Breeze - An Original Short Story by Arani Ghose

Ritam closed his book and looked up. It’s past 2 in the midnight. He got out of his bed. It has been his habit since the last five years. No matter how much busy they were they always talked in this dead of the night. They talked about nothing yet they talked about everything. Can’t say that they never missed a single day, but still this was the time when the two souls longed for each other the most.

 Ritam got out of his bed. Post rainfall nights are bliss. He always felt it that way. There was a different type of peace in it, a solitude which was unique in its own way. The rain had stopped by 9 PM and what it had left has a clear sky, croaking frogs and toads and humming of the crickets. Ritam adjusted his hair in front of the mirror for a while pulled up a full sleeve shirt over his round neck tee-shirt. He put on his track pants over his shorts, a typical Bengalee thing everyone is accustomed too.

He switched off the lights and peeped out of his room. Across the hallway were his parents fast asleep in the other room. He tiptoed past the hallway, crossed in front of the door of their room uncaught to the staircase which was the difficult part of this mission because it required immense stealth. But once you reach the staircase, everything is smooth and under control. By the time he had reached the rooftop, he had rolled up his sleeves and holding a pair of sleepers in his hands and standing in front of a door. He clicked open the bolt and opened the door to step on the terrace. He left it open adjusting the sidewise locks to prevent it from banging each other with every mild gust of wind.

This place seemed to be a very personal one for him, at this hour of the night. No one was and will be there other than her. Yeah, ‘her’. Mohor. This place is like a very special hangout zone for them amidst the otherwise monotonous household. It always astonished Ritam how time even affects a geographical location and the feelings related to it. The same terrace, which was nothing but Maa’s place for gossip with the neighbors in the afternoon is now their very own, special, personal space.

Ritam went to the edge of the roof and leaned on his elbows over the parapet staring at what was in front of him. He was lost in his thoughts, when suddenly a mild cold breeze blew past his shoulders. Ritam turned around and looked over his shoulders. There she is, standing amidst this cold weather with a warm smile. Her hairs are like the fluttering reeds struck somewhere amidst a fast flowing stream. She was smiling at him, while constantly trying to take the unruly boughs under her control which came pouring over her face time and again. She came and stood beside her. He ran his hands around her shoulder and dragged her closer. She responded to this affection and ran her hands around his waist. He tried to feel her warmth in her otherwise cold physical existence.

They looked into the sky. The sky was clear and starlit. They gazed at it like they were watching the Northern Lights beside a warm fire and two glasses of wine. The cricket was tirelessly trying its voice out. The frogs were croaking. There were occasional sounds of drops of rainwater falling from here and there. Nocturnal animals were occasionally running over the fallen leaves.

Mohor spoke up first. “Nothing has really changed isn’t it?”

- “Nope. Nothing”

There was a silence followed by this small conversation. Both of them liked this thing. They liked how sometimes they ran short of words although they tried to say so many things to each other. How they talked about so many things when they were apart and felt like their chattering would never end and yet when they were close to each other, the fell spellbound. Still things seemed so perfect. They liked how they didn’t utter a single word yet they understood each other in this silence.

- “Naa, actually one thing has changed. Now we don’t talk over phone.” giggled Ritam. Followed by a pause. Ritam tried to guess what she was thinking. Ritam knew what she was thinking.

- “But at what cost?” she asked with a trembling voice. She was serious.

- “Whatever it is Mohor, we are together afterall. No matter what had happened was good or bad, but it brought us close. Isn’t it enough?”

 Mohor remained silent. Ritam knows she was never satisfied by his reply. But Ritam knew no better reply either.

  He changed the topic and started to talk about something else. He looked up to the sky and tried to hit up a new conversation about the stars. She knew so many names and could even find out the structures of that knight, the bull, the bear and what not among these stars. She had tried to teach him so many times but all her efforts were in vain. But Ritam liked how every time this topic arose, she started teaching him the same thing and every time, it was he who gave in to her efforts and patience by the sweet lie, “Okay gotcha”. She always replied with cute angry frown how she knew he was lying and all and their melodrama would move on. Within a couple of minutes, the old Mohor would be back, with her childlike overflow of words along with the Mistress like decisive opinions on the other times. Mohor rightly said. Nothing has changed. Within minutes, they were back chatting and laughing, two living souls opening their heart out. No, one soul actually. Whatever! The Sky never failed Ritam.

 It was the sudden scream which brought back Ritam to his earthly senses. It was Maa and Baba standing right behind him. Ritam looked back and saw Baba right behind him. Within a moment, Baba came near him grabbed him, hugged him hard followed by his sobbing mother doing the same. Maa brushed his hairs gently and all three of them stood there still. Ritam was utterly puzzled by this incedent. But the grave expressionless face of Baba and his sobbing Maa made him extremely confused and embarrassed. He tried to trace back and replay how the whole thing happened inside his head. Things suddenly became very entangled and blurred. Ritam looked around and found Mohor nowhere. This thing extremely disgusted him. He loved his parents no doubt but hated them as well when they came in between his intimate times with Mohor. But he never really got an explanation for this. All he received was an unintelligible melodrama and faint cries of despair from his parents. At a certain point of time, all three of them slowly left for their rooms downstairs.

 Ritam was exposed to an extremely unstable emotional and psychological vulnerability after he came to know about Mohor’s death in an accident a couple of years ago. After three years of being in love with that girl, spending countless nights chatting with her over phone call and hanging out in so many places amongst the lanes and labyrinths of Kolkata and Calcutta, Ritam couldn’t get over how all of it shattered into pieces by a single incident. Doctors identified him to be schizophrenic and prescribed him with a daily medication. Ritam probably would have missed his pills tonight.

 His parents took him to his room and made him lie down. The room was closed and suffocating. Maa sat beside his head and slowly talked to him to make him take his pills. Baba opened a window and came back to sit beside him. Something happened between Maa and Baba and Baba left the room. Ritam closed his eyes and Maa started stroking his hair fondly. Ritam was lying with his eyes closed but canyons of frowns running over his forehead. Suddenly a gust of fresh cold breeze entered the room and passed through his hair like wind runs through woods. All the frowns flattened instantly on Ritam’s forehead. Afterall Maa doesn’t stay back to massage Ritam’s troubled brain gently every night.