The Two Lucky Ones

The Two Lucky Ones – Family Short Story

“Every one in my office saw the movie! It is only me who is left! How many times I had told you that the show ends today!” The lady asked with a complaining tone.

“I have been busy, you know that!” The man replied.

“Busy…busy! All are busy, but they found time for it, and you didn’t! And you know today is the last day!” The accusing tone and sharp look.

The man sat silent holding the newspaper.

“Why are you not saying anything?”

“What should I say now?” The man looked at her.

“Why can’t we go now? For the matinee? It is holiday!” The lady’s voice was so ordering.

“It will be rush!”

“I know you won’t take me…I am also toiling like you, with all the works at home and office, but, no one sees that! Don’t I have the right to see at least a movie ? Am I  a slave?’   She looked like the goddess of tears.

“Okay, get ready, we go now!” The lady’s face became sunny with a moment. She went to dress up.

 

***

He was standing under the acacia tree, picking his tooth with the picker he had  made out of some thin and sharp twig. The sun was setting, and the flock of birds were flying to their nests making sounds. His already dark face was grim, as he couldn’t make anything that day, and obviously he was starving. His tired limbs ordered his brain that he should sit there and his brain obeyed.

A thought flashed in his mind about all the houses he knew. But none offered him any hope. Because it was a holiday, so that at least one member will be there in all the houses. His mind sank. He heard his stomach growling. His desire to enter a house, which could offer him something to eat, grew with each passing second.

He was a thief, but that moment his only thought was about getting something to quench his appetite.

Physically, he was short and jet black, with an ugly face. He always wore a blue shirt and a black dhoti over a khaki trouser, the only dress he possessed.

No one in the place knew about him and he didn’t have even acquaintances there. The only place he visited regularly was the cheap hotel near the river, from where he got bananas, and meal in the noon. Some times he would collect water in a bottle for the old blind beggar sitting near the temple. He didn’t know the beggar, but he did that like a duty. And none suspected him.

As the mild breeze blew from the north, he fell asleep.

 

His nap got disturbed by a rumbling voice. He turned to the right. On the lonely road there stood a couple near a Pulsar 150 cc bike. He knew them, they were the working couple from that big house.

The lady was mad at the man.

“How many times have I told you to take the car? Your bike is such a useless thing…It is the tenth time it is stopping after we started….. whenever there is some urgency, it will stop…. Crap!”

‘You stop shouting on the road! Can’t you see? I’m trying hard…” . The man was keeping on trying but the bike didn’t come back to life.

The lady was now at the verge of crying. The thief thought the matter was so serious, may be some accident or death.

“O bhagavan, how long have I been keeping this dream? Always you have some excuses. If I can’t see the movie today, all my friends would make fun of me, I can’t imagine that… it is all because of you and your wretched bike….” The curse words followed.

The thief was amused, the lady’s urgency was a movie.

“O bhagavan, even if not matinee, please have mercy on us so that we can see at least the last night show!”

The lady’s prayer to the god above.

The man kept on trying and the lady kept on cursing and praying intermittently. Anyway the time for matinee was over. It has become dark.

But the patient man kept on trying and luckily,the bike came back to life. The joyous lady made some awkward sound to show her happiness. She climbed on the bike and they headed to the town.

An idea sparked in the thief’s mind. It was his luck too, he thought, for he knew where  their house was . And also  he  knew there were none else in their house.

He got up with an energy supplied by the idea and walked in the direction of their house. Darkness was growing, and he was dark enough to challenge the darkness.

***

He checked the front door to assure there was none inside.

Yes, it is locked! He smiled.

Straightly, he went to the back door of the house. The door was closed but a window so close to the door was opened.

People are so careless, he thought.

Through the window, he put this hand in and loosened the middle bolt of the back door. He tried opening the door. But it did’t open, because he had to unbolt the upper bolt too.

In the darkness he searched for something that would help him to unbolt the top bolt. Luck was in his side. He saw a stump laying nearby as if it was waiting for the right person to pick it up.

‘I’ m having some luck  this evening’, he felt happy. The growling from the stomach has stopped temporarily.

He opened the door and entered the kitchen. He was impatient and the darkness prevented him from seeing anything clearly, he didn’t want to put on the light too. He drifted to the dining room .

‘Ha! ‘ He exclaimed as he saw, even in the darkness, a bowl full of bananas. He ate three without wasting a second. As he took the fourth,  a mumbling from inside the house terrified him.

‘Did they come back so soon? Or is there another thief here?’ His heartbeat raised. But he managed to walk slowly.

He came to know that the sound was from the small room nearby. Some one’s tired voice, words not clear. After listening a few seconds,  he assumed that the enemy inside was not dangerous. But it was absolutely dark. So he took his small pen torch from the pocket of his trouser and lit it.

He saw a bed, on which lay a woman, making some unclear sounds. His instincts told to put on the light. He searched the wall for the light switch and finally put it on.

He saw an old and thin woman, laying on the bed. Probably, the man’s mother, guessed the thief, seeing the way she was laid in that room.

The woman was almost a skeleton and sensing the bright light she again made some sounds and actions.The thief feared she would cry out . He went near her. But even then the woman only showed actions. He waved his hand over her face. She still showed actions. She was blind, either by birth or by age.

‘What do you want? Why are you making sounds and actions?’ She might sense the strange sound, he thought.

But the woman only moved her pencil like hand to mouth and to her throat. The weak woman was deaf and dumb, too? He looked at the woman for a while. He understood that she was unable to recognize any one or anything.

She was thirsty, assumed the thief. He looked around and saw an empty jug near her.

‘Why they have put an empty jug here?’

He went to the dining room and filled the empty jug with water from the full jug he saw there.

He came near the woman and poured the water into her dry toothless mouth, until she showed ‘enough’ gesture with her hands.

She then moved her thin hands to her mouth, gesturing she was hungry too.

He went again to the dining table, took a banana , peeled it. He knew she couldn’t see or hear or eat that banana holding in her weak hands. He went to the kitchen, took a knife and cut the banana into tiny pieces and gave it to her. She gulped the pieces, leaving three pieces aside. He ate them. She smiled like a kid and waved.

The thief turned off the light and took a look around the big house.

‘Big house …employed son….but to feed, a thief should come!’ he told to himself.

***

The couple’s faces showed they had enjoyed the movie as well as the dinner.

‘Thanks darling! You are such a loving hubby, love you!’ The lady hugged the man.

‘ I too!…..But….”, he asked,  “…..did you give my mother food and water? We had left so early in the evening!’

The lady jerked.

‘Ah…yes….I had given her banana and she had eaten it full!”

A beautiful lie that instantly came to her tongue, as she knew very well that the old woman wouldn’t see or hear or speak. She felt confident.

“But I think I forgot to fill the jug!’ She confessed as she saw the man moving towards his mother’s room.

‘You always have excuses, would you forget like that if she were your mother?’ The man shouted.

The lady stood with her face down.

He went into the room, saw his mother sleeping peacefully. If she was hungry, she would certainly stay awake and make sounds, he knew that. He saw the jug, full of water.

He came and hugged his wife.

“I am sorry. You have filled the jug!”

The lady cried to act hurted. But inside she praised her luck and was seriously thinking.

‘Who could have filled the jug?’

__END__