You Should Ask My Husband For the Artist’s Correct Name
The hotel artwork that inspired this story.
by Shrutidhora P Mohor
My phoren-returned hubby brings home a painting and mounts it on the wall of our bedroom and although I can’t remember the name of the artist or even the name of the country, I am proud of my phoren-returned hubby who knows his wine and his whisky, can choose between this cheese and that, has watched phoren films, and has spent a lump sum amount to bring home this painting with a violet sky which hangs low and a three storey house which floats on the river with its ground floor under water, and I, several times a night, sit up and tiptoe across to the painting, nervous and shaking like a chihuahua that our neighbour has, and in that dim blue night light, check if the violet sky has entered through our windows, if our bedroom is floating on water, if the bed is swinging, if the carpet is dripping, and then I roll up the curtains, and push back the clothes on the hanger, and check out the fridge basket to see if the vegetables are submerged or if there is fish swimming up and down the lobby and the balcony, while my phoren-returned hubby gropes the bedsheet, looking for me, and pats my pillow and mumbles out my name and calls me in his sleep to come back to the bed, but I can’t, just can’t, I am scared as hell, I know for sure that the water must be rising in our rooms, and I ignore him for some time, and he groans and goes louder, and then I remember that this is my all-important hubby and I must pay attention to him and I should, I must, go back to the bed, and when I do, when I finally do, he urges me to name the artist of the world famous painting, genius, he exclaims, and I can’t, just can’t, despite he tutoring me every other day, and although I don’t tell him that I have noticed that he mentions different names on different days, and that I guess none of these is the right name at all, I know my hubby, just back from a phoren land, is a little too hyped, like a raven among crows, strutting away, his feathers up and about, I don’t chide him or expose him in front of our children or the neighbours who drop in and compliment his sense of art, for he is my phoren-returned hubby and he has seen the world and he can’t, just can’t, make a mistake.
All is okay until one night my phoren-returned hubby is found wading through imaginary water and Googling random names in trying to find the correct name of the artist. He is looking helpless, about to cry, because he can’t, just can’t, recall the correct name.
I show him a list of the different names of the artist that he has declared ever since he has brought the painting home, some of the names very different from each other, some minor variations with a vowel or two this side or that.
He looks grateful and as I go back to bed, patting the pillow next to me and asking him to get back to sleep, I find him ticking and crossing names from the list, and doing silly little mental maths in order to judge which artist’s name sounds the most appropriate so that when the Jaiswals come for dinner on Sunday, he can name the artist correctly according to the checklist that he has prepared.
He thanks me for giving him the list, looking serious with serious business on his hands.
I drawl, “mention not, my phoren-returned hubby” and get back to sleeping.
I am exhausted after all that cleaning and cooking and washing, and I don’t care, just don’t care, if he can’t, just can’t, get over the confusion of names and fall asleep again.
Shrutidhora P Mohor (born 1979, India) writes literary fiction. She has been listed in several competitions like Bristol Short Story Prize, Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, the Bath Flash Fiction Award, the Retreat West Micro fiction competitions, the Retreat West Annual Prize for short story, the Reflex Fiction competition, Flash 500.
Her writings have been nominated for Best Micro fictions 2023 and the Pushcart Prize 2024.
A collection of short stories titled A Moon-Measure of All Things (Alien Buddha Press, February 2025) is her latest publication.
In 2026 she has been published or is forthcoming in La Rotonde Review, Ellipsis Zine, The Gorko Gazette, Dodo Eraser, Tap Into Poetry, The Airgonaut Magazine, Revolution John, Free Flash Fiction, Guestbook Zine, The Wise Owl, among others.
