One Foot In The Grave

V

Am I angry? This question is not a stranger to Vishwa. Ever since his father passed away, he had asked himself the same question multiple times and never found an answer. He can state his heartbeat is funny and his head keeps instructing him to yell at someone, but he rarely follows through. He places the sketches and the plate of food on the floor. A few feet to his left, the narrow, open-end of the corridor shows greyness in the light, pronouncing the clouds in the sky. Air gets dusty and cool. If it thunders, nature might be a step ahead of him in terms of staying true to one's self.

Vishwa turns right, steps forward, and halts at the door. Something tells him this won't end well. In his defence, it never ended well with her. He pulls open the first door and blinks, adjusting to the light. The woman on the bed lifts her head to him. It's the bed he imported from the house in Rayavaram, so that she can have one thing she knows. The bulb inside the room is white and clinical, with a claustrophobic ambience. Ahalya chose that one. Since the door is open, her shadow stretches out to his feet.

He scans the tiny, square-shaped room—a shelf above her bed to keep her clothes, the dull mattress, flimsy blankets and pillows, and she. There's a bathroom attached inside with a shower. They are careful about things she could have. They are at the edge of every tomorrow now. He doesn't know what the previous owners used this room for, and he doesn't desire to know, because this room led him to buy this house. The broker showed them other houses with wider kitchens and bigger front yards, which could fit two cars. However, Vishwa doesn't want a house to live in. He needs a place to keep her.

"Ah, son," the woman calls. "I'm worried you went missing and would never come back."

Son? It prickles his skin, although the word 'Mother' reaches the tip of his tongue. He doesn't want any kind of relationship with her. She's evil; a murderer. A twin of his real mother. A twin of his erratic fears.

As the old woman walks towards him, her blue-dotted nightie drags along on the floor. It's obvious that Ahalya put little effort into shopping for her. The wrinkles on her face have increased as if the skin's fighting an invisible enemy. She is powerless, but she still smiles. She doesn't want to give up.

He smiles too, thinking: Two can play this game.

He takes another step forward. The second door between them is iron-grilled, which he got installed after she attacked Ahalya the last time. There's a lot to lose if she tries again.

"I'm reading," she says and lifts the book to him. It's his first book. The bold title and the light brown aesthetic in the background remind him of simpler times when his biggest worries were about his work getting published and not survival.

"I am struggling to keep up with the story, Vishwa," she says. "I skipped a major part from page 127 to 190. For a fantasy story, it's quite a snooze fest."

Mocking his writing? She's not even qualified to be a human. His hands ball into a fist, but he controls himself. He needs to win this conversation to show Ahalya that he isn't getting manipulated. This isn't the first backlash he received from her, anyway. Even from a young age, he realized his mother was different. She wasn't like other parents. She didn't care about him; the person—body and soul. Now, he knows why.

"I brought you some food," Vishwa says.

"Is that so?"

"You must be hungry."

He can tell she's starving. She's moving slowly, saving her energy. They couldn't feed her the previous day since Bhumika stayed the night.

She grasps the iron bars. "Oh. Aren't you here because you are bored and need my permission to play outside? I mean, yes, you can. Don't stay past the curfew though."