Night of Dying

Midnight! An errie of lamenting silence suffocates the usual night-charm. Yet the darkness has its life. Owls wail tensely. Occasionally a dog howls in the distance breaking the stillness for a few seconds. Shadows dance as leaves rustle in a pre-storm warning. Night creatures lie in wait for preys to devour.

Callously an old man traipses himself up to a rickety gate even while bones of wandering little lost insects get crushed underneath his thickened feet. Signs of weariness tell on his shedding skin. Fumes of cheap alcohol constantly pollute the air near him. A dust ridden corduroy pant manages to cover his crotch and then stiffly hangs down upto his swollen ankles. His bare breast has no such luxury. There, he feels the pricks of the chilly wind. Yet his saturnine face remains as before; unmoved.

He wriggles his hand through the rusty rails of the gate and from the inside, fumbles the latch to one side from the inside. The gate solemnly creaks open slow - an unnatural disturbance to the previous silence. In a distance awaits a murky bungalow, greeting its sole master in its own hideous design.

He passes by the dry garden, round the thorny shrubs and finally the yellow-leaves path. He recognises them by their dark magnitudes. The night has its advantages. Everything is black while daylight would have mockingly displayed their piteousness.

The dusty veranda stands ahead but yet he has to overcome five steps to reach the top.

He pauses. He stops and looks around. Is there a whisper? From behind the trees? Surely it can't the trees. They can only lament - life is getting raped over and over again. He knows his is different, a bit. He pulls himself towards the trees. He knows he is brave. He used to be. And strong. Yet a cloud of trepidation and qualms hangs above his head and inside his fainted heart. Every step leads to an area darker than the previous. He eagers to look back. But he daren't. And he can't go any further.

Suddenly a gush of chilly wave hits him. He shudders for a moment then raises his head again. His fear dies. He turns and walks back to the verandah.

Two huge pillars support the hanging roof. The moonlight reveals their worn out paint. The old man doesn't care. He goes to the one on the left and rests his head on the cold lifeless stone. His leg collapses on the floor. A lizard rushes upward on the pillar for his life. A split second late and its intestines would have popped out its body and the jellies squashed up all over.

There the old man sits. His eyes unblinked, stares into nowhere. He sits for hours. Occasionally he would take out a small glass bottle he has kept squeezed up between his backbone and his pant. He would drink the contents. A sip. The usual smell. The usual rottenness. The usual gasping for breadth. The usual cough. Then he would stare out into random again. He remembers his days.

Life was his too then. Now it haunts him. The house was then his castle. Bees had rested on the scrubs. The garden had been blooming once. Green grass had cushioned the pathway. But time takes its toll while life drags on.

Suddenly he startles. Something falls on its lap. He picks it up and brings it near his face. It is a lizard. Alive and kicking. It wriggles hard. He's holding it by the tail. He looks into its eyes- the only soul alive near him. His face remains motionless. He just stares as the other one squirms and tussles.

Then a joint breaks. The lizard falls down to his laps again. It flits into the darkness. The old man looks back into his hand. The tail still struggles there. He wonders why? It bangs on his fingertips, sticks itself there for a second, then wriggles again. He supposes it should die fast. There is no use carrying on. He throws it into the darkness. Maybe it would rest in peace.

He stares into the sky. The monstrous clouds look vicious and unearthly. It is slowly devouring the helpless moon, dismembering the little light that is there on the ground. The trees soon pick up a wind and toss it all around. It hits his face and his naked breast. His diminutive hairs float in mid air. Slowly he feels his eyes closing.

Sitting there on the verandah, leaning to the pillar, he sleeps, with the wind fanning him. Like a nature's baby resting on her laps. Or a lamb enjoying its final moments before getting slaughtered. Up on the sky the moon is gone. And a lightening shrieks. A blaze of brightness lit up the earth for a second then darkness takes over again. Drops dribble out of the clouds. Others follow vehemently. And the night is left on the mercy of ravaging tempest.

Suddenly the old man opens his eyes. He is wet all over. The inebriation has gone. But his head is heavy. He gets up and almost falls. He catches hold of the pillar and sink his forehead to the lifeless pillar again. Then he slowly steps inside.

He fumbles his hand for a while and clicks the lights on. A huge hall stands with two oval staircases running up to the next floor. A damp carpet adorns the floor everywhere. On the walls hang paintings with coats of dust covering them. Between the paintings lies a huge portrait. A man and a woman sit side by side in it. The man resembles the old man, yet unused by time.

The old man takes off its pant and throws into the sofa in the middle of the room. He crosses across and opens a door. It is the bedroom.

He wipes his naked body dry, then lies down on the bed. He feels cold. His heart starts racing. He could hear it beating madly. With each beat, he breathes longer and harder. He pulls in the air with all his might. He hears it going in. It sounds louder than the storm outside.

He feels exhausted. His body constricts him inside. His eyeballs gauge out. Then they slowly subdue and the eyelids close shut. A fainted smile escapes from his lips.

Days later in the middle of the town where the old man lives, a young man picks up a local tabloid from a magazine stall. The headline reads

'80 year old lone widower found dead in house'.