Goddess

Sometimes, even if you are hungry, it is difficult to eat, swallow the food where anger, sadness or tension filled in your guts and stopping the food from sliding through your pipe. Exhausted by the same situation, Arun was trying hard to complete the dinner as soon as possible and get out from there, in front of her. He just doesn’t want to start a conversation with her, which will be obnoxious to him. That’s why he was in a silent hurry. But she is just a human being and cannot read any minds even his son’s and so started the conversation.

“How was your day, Arun??”

The question from her raised some predictions in him that this may be another argument. Tired of feeling awkward and rough by arguments, he doesn’t want to raise one this time. So, just with a plastic punctuality, he answered her.

“It’s okay”

“Okay??”

“It’s fine.”

That’s enough, he thought. One more question from her, his appetite will be mortified and his mood too.

“Is there any problem Arun??”

He almost shouted, “I am fine and my day was good. Now please let me eat, okay?”

“What happened? Is there anything wrong??

“Nothing” He slowed down.

“Then why are you so dull Arun???

He was right. Questions from her raise temperature in him, every time.

“Nothing, just leave me.” Pushed his plate away, he stood from there.

Like most of the dinners since his childhood, it’s another one, worth losing his appetite and left the dish uneaten.

“These days you are acting rude Arun, that’s not good to stand by leaving the food like that. Come and eat.”

But he’s already there, wiping the washed hands with towel.

“I told you hundred times not to argue with me when eating, I just hate that.”

Mom with sad face, “I just asked you about the day Arun, is it an argument??? “

“Whatever!!!…..okay….just leave it…I am sorry. Now leave me.”

Left the door opened and his mom unspoken, he’s out of the home and walking on that midnight roads with fury inside.
Reason is simple, he just hate her. He just hate when she cares, it seems like smothering to him. He just hate when she speak a single word, it seems like unbearable. He just hate whatever she does, because deep down in his heart, he believes that she is the one who killed his father.

***

In that furlong distance from his home to the bus stop, his usual sitting spot, he revealed so many moments of the past, of his mom and of his worst days. Since from his father’s passing, he’s living with her. Missing his beloved father, he had hundreds of melancholic dreams. Even his mind knew the bitter truth that his father died still his subconscious brain impulse make a dream everyday for him in which his dad is alive. But in a moment when that heartfelt dream broke, it’s again his agonized world of loneliness. He had so many insomniac nights crying for him and so many incomplete days quarrelling with her.

***

Sitting in the bus stop with still that disturbed mind, he checked his wrist. It is late. Big hand is about to meet the small one at 12.

‘She will be alone there ’, he moved from there and slowly walked home. Ascending the front steps, he found the light in the mom’s room is still on. Frowned by that, he firstly went to her and found her there, sleeping in the rocking chair.
He made her woke up by rocking her hand.

As still water gets disturbed and form ripples by the stone throw, she woke up suddenly with a shake and came out of her dream.

“Why are you sleeping here? Get up…go to bed….”

With her sleepy whispers she said “okay”

She tried to uplift her old and slow body of rusted knees from that chair but failed when Arun grabbed her arm and helped. Taking into her room, he made her sleep on the prepared bed and covered her with sheet. Don’t know why, but he did all this in an unknown embarrassment. Switched off the light and he came out from the room and closed the door. With a lot of mixed feelings and long, tired evening, he entered his room without switching on the light and collapsed on the bed, and in minutes he fell asleep.

******

He was simply standing on the wall of that giant well and staring, when she was screaming for help. His father, standing beside the well was busy in lightning the wet cigarette in that aftermath rainy time. With only one hand hanging to the wall, she was crying his name to help “Arun, Arun” and now that hand too left the grip and gravitation through the water won and pulled her in.

With that deadly nightmare, his back shivered and made him woke up when he saw her right beside his bed. He can listen to the rain outside.

“What??” with surprised voice he questioned her about her presence.

He found her there, with changed clothes. She had bathed already. Wondered, he checked his wrist and its 3’o clock in the morning.

“What? Why u got up so early, anything wrong??”

She, standing there with sad face said “Arun…aakalestundira (I am feeling hungry Arun)”

‘Is she crazy or something?? What is the time and what the hell is she talking about? No one will have appetite in this odd time.’ He thought and asked her. “What happened?”

“It’s been two days I ate properly. Stomach is aching. Can you please bring me something to eat?”

