Bugs Bite

CHAPTER SIX: The Portrait And The Fly

There are houses. And then there are homes.

Grandma's was a home, if there ever was one; it just exuded warmth and fuzziness and brilliance. You take away that radiance, what you got was a creepy structure, shadowed by tall gnarled trees, a structure liable to be in horror movies. But the radiance was there, so a home it was.

Avish smiled as he observed his surroundings; this was a nice change of air. He just gallivanted about awhile, poking around at stuff. Furniture, niceties, tablecloths, curtains, wall-textures - everything here was gothic and intriguing. It had always been this way, as far as Avish's memory went. He loved this place, and knew every nook and cranny of it - he'd spent quite some time here as a kid. As a result, he immediately knew something was askew.

First off was the bloody portrait.

Aimlessly roaming, while he whistled a tune he'd learnt from Roy (who had, in turn, learnt it from an anime or something), Avish's eyes fell upon the portrait and refused to move.

It was a ten-by-ten-inch, ancient still of his dead grandpa. Likely back from his time in the army. It was dark, handsome, mysterious-looking, its rim embossed and silver. Suited well to the kind of person grandpa had been. In the portrait, Grandpa was holding a cane, hat displaced on his head, an anomaly in his knuckles, his face shrouded in black pixels.

Avish simply stood there, admiring the ages-old frame. There was some aspect of it which bugged him. He just couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Five or six minutes later, he was still standing there, back against an archaic chair, whistling the anime tune and just staring. At first out of that feeling of something being erroneous, then out of sheer absence of mind.

Which was why he almost tripped over his own feet when a squeaky voice suddenly spoke up. 'Yeas, I likes lookin' at it too.'

The person behind the unintentional jump-scare was a pretty young damsel. Only she was really no damsel. It was Antra, the house-maiden.

'God!' Avish exclaimed. 'You nearly gave me a heart-attack there!'

An apologetic shame fell upon her small face. 'I am sorry. I didn't mean to.'

But in her thick accent, it came out as Aa-ee din' mean-ah tah. Avish wondered who would win in a competition between Divyam and Antra, if it came to comprehension. He'd so not wager on her. Even her grammar was a pristine treasure of speech.

'It is nice portrait,' Antra said with a timid smile pasted on her demure face. Abruptly changing the topic:
'Missus has surprise for you. She send me here to call you.'

'What's it this time?' asked Avish. 'Cookies?'

Glancing one last time at the portrait which somehow still had all his attention, Avish proceeded to please his grandma.

Because of course he knew what the surprise was. What it always was. Every time he came to visit, she'd cook some of his favorite dishes in the world herself, suspending Antra from her job. He pretended to be surprised, for her poor old sake. And it wasn't like he didn't enjoy eating food cooked by his grandma; she had too much magic and recipes up her sleeve.

Exhausted as he was, his mother implored him to take a nap afterwards. She wasn't wrong. She was never wrong when it came to Avish.

And why not? Rest is always hailed in good spirits.

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'Yeah, and then the arsehole just went poof! It was so embarrassing!'

Shweta laughed her ass off at the little anecdote. She had forgotten how much of a jock her mother Bibi was. She would never be as good a parent, not in a million years.