The Unventured Passions

Left over Chocolates

The usefulness of her thoughts had evaporated sometime ago yet Raimoti's mind churned on in the darkness like a runaway motor. When she started trying to do math in her head, counting backward, that she knew things were bad. This sleeplessness  was her torture. While the rest of the world embraced their dreams, their eight hours of rest, a tired Raimoti tossed and turned on the straw-mat laid on the empty floor, her mind chasing the white rabbit. He had her dreams in his pocket, the sacrosanct, and the honest man in the barn had her thoughts. A faraway train whistled somewhere in the background and her floor bed shook. A train... a possibility of reaching somewhere, somewhere in the real world, a world where Barrister Anirudh Roy Chowdhury fought battles in Court, and her Satyakirth Sen was a king! The train could probably connect her with something from the real world... Soon her mind was back on work, the meticulous armory raid plan that Satya had told her about, in Chattagram, and then the thoughts shifted to an ugly viscous face, a jaw full of yellow teeth grinning hungrily at her... Shashi Kaka!
Raimoti felt a pit in her stomach, and the rabbit was back again, it said there was a tea party ahead, but all the food was gone. A door slammed down the corridor and a woman was hushing at a man, but she could hear it all. Her eyes opened and darted to the masculine radium wristwatch kept beside her, on the floor. It's four fifteen in the morning. Outside someone fell over the utensils, may be, sending the metals clattering to the ground. Raimoti's heart was thumping out of her chest. It must be that man, Ram Chattujjee, preparing to start the day early, she tried to exhale and close her eyes... but in seconds she was at the curtains, looking, wide eyed...

"Who? Who's it?" A gruff male voice came out from the kitchen door, and a pair of shiny eyes looked straight at her.
It wasn't Ram Chattujjee, but a man who was barely able to keep his staggering feet on the ground.

"I'm a guest here."
Raimoti had replied promptly, trying to move inside the small room, but instead she felt a strong hand gripping her wrist, and he pulled her out into the almost dark corridor.

"A guest? At my wedding? And I'm not aware!"
The man was chuckling, and the pungent smell of cheap alcohol coming from his mouth made Raimoti gag.

"Leave my hand." She hissed, and furrowing his small lost eyes at her, the man let go of her hand at once.

"Oh... I'm... I'm sorry... You're married!" He exhaled softly, muttering an apology,  his head now rested at the worn out wooden frame of the door.
"I... I don't touch married women... They're... They're pure, just like my Purnima."

Raimoti didn't reply, instead her sharp eyes started to examine the man who had now sank down on the floor, his knees hurled up.

"Who's Purnima?"
She asked, drawing a little softness in her voice, and the man looked up at her and smiled.

"She's the love of my life, my wife... And she's dead!"

"Oh... I'm sorry to hear that." Raimoti murmured, preparing to leave, but the man called out from behind.

"No... Wait."

Raimoti turned around, and saw tear-strains on the man's face.

"They say it's good that she died...my Purnima, you know why?" He paused, coughing a little, and Raimoti stood rooted, her eyes keen at him.

"Why?"

"Because she couldn't bore a child for me... She was barren, but I loved her... But she won't listen, she wanted me to marry again, have children, and so... so she killed herself."

The man was crying, and Raimoti shuddered at his words.

"Now, they found me another girl, and I'm to fuck her, and have children..." He looked up helplessly at her, "but what if I don't want children... I want my wife, my Purnima."