Monsoon

Word count: 1077
Genre: Dark Fiction

         “Rip-roaring, trembling, spine tingling… Words would seem inadequate when you have to describe the south Indian monsoon! A gentle breeze undergoes a subtle change and chills you in the form of a storm. Clouds dances as its triumph goes on, lightening illuminates and the thunder plays the drum of season... Off late, after a heavy rain, you discover the power of nature, yet after the mind blowing performance!

         This is the old story! But today......”

         Sindhu dropped her pen down and leaned on to the bed. The pale green bed sheet was misplaced by her flimsy movement. She arranged it to perfection holding the papers on the other hand. The pillow on which her hand rested lied on the edge of the bed, resembling a new born baby in fast asleep. She gently pulled it closer to her and gave it a warm soft touch. Taking a long breath, she glanced at the papers.

         Nothing came into her mind to write about the present monsoon. She wanted to write that the whole country is waiting for a drop of water to fall from the sky. She could see no melancholy tears, except few languid faces. From her filtered view through the flat window, she could infer only some grumbles about the air conditioner price lists. The zero watt bulb laughed at her thoughts showing its yellow teeth. Chewing the tip of her pen in great depression, she sat against the paper and kept reading the few lines she had written.

         Rip-roaring, trembling, spine tingling…

         “Sindhu....”

         Sathyan’s voice was heard on the ground floor. Sindhu threw the pen on to the table, kept all papers under the bed and got up. Arranging her red flowery saree and running down in hurry, she couldn’t control a step next to the room door. Irksome sound of the door banging took Sathyan’s attention to the first floor.

         “What the hell are you doing there?”, he screamed.

         “Make my coffee”, he asked her. “Already the rain has annoyed me enough. You need not add anything more.”

         Like any most obedient wife, she walked towards the kitchen, holding one edge of the saree and wiping the little sweat on her forehead.

         Sindhu had no complaints. She believed she’s happy. Beyond the seventeen windows of their house, she had no scope of defining happiness. It was on the slum street behind that bungalow, she found few happy drunkards. She did not need many reasons to believe that it was the alcohol that made them happy. And she was happy without it, as ever.

         Sindhu loved cooking. And in all the romantic chat which he rarely had with her, Sathyan praised her for that. She loved receiving his appreciations, though he did it rarely. For that, she always made the food of his choice. She knew what he liked, and always sat beside him when he eats, to see him savoring what she cooked.

         The day turned dark and Sathyan was set to make the routine love. She never blamed him. Considering his busy schedule, she felt he is compensating for the other days by loving her once in a week. She took him to be caring and thanked him for his love at nights. She loved those occasions, as he speaks a lot then.

         Sathyan held her fingers across his. She found the rain acquiring more strength. To that matter, though he was nowhere in the picture, she liked to believe that he made it all for her. In each touch of his, she felt the shiny saturated raindrops on her. She lived in the rain for that moment, and he, in her. The rain gained more and more strength making an ethereal flood around the bungalow. And finally, with a rattling thunder, it all stopped. Sathyan turned towards the other side, and Sindhu, towards the window.

         “Every emotion is directly related to the monsoon – love, hatred, pain... driblet by driblet, it falls on us to remind us that we lean on different emotions. And endlessly, we blame the state.”

         Sindhu uttered few more words to add to her write-up on monsoon.

         Through the window, around the street light on the road, she found end number of flies making a new life.

         “It makes life, and.... and... it takes as well.”

         Gazing through her window, she kept whispering something. The rain had by then taken the image of a hero in her mind. She loved the rain and passionately moaned to get closer to it. Each drop fell tingling her fantasies.

         “I have no kids... If I had one, he would have been your best friend, rain!”

         Her whispers turned vivid. Walls of the bungalow resounded each word with an emotional disturbance that grew with the rain. Sindhu kept her hands between her knees. Veins on her face got tight. The seven feet blanket could no longer cover her insights. She turned to the window with a vague look in her eyes. The rain could no longer control; a wild wind smashed her window glass into broken pieces. Sathyan rubbed his nose and turned back to sleep.

         Sindhu pulled the papers kept under the bed making little noise. She read it all again in the darkness, and walked towards the door that opens to the balcony. Standing on the balcony, she stretched her arms towards the rain. For the first time in life, Sindhu felt as if doing something that she ever wanted. Each drop pierced her fingertip and crept through the nerves with immense joy. She found a new life calling her by name... “Sindhu... Sindhu...”

         Sindhu smiled. On one corner of her smile, she hid her hostility for the entire world. On the other, she expressly revealed her love for the rain. She threw the papers one after the other on to the ground. In the rain, the papers flew freely and kissed the mud!

         Next morning. Sathyan could not believe his fate. People gathered around house and rescue alarm sizzled all over. Standing in the rain, he bowed and picked a paper from the mud. Pinkish blood still courses on to its edges.

         “It makes life, and.... and... it takes as well.”

         He read it all, but couldn’t infer anything from it. Sathyan’s hands started shivering. The wind turned wild and snaffled the papers off from his hand. Staring at the balcony, he uttered, “There is something wrong here, I can feel it.”


Monsoon
By Jymoo