A Sew Through Time [Banbudh And Budbak]

49: Crazy scientist

The room was flooded by dull blue light which filtered through the loose curtain fabric. From the fissures of threads, between the thin hem gently grazing across the round wooden table, a shaft of waning light casted on the rising mercuric tip. From under the layers, Khushi noticed the shining liquid glistening in Laxmi's hand, when she seemed to have spilled it on the floor before reading the mark.

"Rest and sleep will make you energetic again fella" she said with a little enthusiasm.

Shame rose from her smitten self and piled below her protective quilt. She heard a rustle when the fabric gently picked up from the ridges of her thin spine. 

"Khushi"

Grabbing her wrist sharply, she gave her a long, placid stare and threw the strange hand off the blanket. The tender glass shoved inside her quilt along with herself.

"Eh?" Laxmi leaned over the bed head with her elbow, "You'll sweat under this heavy thing and cough"

A blast of blue light appeared in her imagination. She scratched the bedsheet to let the sound dissolve such visions. It did not leave her. Laxmi noticed her curling her cold toes inside and a groan.

"Put me in that room of yours... maybe then," she squeezed her eyes shut, "Those fires will leave and everyone will be safe"

"That's a late thought" Laxmi rose from the bed as she heard the springs, a bashful chuckle eroding from her lips, "It's not coming back"

She peered from under the quilt once the door struck the emptiness out of the room. Then followed the same somber scene, the break of dawn or the end of dusk but never inbetween. Droplets oozed out of the valve which kept the thin shoots of yellowed plants twirled in rows of test tubes. There she saw a money plant half the usual size, whitened like paint drops falling during a house renovation. 

Soon she felt her throat dry up, her chest squeeze from the humidity. She left the quilt to inhale the fresh air and let her fingers fall below the bedside to find her water bottle. The plastic body fell from her fingers and rolled under the wooden table. Deliberately ignoring her sensations, she plunged her head back into her warm pillow to let in a year's worth of sleep. 

The ticking clock wickedly left her awake. Rolling near the bench below the squeaky mattress, she heard a phone beep from hundred percent. The white light fell over a little, worn-out candle smaller than the size of her thumb. 

It was Sabina's phone- the transparent cover turned deep ochre. Underneath it was a train ticket and a one-rupee coin. Her vision turned blind from the brightness when she switched it on, and after finding the flashlight button, she drowsily sank below the bedside with her aching bare feet and turned the door handle backwards.

Bright specks of dust flew between the beam of light before disappearing into the darkness at her sides. Descending from the stairs, Khushi held the cold cemented wall and walked into the dark room once undiscovered. The bare, grey floor was toppled with trash, a few displaced from the plant observatory from her room. Once she had noticed a cork billboard with dainty pins, and when she moved forward, her toe bumped into the leg of a wooden couch. It was a chair but with damp cushions when she inspected. Blue light seeped through the creaks of the windows and the main door, which she found it locked after tugging the rusty bolts. 

But again, no water bottle. There might had been a room which had been transformed into a kitchen, but she could not find it. Returning into the main living room which reeked with the familiar damp mud, she spotted a table at the farthest wall; a thin green file, a stack of post its, a portable electric port rested over the top, when Khushi's eyes fell over a flip phone.