A cold winter Evening

Since morning it was snowing. 

Just imagine one morning you wake up and walk outside, you feel snowflakes falling and landing on your face, and making everything around you look like a wonderland.

The same phenomenon was on that beautiful and cold winter evening of January.  

Everything was just awesome. Those days I was newly married. On that day we both, I and my husband were alone at home. 

 At the time of marriage, my in-laws' family was still living in their ancestor's house. It was a double story kaccha house, the roof of wooden logs and floor was of mud mixed with cow dung.

 Our room was on the first floor. The window of the room used to open towards the valley, the snow-covered valley. Watching the snowfall from the window and drinking hot coffee or tea while the fireplace is lit, was our favourite Sunday pastime.  

That was also a Sunday evening. The craving for tea was obvious on that cold evening. My husband expressed his desire for a cup of tea. 

While humming I happily went downstairs, it was for the first time after the marriage, he expressed his desire to me, till then the whole responsibility was on my sister-in-law's shoulders, being newly married I was not supposed to cook. 

The kitchen and dining area was on the ground floor. In one corner of the dining room, there was a fridge near the window.

 I opened the refrigerator and started taking out the container. The moment I hold the container of milk in one hand and tried to close the door of the refrigerator with another hand, it slipped from my hand and the whole milk scattered on the ground.

Despite the cold winter, I started sweating out of panic. For a moment, I was stunned. Didn't understand what to do.

"OMG, what will I do now? If anybody notices this, what will they think about me?"

Immediately went upstairs, narrated the whole story to my husband and insisted to bring fresh milk from the market before any member of the family returns.

At first, my husband did not agree, who would want to go out of the quilt in the cold winter?

But perhaps he felt pity, on my innocent face, agrees to go to the market on my repeated requests.

One more project to clean the floor was in my mind, I thought by the time he will be back, I will clean the floor.

At that time I didn't even know where the cleaning cloth and the bucket were kept. I was running here and there, searching.

Thank God I succeeded after almost 7/8 minutes.

With the water bucket and cleaning cloth, I entered the room.

To my surprise, no milk was on the floor, just a wet floor with some stains of milk.

I was surprised, where has the milk gone?

Who cleaned the floor?

I thought maybe my husband felt too much sympathy towards his new bride and so he did it.

Another thought came into my mind, probably a cat came from the window and licked the spilled milk from the ground.

Or something else? I was totally confused.

In between my husband came down. He was ready for the market.

He saw my shocking face, I pointed him towards the wet floor. 

He immediately understood and starts laughing.

"Now you are free, be cheerful, your work has been done."

 

I innocently looked at him and asked with hand gestures, "Is it you?"

"No dear, it's not me"

"Then for sure, it will be the job of a cat."

My husband burst out laughing loudly and said, "Not even that! You didn't notice, the window is closed."

Looking towards the window, I asked annoyingly, "Then who is this, in such cold weather, felt pity for me."

 "It's mother earth dear, she has done."

It took me a moment to understand the real meaning of his words. 

Later on, I came to know, milk was absorbed by the floor being kaccha.

That was completely a new experience for me. 

Seeing the confused and innocuous expression on my face, he hugged me and we both laughed for a long time.

I was happy, now my job was quite easy, just to remove stains of milk.

It was still snowing outside, and inside while curling up by the fire, we both got engrossed in the warmth of love.

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