An Indelible Night

It was a Monday morning. At 6 am, the room was dark where a fan was rotating in its full speed, could be heard. On the bed, under the sheet, there lay a girl who had slept late last night so, she stopped the alarm twice. In a state of deep slumber, she said, “I want to sleep for ten more minutes please”. After this, she changed her comfortable position from left to right and curled herself more under the sheet. She slipped her hand under her flat and uncovered pillow and checked her phone with her one eye. She was tapping on her phone screen with her thumb where the nail had chipped recently. It seemed that even her eye said, ” I am not able to widen myself”. This was Rosi. Rosi was an early bird, but today she could not wake up on time. Finally, the alarm rang again and she snorted like a mare and woke up with puffy eyes.

Rosy felt guilty for curling herself into the bed for ten minutes extra. So, she straight away went to her kitchen quickly. She lit the burner and put the pan to make herself a cup of tea. She was still wearing her night suit and the little beautiful monster with smily faces on her shirt, made her smile. As a daily routine, she drank one glass of water before tea. Suddenly, the thought of soaked dry fruits came to her mind. She started searching for the ceramic bowl on her slab. Her kitchen was neatly kept and everything was in order, still she was wondering where had the bowl gone. She was taken aback for a while. She checked all the drawers and cupboards. But to her utter amazement, she did not find the bowl at the same place where she had kept it last night. She vividly remembered that she soaked some almonds, raisins and dried figs. She suddenly found the bowl behind the cleanly wiped gas stove. Her eyes widened at that sight. She could not believe her eyes. The lid with which she had covered the bowl was lying away from it on the slab . She ignored it for a while. But she could not get away with the thought of the bowl without its lid.

The water in the pan was still boiling she added milk, sugar and tea leaves and allowed it to boil. By the time it was boiling, she put her fore fingers to take out the raisins and figs but little she did not know that another surprise was waiting for her. She found all the raisins and figs lying on the slab half eaten and only almonds inside the bowl. Her heart started pumping fast. She was stunned to see everything. What was happening with her she could not understand. For a while, she was unable to move and panted while she stood there holding the edges of the slab .After a while, she moved out of the kitchen with the cup of tea that she had been preparing. The thought was still lingering but keeping all things aside she got ready and moved out of her appartment with her heavy bag. The bag was as heavy as her thoughts. Partially disturbed, she drove carefully and midway she realised if she would tell this incident to anyone, none would believe. She took U-turn and came back hurriedly. She parked her car, her hair wet and loose had made her plain pink shirt look as if it rained heavily inside her car and turned it into dark pink. She was running upstairs and quickly clicked the picture of the bowl and half eaten raisins and left the almonds as they were. And came back quickly apprehending some danger.

She tried to ignore this incident and leave for her office but couldn’t get away with the incident. The more she tried to ignore ,the more this thought haunted her. Despite of her hectic work schedule she kept on connecting all the incidents together to know what could be the reason. This thought disturbed her throughout the day. She was horrified with this thought. She knew that she has to spend one more night alone. After her work she thought of discussing this with her mother. After a long talk she came to the point and said, “Mom, why this could have happened?”. Mother said, ” This is the month of Shraadh and this could be a signal from a family member who had recently died and needs to be offered something. Rosi’s husband’s grandfather had passed away recently so was little scared. She called up her husband immediately and called him home. They both sat and discussed how his grandfather had died and no offerings were made to him after he left for his heavenly abode.

Rosi’s husband told her about his grandfather more and more and the one anecdote that connected with her last night incident was when her husband told her, ” Grandpa was a healthy being he loved to eat everything and exercised a lot. The only thing he didn’t like was soaked almonds in the morning”. This was something Rosi was surprised about. Her eyes widened and realised that he must have come in any form and ate raisins and figs. The almonds were left inside the bowl. They offered the desired things to a priest in a nearby temple for their mental satisfaction. But to this date, she doesn’t know who came and who took out the figs and didn’t even touch the almonds. Rosi doesn’t keep soak almonds in the kitchen anymore. No matter things looked simple, this left a tragic scar in her mind