The Fate of Shop Keeper's WifeT (standard:non fiction, 2151 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: May 21 2014	Views/Reads: 2515/1807	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The shop keeper's wife, a handicapped woman after working lifelong for her husband at their street corner shop dies from husband's neglect.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


their house from the road.  This was a regular scene in the afternoon. 

The shop keepers at the cross roads and others in the area were 

familiar with the scene, sometimes they came to the aid of the drunken 

stenographer to reach his house.  It was sad to watch when he was drunk 

and helpless. When he was sober, he looked very respectable sitting on 

the steps reading news paper or talking with his students. 

On one morning Juggernaut noticed that the shop at one corner 

of the cross roads has new owners. The man was in early thirties in 

traditional peasant dress like a person from the country side. 

Juggernaut though not thirsty in the morning before the school bell 

rang, walked to the new store to buy a soda to get acquainted with the 

new shop owner. 

“You are my first customer,” said the man with a big smile on 

his face. He spoke in a village accent. 

“Can I have an orange soda,” Juggernaut asked looking up since 

the kiosk was several feet above the ground. 

“Get a soda to this boy,” shouted the man. 

“A woman from behind came with a soda between her right hand 

and left hand that tapered into an abrupt end like a stump above the 

wrist. In spite of her handicapped hand, she opened the metal cap 

easily using a bottle opener.” 

Juggernaut drank the soda slowly watching the woman doing all 

kinds of chores in the shop like a person with normal hands despite the 

handicapped left hand.  She looked innocent like a village girl with a 

long braided hair hanging behind. He wondered what happened to her 

hand, perhaps she lost in an accident or she was born with the 

deformity.  In any case, she was using the deformed hand just like her 

other normal hand.  Though Juggernaut bought snacks and soda at other 

shops at the crossroads in the past, since meeting the handicap woman, 

he made all his purchases at her shop only.  Sometimes, during lunch 

break, he sat on one of the two wooden benches placed across her store 

for the customers. There were always people sitting on the bench either 

reading newspapers or chatting politics and some eating snacks and 

others smoking smelly cigars. The husband and wife team worked hard 

from morning to late evening hours.  The woman did most of the work 

inside the shop and the man did chores outside like sweeping the yard 

around the shop to get rid of cigarette butts and banana peelings or 

carrying stuff from the delivery trucks to his shop.  Juggernaut 

doesn't know the shop keepers name since they were never formally 

introduced to them but the couple knew that Juggernaut is one of the 

student at the school across the street. 

For the five years at the school, In the morning before the 

school opened and again on his way home in the afternoon, Juggernaut 

watched again and again the same events at the cross roads; the old 

chauffeur walking his bicycle early morning with effort on the steep 

road to the doctor's mansion, the handicap woman opening their shop 

with help from her husband and the stenographer walking home drunk 

stumbling on the steps to his house. 

Juggernaut on a rare visit to his old country, visited his old 

school building. The school building was closed with the front gate pad 

locked. The building was rundown with faded walls and windows as if it 

was not in use for a long time. Juggernaut walked slowly at the cross 

roads area to see the shops. The small shops in wooden kiosk were 

turned into shops built in concrete. Several multi storied buildings 

appeared on the large empty land opposite the school building. 

Juggernaut slowly walked along the same steep road, the chauffeur 

walked his bicycle to the old doctor's mansion in decades past only to 

find over grown bushes and trees around the dilapidated Doctor's 

mansion. Juggernaut wondered what happened to the affluent Doctor's 

family.  On the way down from top of the road, he stopped at the shop 

of the handicap woman.  To his pleasant surprise, the shop was still 

there intact, nothing changed; the two long wooden benches were still 

there in front of the shop but the shop was closed shut. Juggernaut 

walked close to the shop to find two old men sitting on the bench. At a 

closer look, one man resembled the husband of the handicap woman. Now 

he looked very old, gone his full hair on his head, instead white hair 

appeared like a thin rim around his bald head. He looked weak with worn 

out wrinkled face.  Juggernaut was excited to see the man. 

“Do you remember me, I used to buy soda from your shop everyday 

when I was a student at the school?” said Juggernaut pointing out the 

old school building across the road. 

