Hum-an-imal

The phone call

Sathya walked like a cat out of the room, with the phone ringing in his hand. His wife was already asleep, but there was nothing called like too much care with her. He stepped out into the balcony and stood behind the glass door of his Newyork house, and picked up the phone call from his mother. He was elated to have a call with his mother, free from any judgments from his wife.

Before he could say hello, his mother said something to Sathya.

"Mother, but how?"

The happiness on Sathya's face vanished. 

"What do you mean, COVID?"

A long silence.

"I am starting today."

He started thinking, what was he going to tell his wife. It was not going to be easy, he thought. But the situation, too, was not ordinary. 

"Don't do this to me. I am not going to listen to him this time. I want to come, he was my guide, he was my friend, he was my everything growing up."

Sathya started recollecting everything about his uncle, how he taught him to cycle, and how he trusted Sathya and gave his business at a very young age. How his trust made Sathya take risks and made him a big shot in New York today. 

"No, Mother. I am coming," wiping off the tears. As he opened the door to enter, he was shocked. 

"You are not going anywhere", declared his wife.

"But...."

"No but's, you will go now and bring COVID back with you. You only worry about your family, what about me, what about my daughter? Sorry, what about your daughter?"

I hate him

Vivek was busy when his phone started ringing. He had a quick peek at the blinking name and quickly put it back in anger. He walked around the house searching for her and found her making coffee for guests arriving at this grieving hour. He wanted to hold her hand and say he was sorry, even though he could have done nothing to save his father. Before he could say anything, she understood what he was going to say. 

Wiping the tears off, she said, "There was nothing anyone could have done."

Vivek trying to keep composure, nodded and turned away to hide the tears.

His mother handing him the cup of coffee started to ask, "Did Sat .."

Before she could finish, he stopped his mother and said, "Don't talk about him. I hate him."

"No, don't be like that. He and your father had been more than uncle and nephew. Your father felt close to him even with all the age difference", said his mother.

"That is what I hate about all this. All my hospital visits, it felt like the only thing my father was looking forward to was the calls they two had."

"No, it is not like that."

"Don't tell me the same story again. They both missed each other because of him moving to the US.", said Vivek leaving the untouched coffee cup in the washbasin and walking out of the kitchen in disappointment.

As he was walking out to continue work on giving a final send-off to his father, he saw his sister. She seemed to be signalling him to come and sit next to her. He obliged and walked to a chair next to where she was sitting.

"Are you angry?", she asked.

"Yes."

"I, too, am angry. Father promised to come back and complete our argument", said Swathi.

"What stupid argument is that?" 

"He keeps calling the queen piece on chess the minister, and when countered, he says, no king will send his queen to fight".

"You know our father well. He had a logic tough to argue with."

"Yeah, but he was wrong. Otherwise, he would not have left his queen to fight his battles and make coffee for these stupid people", replied grieving and trying to wipe off the unstoppable tears.

Vivek trying to be strong for both of them, hid his tears from his sister when the phone rang again. He rejected the call again quickly hardly glancing at the screen.

"Is it him?" asked Swathi.

"Don't talk about him" replied Vivek.

"I know that you hate him. You hate him because he is not here today next to you to give anecdotes and stories about our father".

The tears did not stop anymore for Vivek. 

The negotiation

Rao was deep in his sleep when his wife's shouting woke him up. He knew what was going on. 

Half in sleep Rao said, "We have a phone. You don't need to shout for your mother to hear what you are saying from London to reach India", joked in his usual sarcastic tone."

"Shut up with your stupid sense of humour. My uncle passed away." 

"Oh my god, I am sorry", said Rao.

"Should I book tickets for us to go home?"

"That is what I am trying to find out."

"Yes, check if it is okay for us to reach in a day."

Before he could finish, the phone rang, and she picked it up with a loud hello.

"What do you tell him?" was all Rao could hear before she stepped out of the bedroom. 

