Bugs Bite

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Do . . . Bed Bugs Bite?

Is he real?

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Diseases suck. His condition was deteriorating as day followed day. He couldn't have a proper meal without choking on it or losing his heart. Vomits were frequent, clotted dregs in them even more so. He wheezed as he drank (smoking hurt way too much), wheezed as he coughed, wheezed as he slept.

And Bhoo had left him. Forever.

Apparently, the man in black was up to something. In what way are you giving your daughter a different life than yours? he'd said. Look over my fucking daughter if you're so fucking concerned! Avish had snapped back in anger.

But he loved his daughter. Sometimes, he could see his mother in her.

After the "big fight", Radha had shunned her father as much as possible. Preeti had made covert efforts, certainly, to make her talk to him - none worked. However, nearly a week later, his little angel approached him when her Mommy wasn't home. Unfortunately, she didn't chose a wise time. Avish had been an hour into drinking and coughing now, and was barely his own self. Not that he knew what he himself was anymore. Woozy, weak and vulnerable, that was his identity now.

'Daddy?'

Avish grunted in response. Perhaps a bit too rudely, for Radha flinched.

'That man is here again,' she said. 'He says he's worried about you. He says he wants me to be his friend.'

Avish grunted again.

'He is scary, Daddy. Shoo him away, please.'

A chair to their left suddenly lurched ahead, as if struck by an unseen force, and Radha jumped. Avish barely managed a grunt yet again. Probably fucking lost its hinges.

'Daddy, that was him!' Radha shrieked, jittering and clawing at her father's elbow. 'Look, look! He's right there . . .'

She pointed.

He looked.

No one there.

He looked back. Grunted.

'Can't you see him, Daddy?'

Avish fell off his chair. Grunted.

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Hours later, while Preeti sent their daughter off to her dreams, Avish sat back in his recliner and contemplated.

His head was clear now, far clearer than it had ever been.

He hadn't been able to see Bhoo today, while Radha had said she could. So perhaps he hadn't been real after all? That was the only rational explanation, wasn't it?

Rational. Your life is the fucking antonym of rational in the Oxford dictionary.

But then what had Radha seen, what she so afraid of? Well, he had inculcated a terror in her heart as well, maybe let slip his mental fabrication of Bhoo to his daughter when drunk. Maybe.

Is he real? Was he ever?

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The house was still there, but it was no longer his in the way that it had once been.

The board on the yard proclaimed: MR. GUILLERMO'S LIBRARY INC. PROPERTY. NOT OPEN FOR PUBLIC. DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT PERMISSION.

Some movers were racking shelves and almirahs in. The sun mocked him with its nondescript blaze. Avish did not feel so good.

'Home sweet home,' he whispered as he proceeded to set foot inside. Just the way he'd said it after returning from his grandma Bibi's home all those years back.