The Ring

This my entry to this week's Indie Ink Writing Challenge. I am taking a break next week, because I will be partying it up in New York this weekend. Woo hoo!

This week I challenged Blackbird to write about a mind adventure and she has the most beautiful and powerful response here. Go read it.

---

Madan was on his knees on the stairs with the ring on his hand. But he was not proposing to Sue, like he wanted to. He was searching for the stone on the ring that had to be somewhere on the stairs.

It had all started a few months ago. He loved Sue and she loved him back and he like Beyonce said, he wanted to put a ring on her. And he knew just the ring to propose with, his grandmother's antique ring, with a diamond as big as a rock. She came to this country fifty years ago and even when they were struggling to make ends meet in the new country, Grandpa wouldn't let her sell or pawn the ring. The ring had been promised to the first grandson who got engaged. Since his brother just broke with his longtime girlfriend and his cousin was a frat boy who couldn't commit to a woman for a week, leave alone for life, he figured the ring was rightfully his. It had been hard convincing his mother though. He figured it was because Sue had lost a wallet and a watch recently and she must be worried that she would absently misplace the ring.

He picked the date to propose, and decided he would do it at their favorite restaurant and place the ring in a glass of champagne. But the night before while flipping through channels, Sue came across a documentary about blood diamonds which ended with her swearing off diamonds for life. Madan couldn't believe his luck, he should have watched the Sex and City rerun like she wanted to. It was back to the drawing board. He turned to his trusted friend Google and searched for other options for engagement rings. He decided that blue sapphire would be a good alternative, considering blue was her favorite color. But now there was the question of the ring. Should he buy a new ring for her? Or should he keep his grandmother's ring and replace the stone? Since he went to so much trouble to get the ring from his mother, he was loathe to give it back. He ordered a blue sapphire to match the diamond on the ring and went to a jeweler to get the diamond off. When Fedex finally delivered the sapphire, he placed it on the ring and was just thinking it looked perfect, when Sue came home and was on her way up the stairs to hug him hello. He did the what at that moment seemed to be the sensible thing to do and just dropped the ring and the stone on the stairs, hoping that the shag carpeting on the stairs would hide them.

When Sue left in a few minutes to have coffee with her best friend Karen, he rushed back to the stairs, but found that the stone was missing.

At the coffee shop, Sue was nervously stirring her latte though she had forgotten to add sugar.

"What do you mean, Madan is going to propose? Are you going to say yes? This is so exciting! Think you will have a summer wedding?"

"Karen, did you hear the other things I am telling you? He was going to use his grandmother's ring. That thing is huge, I am telling you I could blind an entire village with that thing."

"And he is not using that ring now?"

"No, he took the diamond off and is planning to replace it with a blue sapphire"

"What??"

"Yes, it's because I saw this documentary about blood diamonds on TV and I might have cried a bit and told him I am never to wear diamonds again"

"Aww that's sweet of him. You got yourself a listener. Congrats, they are a rare breed."

"Kare, it is his grandmother's ring! His mother will never let me live it down. She hates me enough already, Madan is oblivious to it though. I don't want to be the woman who broke the family heirloom. I will be mocked at all family gatherings."

"So ask him get you another ring. Don't tell me you want that diamond."

"Well, actually I do. I mean what I said about not buying diamonds, but this one is already mined. And it is a beautiful stone and the setting that accentuates the beauty. I like that Madan finagled it from his Mom to give it to me. And that's why I took the sapphire with me when Madan was not looking"

"Are you nuts Sue? Madan loves you and you love him. Go home and fix this!"

When Sue came home, Madan was still on the stairs. When she walked up to him, he got down on his knee and held out a ring from a cereal box. Tears started streaming down her eyes and she gesticulated a resounding yes. Yes, rocks don't matter as much the people do.

----

My challenge was from Lazidaisical

a story that takes place in a stairwell.

My first attempt was about this little boy who pushed his mother down the stairs who dies. But that was very sad and dark and I couldn't take it further after a while. This one was more last minute thing and I just had fun with it. Hope you don't mind that the whole story does not take place on the stairs and the stairs aren't even a focal point of the story. Some day I will complete the other piece too.