The Passing of the Birds

She smelled of funeral. That was his first thought as she passed him. He could not see her face, she was wearing a veil. She was dressed in black, black veil, and a pair of black gloves. She did not look up as she passed him, she was looking down. As he looked at her, he felt strange. Not because of her costume. There was something else that touched him, though he could not place a finger on what it exactly was.

He was sitting at a table in a café waiting for a friend. It was an open café, the tables and chairs lying outside the shop. It had rained last night but the sky had not cleared yet. There were little puddles of water in the street. He despised such weather. It seemed too “heavy” at times. Especially when he was sitting alone. There was a tree near his table. A few birds were perched on top of it, chirping. Stark contrast with the bleak surrounding. It was almost grey. That was when he saw her walking in his general direction. He had been looking at his watch, getting impatient, the irritation evident on his forehead. However, the moment he saw her coming, he paused. His mind seemed to go blank. He simply looked at her as she came closer and closer and then passed by, without even giving a casual look, either here or there.

He inhaled the air as she crossed him and that was when the thought struck him. The smell…he could no place it. It had the smell of flowers, yet there was something else. He felt pained. He was not exactly sure of what was happening to him. He was angry at the weather, irritated at his friend for turning up late, confused about why a certain sense of heaviness seemed to permeate through him, and lost as far as his thoughts were concerned. The moment she had passed by the tree, the birds seemed to take flight and for a moment everything was silent. Then slowly everything seemed to normalize again.

He was jolted out of his trance by the arrival of his friend. He snapped a finger in front of him as he took his seat. “Lost? And you? Whatever happened?” he asked. “Oh nothing. Nothing. What on earth took you so long?”. “Traffic, man. Bloody traffic. What’s with these bright colours?” he asked scrutinizing his red shirt and cream coloured trousers. They looked strangely out of place in the bleak weather conditions. “Ah! Nothing really. Thought I would brighten up things. It is all too grey…”

He came back home late that evening and sat down, thinking about her. There was something stuck in his mind. He was intrigued. It was as if she had belonged in those clothes, the weather, the tree, the birds flying away. It was as if they defined her. He told himself that he was talking nonsense but he could not drive her away from his thoughts.

He woke up early the next day to the sound of rain and thunder. It would be another grey morning. He hated the depressing weather but he knew it would prevail till the end of the month. Later during the day, he was back at the same café, hoping she would come by again. He waited for sometime and sure enough, he saw her coming. Dressed in the same way, looking at the ground. She passed him and he was sure the birds became quiet and they flew away. He caught the smell again and it pained him and it made him want for more. He was not sure what was happening to him.

And thus the cycle continued. He was getting lesser and lesser sleep. He would stay up all night long, staring outside his window, lost in thoughts. This was not in his character. He had never been a thinker but now he spent hours brooding. He looked outside his window and thought of her. He wanted to know what the reason behind her actions was. He wanted to know where she lived. He construed impossible scenarios in his mind and he hoped that the morning would be a grey one so that he would see her again.

One morning as he was getting ready, he opened his closet and saw all the myriads of colours in there. He was enraged. He went shopping that day and purchased a lot of black, whites, and grey. He came back home and almost threw away all his older clothes in a fit of anger. He could not tolerate the colours. He felt alienated from himself. He did not know who he was becoming. His friends had remarked of late that he was brooding a lot and was restless. The only thing he waited for all day and all night long, was to be at the café and to see her coming. The birds were on his mind, constantly.

*

It was almost a month now since he had first set his eyes on her. He was a changed man. He always wore black, grey or white. He was always lost in thoughts. He had become quiet, he had stopped meeting his friends, and he had stopped sleeping properly at night. His transformation did not worry him now. It had now become a part of him. He was a changed man and he realized and liked the fact. He felt that he had become one with her. There were only two things on her mind: her presence and the birds.

*

He woke up after sleeping for a few hours. He looked outside his bedroom window but there was sunlight. After a long time, the sun was finally out. It was not bright sunny but it marked the changing days. He felt lonely and sad. He dressed in all black today and went out. As the hour approached, he turned his steps towards the café. As he walked closer to the café, walking on the same steps she had taken every day, a strange feeling enveloped him. A feeling similar to the one he had experienced when he had first seen her. He came near to his table and saw the birds flying away. He stood there and saw them take flight. Deep down he knew they were not coming back. The days had changed. He sat down heavily in the chair. On the outside he was calm. On the inside he was heavy. Very heavy. He knew that he would never see her again. The birds had gone…

- Parekh, Pravesh

July 15, 2013; 02:13 PM

Home

It was morning time. Sunlight streamed in through large French windows revealing a chamber, slightly furnished. A carpet lay in the middle of the chamber, slightly warming the otherwise cold look of the chamber. The chamber served as a connecting link between the kitchen and the rest of the house, essentially being a room in the house yet not borrowing anything in its appearance. Almost like a hallway in the shoes of a room. The kitchen faced the front of the house overlooking a garden having number of potted plants and lush green grass that still looked moist from the early morning dew. The sun was not warm, there was a gentle breeze and the leaves quivered slightly and sometimes more, as if answering the calling of a careless caress, slightly ticklish yet comforting. The neighborhood was quiet.

