chateau Lamason where they study social graces.They are going to be polished so they can marry into high-society. But Drusilla is aware that she is very plain and therefore might not at all marry.
The big trouble sets in when Lavinia gets impregnated by a good-for-nothing Joe.Drusilla takes Lavinia to her Aunt's Fletcher's Nursing Home. After giving birth to her lovechild, Lavinia arranges for her newborn to be adopted by a capable couple somewhere. The secret is not closed because Janine, a Chateau inmate, discovers every folishness Lavinia falls into and traps her into an unsuccessful blackmail.
After sometime, Lavinia retreats to India and marries into a reputable family. Naturally, Lady Harriet sends Lavinia to guide her daughter. But more troubles await them there. For INDIA is a land of strange spices and unsolved mysteries.
A born flirt that Lavinia is, she mistakingly plays around the Great Khansama. The erudite man brings Lavinia closely to her death when she refuses his sexual advances. Unknown to the Framlings, the Great Khansama is connected to thuggery. This group is associated with a barabaric custom-they worship the goddess,KALI, the most bloodthirsty of all gods and godesses ver thought of. She demands perpetual blood. Those who take oath to her are by profession murderers. So to placate thier goddess,the thuggery group kill foreigners by strangulation and a leave datura or thorn apple as an awful remembrance to the victims.
At frst, the first impression of Drusilla about India is "INTERESTING,STIMULATING,and INTENSELY EXCITING. But towards the end, she is brought to a cruel realization that nationalism is very much alive in India. And that Indians are for Indians.Thus, they shun away anything or any foreign element to disrupt their old customs.They are such an inscrutable race.
Lavinia is severely murdered in the enclave of her own bedroom. The walls of her room are splashed with blood. Her nude body is spread-eagled across the bed.The posture is obscene and it is deliberately done so. Her eyes are wide, staring with horror.Her once glorous hair is splattered with blood.
Spread out at Lavinia's feet is the blood-spattered PEACOCK-FEATHER FAN.
"I told you so," Aunt Lucille half-whispers to Drusilla. That fan cast its spell on me once."
Drusila remembers holdng the fan once and taking it in her possession, which makes the Aunt conclude about the continuation of the bad fortune.
"BECAUSE YOU HAVE HAD THE FAN IN OUR POSSESSION.YOU HAVE BEEN ITS OWNER.THE ILL LUCK COULD TOUCH YOU.I WANT YOU TO TAKE CARE."
In the end, Drusilla sticks to common sense and lets practicality rules her life."A BUNDLE OF FEATHERS IS A BUNDLE OF FEATHERS. I'M FROM PLAIN ,SENSIBLE ENGLAND,WHERE FANS ARE JUST FANS AND NOTHING ELSE."
Aunt Lucille opens the fan very carefully and discloses a brilliant emerald surrounded by smaller diamonds ."Strange things happen in India. England is too materialistic and not in tune with the mystic."
Drusilla is appalled momentarily at the sight of the bejewelled fan. Nevertheless, she goes to the fire and puts the dreaded fan into the heat.'WE MAKE OUR OWN LIVES NOW. YOU KNOW,IT'S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH A FAN," she sighs dreamily."WE MAKE OUR OWN LUCK.IF YOU BELIEVE IN ILL LUCK, IT WILL SURELY COME."