The old man looked at Juggernaut and appeared lost and shook 

his head sideways. 

“Well, you may not remember me but I remembered you opened 

this shop with your wife in early 60's,” Juggernaut spoke with joy. 

“Yes I remember buying this shop from a man in early sixties,” 

the old man scratched his head. 

“How is your wife?” Juggernaut was anxious to know the 

whereabouts of his wife. 

“She is dead now,” replied the man as matter of fact without 

any emotions at all. 

“No he killed her,” shouted suddenly the man sitting next to 

the old shop keeper. 

“No, I did not kill my wife; she died of natural causes,” the 

shop keeper said in a quiet voice. 

“No, this man killed his wife by not getting treatment for her 

illness,” said the man turning towards Juggernaut. 

“What can I do, I have no money to pay the doctors so she 

suffered for months on the bed before passed away,” said the old shop 

keeper. 

“You are a liar; you stashed all your money away and don't want 

to spend money on your wife. The poor woman worked like a slave to you. 

Without her you could never manage the shop. You don't know how to read 

and write.  She did everything for you with one hand and what you did 

in return? You allowed her to rot and die without any treatment,” the 

man was angry and loud. 

“I didn't kill my wife, she died from natural causes,” The shop 

keeper repeated. 

“You have any children?” asked Juggernaut. 

“His son never visits him because the old man is mean and 

stingy with money,” replied the man. 

“My son was only interested in my money so I drove him from my 

house. He lives on the other side of the town with his family, I didn't 

see him for years,” responded the shop keeper.” 

“I want to know what happened to your wife's hand; was it from 

an accident?” Juggernaut couldn't wait to ask, he wanted to know for so 

long. 

“No, she was born with the deformity like that. Nobody in the 

village wants to marry a girl with a deformed hand. I came forward to 

marry her.” the shop keeper sounded as if he did a great sacrifice. 

“True but her father gave you a big dowry in cash and jewelry to marry
her; she completed 5th grade and you never went to school. You 

got an angel for a wife and you killed her,” the man seems to know the 

entire history of the shop keeper. 

“I didn't kill my wife,” the shop keeper kept repeating himself. 

“Have you closed the shop for good?” asked Juggernaut. 

“No, I am having diarrhea for the last four days, I could 

hardly walk but once I get better I will open the shop.” 

“He won't see a doctor because it costs money, that's how he 

allowed his wife to die slowly from sickness,” repeated the man. 

“I did not kill my wife,” again repeated the shop keeper. 

“What happened to the doctor across the street?” Juggernaut was 

curious. 

“It was a sad story; the old doctor died leaving his practice 

to his son and daughter in-law both doctors, and then his son died 

suddenly and not long after his doctor wife died too. They have no 

children and left no will. Their relatives were fighting among 

themselves in the court to share the wealth while their mansion and the 

empty school building were falling apart,” replied the man sitting next 

to the old shop keeper. 

“How about the stenographer?” 

“You won't believe, the man with all that drinking outlived his 

wife. His son is a big shot now running a large pharmaceutical company 

in another city. He does come once in a while to check his property.” 

“well, it was nice meeting you after so many years, I still 

remember you and wife working in the shop from morning to the evening, 

I wish I met your wife before she passed away,” Juggernaut held the 

shop keeper's shoulders as a friendly gesture, a way of saying good bye.


“If my shop were to open, I could have offered a cold soda for 

you,” replied the old man in his quite voice. 

“I am sure you will be dispensing sodas from you shop soon,” 

said Juggernaut as a show of confidence. 

“This man going to leave all the money he stashed away when he 

dies for his relatives to fight for it in the courts.   The 

stenographer across the street though became a slave to his drinking, 

took good care of his sick wife, sent his son to good schools to become 

what he is now, a big shot and always  donate money to the Appanna 

temple right here on the hill. This man and the doctors across the 

street were cheapskates; never spent money in their life and only to 

accumulate for relatives to fight in the courts. You killed your wife 

you fool,” again screamed the old man sitting on the bench and smoking 

a smelly cigar. 

“No, I did not kill my wife, she died from natural causes,” 

emphatically replied the shop keeper as if more times he repeats the 

statement it becomes a true fact for people to believe. 


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