A bright patch of sunlight fell on a part of the carpet, warming the spot. A little boy was sitting in this patch, a few toys spread around him. He held one in his hand, admiring the glint of sunlight on the toy. It delighted him and it made him wonder. His face was freshly washed, his hair neatly combed. It had the neatness yet the love of a mother in it, something a nanny would never be able to show. Somehow the hair combed by a nanny always had a slightly harsher look to it, something a mother’s loving hands could never do to their own child.

The child looked happy. He looked at the kitchen and saw his mother and the cook there. He focused on his mother who struck him as very pretty. She was wearing a light green dress, a clean white apron tied neatly over it. She was talking to the cook even as she moved around with infinite grace and charm. He had no interest in the toy. He preferred to watch the hidden rhythm and harmony in her mother’s movement. The cook made a joke and she giggled, tossing her head behind, eyes shining in the morning sun. Then she turned around and she saw him looking at her. Her eyes widened with delight, the smile playing around her lips as his eyes glowed in the morning sun, otherwise black but showing a brownish tinge in the bright morning sun, his jet black hair glinting in the little patch of sunshine. He looked at his mother for a while and then broke into a grin, showing a few missing teeth. His mother continued to look at him lovingly, smiling the entire time.

And then it all went dark and the bright patch of sunlight dissolved into darkness as I stood near the moth eaten curtains, the entire chamber damp and dirty. The curtains, which once were bright red, had lost its color and luster. The windows in the kitchen were boarded up and there were thick cobwebs in all the corners. I stood there and waited, and waited and waited, but there was no light.

*

He was slightly bent over his books, a little frown on his small brow, eyes moving slowly over the sentences in the book. He was sitting on a high chair, his legs dangling, being too little for the chair. The desk was made of dark mahogany, a leather patch on the desk-top. His tutor sat on another chair, watching over him quietly, ensuring he followed his lessons properly. It was a large room, with bookshelves lining the walls, filled with books of all kinds, brought from places near and far. Some exotic volumes lined a smaller shelf, locked and away from harm.

There was a slight sound outside but his concentration was not broken. He paused at a sentence and asked his tutor what it meant. She frowned a little and peered over the books with her spectacles. It was a sentence in French. She explained to him what it meant; also telling him how the various words they had covered last week in French fit to make the sentence. He heard her, looking at the sentence all the while and at the end seemed to be lost in thoughts. Then he looked up at her, his eyes thoughtful. For a moment he was not the young boy. For a moment he was grown up, thoughtful and deep. Then his eyes lighted up, he smiled at her, and nodded his head in agreement that he had understood what she was explaining. She was satisfied and he went back to his reading.

The door creaked a little and a shadow moved. The tutor looked back and saw the visage of his mother, smiling and radiant. She had been watching all this while and was satisfied and happy at her son’s progress. And even though she was standing at a distance from her son, her loving glance caressed his shoulders. For a moment he paused his reading, brows constricting, before getting back to his reading, as the shadow slowly retreated.

Another shadow moved across the room as I moved inside. The desk was no longer there and the shelves were bare. The small shelf with the glass panels was open and empty, a thick cobweb between the two panes. The air was thick and humid, the smell of old decaying paper thick. I moved to open the window and there was a small rush of fresh air. The glass panes quivered a little with the fresh air, and they quivered and quivered with no one to touch them, to lock them once again.

*

He lay in his bed, a sheet over him. He was staring at the ceiling, lost in dreams and thoughts; sleep nowhere near him. It was a cool and gentle night. There was silence which he found soothing. He thought about what he had learned earlier that day and he thought about the games he would play when he would wake up. Little things that mattered and a small rock he had found earlier that evening in the garden. He had loved its luster and had brought it in with him. It was now on the study table. He would ask his tutor about it tomorrow. It looked almost magical to him, having an intricate design on it.

There was a rustle and his mother came and sat down next to his bed. She looked at him and put a hand on his forehead, gently rustling his hair. It felt nice. She spoke to him of things and places and how they would visit his grandmother’s place next month. He smiled. Then his mother started to tell him a story about a little boy who grew up to become a wise man and eventually became a great writer. She told him funny incidents partially made up, partially derived from her own life, and partially from other people’s. He giggled at the manner in which she told him. He smiled at her dark hair as they curled near her face. And almost immediately his eyes felt heavy and he felt her blurring. He drifted off to sleep as his mother smiled and planted a kiss on his forehead before tucking the sheet and leaving him to the wonders of the dreamland.

And as she went out a footstep was heard as I stepped into the room, staring at the empty bed. A bed not slept in for years. Another boarded up window in the corner let in a small streak of light that fell right in the middle of the bed. All was quiet in the entire house. It had always been silent and now there was no one to break the silence.

*

I woke up in a small room. It was completely dark but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could discern the outline of a small table. That and a chair were the sole furniture in the room, depicting an austere lifestyle. I got up and sat in the middle of the bed in the semi-darkness of my room. I had been there but now I was so far away. Hundreds and thousands of miles away, in a distant land surrounded by unknown faces. I sat up all night long wondering as the silence enveloped me in its familiar embrace. For a moment I was back there…a place called Home.

- Parekh, Pravesh

July 08, 2013; 09:15 PM