Derek

                                                  

"NO!" The scream distracts my attention to a diamond-shaped window. "No I won't give it."

I know that voice and the round head behind the grills. It is Derek. Keep fighting Derek! Don't surrender. But the moment the child moves away, my eyes return to the fire. I am too cozy to move anywhere away from it. I am warm… and sad… and very scared. My hands are trembling inside my coat pockets. There isn't much time left for the fire to stop. It has been raging for two hours now.

And then I have to go back home. No one around here shares my fear. The Daniels, the Smiths, the Samuels, Potters… They all pay electric bills. They enjoy heaters and electric blankets. But I? Perhaps, my head is hurting too much to think properly.

Someone in the crowd raises her hand, looking at… me. "Hello!"

But no reply comes from me. I am actually not here. My body is standing beside everyone. Still I am only with Mishika. I will try to tell you who she is. I am not good at introducing.

Mishika is the only among the seventeen who disobeys me. She is also the youngest and so attractive that I cannot scold her. A year ago, we were not on talking terms. But sitting silent opposite to her was also impossible. She kept looking at me, waiting. One day, I sat down beside her and started talking. She fixed her eyes on me. No reply. Her tiny pouted lips looked angry. After a month, I coloured them red, dragging out paint at the ends, making large smiling lips. 

I sit down on the ground, holding my head. The wise men of our neighbourhood are still trying hard to keep the fire alive. They glance at me. Sympathetically. My eyes move to Loyola. She is standing by the fire, warming up her hands. Loyola's children are not here. They are fighting their father and a wise man who has gone to their house to clean it up from the terrible influences. If there are any. You cannot always tell. My house was always white-washed and the flower-plants in the pots trimmed. Could anyone guess it was haunted? Except me, of course.

Samuels looks worse than Loyola. Unless it is a digestion issue... But it isn't. Samuels has been fighting with the wise men of this neighbourhood all afternoon. "What will you destroy little rag dolls for? They have not harmed anyone. Many were hand-sewn by poor mothers."

"It is not that, Mr. Samuels!" They reply. They are getting angry on the man. Old fool.

But I don't think so. At least, now. I stand strong with Samuels. He has been turned away from each door that he has gone knocking. Someone should have been nice to him. Someone should have offered him lunch or evening tea. I get to my feet and go up to Samuels, taking out salted groundnuts from my coat pocket. He hesitates, "Are you very angry at me Mr. Samuels?"

"No." He says quietly, picking up the nuts, "I am sorry for you. Very much."

The fire is now raging again. It has suddenly got more fuel. Samuels will never understand the things that were happening at my house. He will call it 'gossip' even if the wise men shouted it from loudspeakers.

The day I had painted my Mishika's lips, I took her to my painting room. I sketched her from all angles. Finally I left her asleep in the chair. I could not eat because she had not eaten. I wouldn't even sleep if she was awake. But she slept. And I slept… Fifteen minutes past midnight, someone's sing-song voice rang in the house. Mishika was singing, "I will dance. I will dance. I will today sing and dance… sing and dance…"

I hurriedly turn away from Samuels. My house is just across the street but I cannot go there now. Mishika is tied to a bench beside one of the wise men. Her hands are gently lying over one another in her lap. Her eyes are lowered. But I know she is waiting for me to do something, to help her.

I put my hand over Mishika's shoulder. I am beside her on the same bench. She can talk to me if she wants. She won't.

She has sung endless times in my room and at night. She has kept me awake, talking endlessly to her large blue eyes. She is going to suffer now. Because of me. On Tuesday, last week, I had gone to the wise men and told them how Mishika was playing with me. They sent me home and kept discussing it all week. This morning, they found a solution…. 

"Gregory! It is 9 o'clock." A wise man tells me, "I think, we have burned up all the other dolls in the neighbourhood -sixteen of yours." I nod and move away. He undoes the ropes.

I lift the four feet tall Mishika in my arms. But something is changed about her…. My knees are feeling wobbly. It is the same Mishika I have lifted hundreds of times before. Maybe, her body has turned heavier since yesterday, when I was nursing her through a cold.

I toss her into the fire… and try to move back…. Samuels catches me in his arms. If he had not, I might have fallen on the road as well. He pulls me away from the fire, towards my house. The wise men on the street notice him. They threaten to bring down his toy shop tomorrow. I don't know what happens after this. Everything around me is sinking into a heavy mist.

At two in the morning, I wake up on the living room couch where Samuels had left me. A sing-song voice is coming from my painting room:

"I will dance. I will dance. I will today sing and dance…"