The Last Supper

Mother serves the dinner to both of them, Rakesh and Pari, on their plates; rice, dal, vegetables, and a glass of water too. They are in the small kitchen of their home, which consisted of two bedrooms and a washroom too. They don't have any dining table, as likely the other middle-class families, they sit on the floor on a piece of cloth for meal time. Rakesh moves in the room with his twelve-year-old sister. He is fourteen. Both of them sit facing the closed door of the room, which they don't usually do, but they have slightly shut the door today due to frogs cavorting here and there in rains. The sound of heavy rain drops with slight prediction of thunders is clearly audible in the room.

Rakesh has his dinner with no much zenith, as he segregates few fried onions scants to one side of his plate. In about every five minutes, he looks under the bed which is in front of them, under the bed is dark, and it keeps him looking at it again and again.

A sudden shriek emerges from somewhere outside the room, probably its mother calling out to Shankar, their servant who once fell from a tree and could never walk again. Other diseases have made him paralysed perpetually. He stays in a dark room, murmuring, sleeping and having his meal which is served to him automatically. But mother doesn't seem to be calling him this time, for sure.

Little, then medium low, then noticeable sounds of cries and screams come, a few utensils falling down too. Rakesh's heart pounds with fear, with anxiety, but quite the contrary, his sister seems to be ignorant. She doesn't even gaze her look from her meal, to the bed, or to behind her.

"Do you hear something?" he asks, finally, for content.

His sister, Pari, looks above to him, normally and stares low for a while, trying to catch up with the noises coming even louder.

"Do you hear—"

"I need to go," his sister never rushes in such a haste. She pushes her plate away, which goes under the bed. She turns and opens the door, slams it, rushes out. Nothing is audible now, no cries, no sound at all.

Rakesh fits in the morsels of food even faster, faster because it is not at all normal now. He tries to finish it up quickly, sipping in more water, he worries of his mother, his sister. Where did she go?

After done, he picks himself up, and finally moves out of the room. He is greeted by Shankar, sitting on his wheelchair turned around, his face is not visible though. The only thing visible is him, the fused bulb, the dark and two red bloodied carcasses spread around.