His sleep was long gone. Rao started thinking about what would have changed things. He remembered the man was a teetotaller and seemed healthy always. The word teetotaller reminded him of his brother-in-law, Sathya. Rao picked up his phone and immediately called Sathya.

"How are you?" asked Rao

"I am okay. Thank you," replied Sathya.

"When you spoke to him last."

"Day before, he promised to learn and play online chess."

"Yeah, chess. That man was unbelievably good at chess."

"Do you know in the match between Anand and Rebel in 1998, he predicted every move of Anand to the T."

"I can understand the playing. But, that man had the patience to watch and measure every move", said Rao.

The realization started hitting Sathya that he had only memories of his uncle but not him anymore.

Rao then asked, "When are you starting?" 

Before Sathya could reply, his wife dragged the phone out of Rao's had to talk to Sathya. 

A few minutes later, Rao's wife came back to the room and said, "I spoke to my mother, brother's wife and told my brother".

"What did you say?" asked Rao.

"I was worried. My mother said, don't travel with COVID restrictions and all."

"They say that..." Rao tried to speak, but she ignored him and continued.

"If my brother travels from the US and we don't go, it would look bad. So I called his wife."

Rao started thinking, why she was talking about not going?

"I made sure his wife too would not let him go", completed the conversation.

"What? What did you do? Knowing their relationship, how could you do that?"

"Don't make me the villain here. Now we travel and get stuck like our neighbours in India, can you even believe the horror?"

"For that, you could have told any kind of reason. Why do you have to stop your brother from going?"

"Let him go? How naive are you?"

"I don't like it."

"He travelling there is not going to change anything. By the way, this is my family, why do you worry? It is 4:30 AM already go to the supermarket there will be discounts on many good items, bring them."

"What?"

"Yeah, you never woke up to get the best discounts. Today you got up early, go and do something useful."

Rao surrendering to his wife got up and walked into the bathroom to freshen up. Something clicked as he was brushing, picked up the phone and messaged Sathya, "I am sorry for your sister." 

After seeing the two blue ticks, he erased the message to be careful.

Castling

Vivek was done with formalities and was back at home. The home suddenly felt empty. It certainly was not the guests that Vivek missed. Vivek walked straight to the room and sat in his usual position at the legs of his father's easy chair, and looked around the room after a long time. In the busy world of his IT work, he had no chance to see what was going on with his father. 

The bookshelf had Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana's in place of millions of chess books. The more predominant change was the photo frames containing the pictures of Vivek and Swathis' first day at his office. As he continued browsing, he saw one rack written on it, "To Sathya".

The sadness of losing his father and missing his friend Sathya was back. 

Vivek's phone flashed the message "E4" at that moment from Sathya.

"E6", replied Vivek moving his pawn ahead.

"NC3", replied Sathya moving his knight to C3.

"I hate you. D5", Vivek moved his pawn.

"I hate myself, too. D4", Vivek moving a step ahead with his pawn.

"Don't need to pretend. You seemed to move on. C5", moved his pawn one more step.

"You don't need to kill me with your words. CXD5", Sathya killed the pawn of Vivek.

"You are doing it very well. EXD5", Vivek killing Sathya's pawn in reply.

"I think I cannot play anymore, I am dying every second", replied Sathya.

"The game just started", replied Vivek.

"The last one was enough?"

"I feel it did not move you?"

"Do you really feel that? I don't believe."

"Yes, and you want confirmation, come and see in my eyes."

"Your father taught you the best chess moves. Making one crazy move to challenge every decision."

Sathya's exactly knew where he had to be that time and that day, but he could not move. When his mind was thinking of ways to escape reality, his wife walked into the room and gave him a list of items to bring from the Supermarket.

P.S.: Sathya's wife received a call from his number. "I am covid positive and in isolation, they identified as I walked into the supermarket. Don't worry it is mild. I will be in isolation at the hospital and come back in two weeks." Vivek heard the news of Sathya. He was worried for his cousin. A day later as Vivek was waking up he heard a voice, "Night to F3". It was Sathya. COVID isolation was the crazy move Sathya played to visit his cousin.