The Sakhipur Vault

Chapter 1

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Author's Note
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Dear Readers,

It's my first novel on Wattpad. I wish you will enjoy it. I like to know your thoughts about my story. It will encourage me to write more and more.

- Mustafiz Forayeji

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The Sakhipur Vault: Chapter 1
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The sound of the doorbell keeps waking me up, jolting my auditory nerves and interrupting my slumber. At first, I fail to grasp whether this is happening in a dream or reality. This is a common experience for many people. Just before waking up, something happens in one's life. If you think about it, you will see that many things can wake you up. Sometimes it's the sound of an alarm clock, sometimes the call to prayer, sometimes after having a nightmare, sometimes in the midst of dreaming about making love with your beloved, sometimes by the chirping of birds, sometimes due to extreme heat, sometimes by your wife's nagging, sometimes by the urgency of getting to the office on time, and sometimes, if you wake up simply because you have slept for a long time and your sleep is complete-there is nothing surprising about it.

But who likes it if someone knocks on the door during deep sleep at night? Since there is no doorbell on the wall adjacent to my wooden door, someone is knocking and thumping the door intermittently with their hand. At first, thinking it might be a dream or my imagination, but due to the repeated knock-knock and thump-thump sound, my half-asleep mind tells me, "Someone is definitely knocking and thumping on my door."

Now my task is to increase my level of alertness and, while rubbing my eyes with my palms while squinting, inquire, "Who is it?" "Is there a visitor at my door?"

I did so. But no answer came from the other side. Someone just kept knocking on the door.

This time, I somehow fully opened my eyes. Then, taking my iPhone in hand, I turned on the screen to see a big elephant and a small elephant. I had set this wallpaper before going to sleep last night. Essentially, the big elephant is the mother of the small elephant, and the small elephant is the child of the big elephant. The big elephant is lovingly caressing the small elephant with its trunk, just as my mother used to caress me when I was a child. Seeing this still image at 9:03 PM last night reminded me of my mother. I don't always think about my mother, but when her memory occasionally resurfaces in my mind, it makes my heart melancholic. My mother is no longer with us. She passed away twenty or twenty-one years ago during a pandemic. The virus spread in such a way across the world that no one could find a cure. When the virus reached my mother in the last phase of the pandemic, I prayed a lot to the God, "Oh God, take me instead of my mother, but let my mother not die."

The God did not listen to me; my mother passed away. After my mother's death, I realized that mothers never truly die. If you want, I can show you proof of that. My mother didn't actually die from the pandemic. She remains immortal to me, as she does for every child after their mother's passing. I believe my mother is still alive. Wherever I look, I sense her presence. Whatever I try to do, her opinion reflects in the mirror of my mind. My mother is now floating on my mobile screen. My mother is now a big elephant, on which, in large English letters, it says- 3:31 AM.

In my bewildered state, a question arises, "Who is knocking on my door at this hour?"

I don't feel the need to make a list of who could be knocking in my sleep. I just think, the young woman who rented the room to the left of mine on the fourth floor of the RamRama Hotel seven days ago, could she be the one knocking on my door? Could it be? Could it not?

That woman is quite attractive. Her attire has a touch of Western culture. And the black mole at the corner of her lips adds to her sensuality. Sometimes, when she walks down the hotel corridor wearing high heels, whether she is going out or coming back, the heels hit the floor making a clicking sound, and hearing that sound I have been opening my door halfway and peeking at her for the last three days. Her body figure particularly attracts me, it's like the waves of the Jamuna River. Since yesterday, I have had the desire to dive and swim in those waves. Given that men's attraction to alcohol, women, and money is strong, this desire is not forbidden. What remains of a man if he loses attraction to these things?