“Why, make something for yourself. Okay??”

“But I want to eat idly. Please…”

“But it’s 3.15 now. Where can I get idly?? And moreover it’s raining heavy.” He never hides his anger.

By those words, she frowned and kept silent. He understood that she is hungry and want to eat.

“Okay, I will try.” Taking the umbrella from the hanger, he rushed out in that strong rain.

‘It’s strange. In this early time, she had freshen up, wore new dress and now asking idly to eat. What happened to her?? ‘

He is walking in that rainy street, through that coffee puddles on the road. It’s already 3.40 and still he is searching for the Tiffin carts. All these time, he is walking in those streets in rush. At last at 3.55, he found one cart at the end of one street and by seeing that, he increased the pace without bothering the slippery mud. Reaching there he found that the man is busy in making that big tea pot heat.

“Bhaiyya 1 plate idly. Please give me fast.”

That man who was busy in his work said in reluctant and discouraging tone, “it will take 10 minutes. Will u wait??”
With no alternative, he said okay and standing there under the umbrella with running thoughts about her strange behavior today.

Its 4.06 in his digital watch, he asked that cart man once again for the Tiffin. After a few minutes, taking the idly, he rushed back to the home.

She opened the door, still with that sad face.

Finished those three idly and she went to her bedroom, closed the door without speaking a word.

Seeing all this, Arun became confused and went to sleep again.

***

Some dreams are like mosquitoes. Whenever they have a chance, they come again and again to interrupt your deep sleep. And this time the dream came in its real way as it happened.

It was early and a cloudy morning. Arun was playing in the back lawn of the house when his father was indulged in some garden work. He was obtaining water with buckets from the well and that is the moment when that nightmare happened. His father slipped there and felled into the well, shouting for help with only one hand holding the wall. Arun was standing there only dumbfounded. She was in the house in the middle of the bath and didn’t hear a thing. And finally when the shower stopped, she heard a large dunk. Rushed there, she only found Arun with tears welled in his eyes.

No one’s mistake but fate’s play. But Arun strongly believe that it was her fault that she didn’t come in time.

***

Arun suddenly woke up from sleep sensing something bad. Do not know why, but something appeared wrong to him. Brushing his sleepy eyes he felt something under him. It is a letter. Wondered what it would be, he opened the letter. The letter which shocked him, which choked him, which he never expected, which made him followed her, and the letter which ends the story.

Arun, I know that you hate me when I speak in front of you. Even, my voice is like butterflies in your stomach, I know that.
It’s not a mother when she breast feed you, care you, grow you, toast you bread and prepare the bed. She will be a mother only when you call her, love her and feel her like one.
My son, you never felt me like a mother. It doesn’t hurt me. But your presence, your happiness and your smile is enough for me to live my life.
You know what, when you are in my stomach, you used to kick me very hard that I used to weep and weep all those nights along. And I don’t know whether it was my stomach warmth you liked or this world you fright, but Arun, you took 7 hours that day to come out of me. My thighs, my throat, my eyes and my whole body burnt like thousand hells with that pain. But even that pain is nothing when I saw you for the first time. You looked like a tiny red creature between my legs crying like a bat’s screech. That is the moment when I swore on my bones and my goose bumps that you are my life.
Broken heart is harmful Arun. It can turn anybody into a poor helpless creature which only waits for its death. So it is time for me after a long wait.
When your heart broke, you don’t need a knife or a rope, or a pill or anybody to kill. You can die when that heart is tired of pain and exhausted with dead-beat, so it squeezes itself and make a suicide. A soundless and peaceful death Arun.
You never know how much I cried when writing this, but these are the words I longed to tell you.
People die every day Arun. Even mothers do. Be strong and I am sorry. I Love you.

***

With terror, with cold feet he walked to her room, sliced the curtain and walked in. She was on the bed facing the wall opposite to the door. “Amma”, he turned her. There lied the stupid mother, in her most beautiful appearance, looking to him like a sleeping goddess in eternal peace, holding to her heart a photograph of her husband.
His heart didn’t seek an explanation or didn’t wait a single moment. But it crushed itself, made his blood cold, body trembled. With tears filled eyes open, he collapsed and followed his mother.

***

__END__

Not Gods, they are just beliefs. It is our mothers who are worth to be the heaven residents.
-mniknta