by A.G. Constantine
“The Other Hunchback” started as a simple suggestion given to me when I was thinking of what to do for my personal project in Russian. The simple switch in perspectives of a tale otherwise similar to the original from which I took inspiration. Ivan Bunin, known to history as the first Russian writer to have won a Nobel Prize for Literature, had written a short story that managed to encompass the emotional turmoil of a deformed man yearning for a normal life, all within a single page. I was inspired to do the same, but for the reader to view it from the eyes of another, a character that had been described but never spoken to by the protagonist. I wondered what her thoughts were and how she had reacted when they saw each other for the first time and had based it on the simple letter that Bunin used in order to transcribe her feelings. The result was both a mirror image and a tale fit to be told on its own.
"Her hand gripped the pen tightly, hovering over the letter. There was a beauty to her writing, she noted, as wisps of smoke slowly drifted from the paper, a reminder of how swiftly she wrote. Around her, the torn and crumpled pieces lay around, littering the floor and desk, a harsh reminder of how she had so desperately struggled to find the words which would paint her in a light she knew her form could never achieve.
Her sharp eyes gazed and glided, searching for a mistake. She stared so intensely that she started to wonder whether the act of finding one would sadden her or bring her joy.
She pondered the thought of spending the rest of her time, writing letters which would never be sent. Her heart ached at the pain, yet she smiled. She was used to pain, perhaps she grew to enjoy it after so long.
She took one more longing look at the letter. Her eyes searched for mistakes which she knew weren’t there. She had spent so long perfecting it that she was ashamed. At herself or something else, she was not certain. Her back was a part of her, her curse to bear, and yet it felt like a stranger to her, poking a silver knife into her exposed flesh.
Folding it, she placed it into a parcel and went out to put it in the post box. Her hands were shaking, but she willed them forward, slowly pushing the letter inside. She waited for a soft thud to reach her ears, but it never did.
She stood in the square, dressed in the grey suit she said she would be in, as her left hand gently held on to an umbrella. How much longer did she have to wait? The anxiousness in her heart worried her. She had forgotten to bring a watch and was afraid of leaving. She did not trust her legs to bring her back if she left. A chill had frosted her spine, despite the warm spring breeze in the air. Her eyes kept darting, like a hare in a field, until she found him. A grey tie dashed with red, and lilac-colored gloves adorning his hands. To anyone else, he was just a mere hunchback, but to her, he was temptation incarnate.
She went down the rabbit hole and strode towards him. He had yet to see her, and her mind wandered to what they would say, what they would do together. And as quickly as she had found her wonderland, she was frisked away, for the storm that was his eyes had washed her away. He had found her, and his eyes held nothing but shock, the familiar repulsion slowly setting in, as it always had, whenever someone gazed at her.
And as his eyes delved into sadness, she smiled, as colorless tears started to stream down her face. A hunchback, disgusted by a hunchback. She bit back a laugh. There was no monster crueler than life."
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