"You are early today. Come in. Have a seat. Can I get you a glass of water? Was there a lot of traffic on the way? You must be tired. Do you want something to eat? Why don't you take a shower and change into something comfortable, then we can watch TV together".
The trickle of words trembled through her lips, spread across the room, widened, dying down in intensity, the wave creeped into his ear. A far away buoy wobbled up and down somewhere, something was underneath it all. The sky flickered like a dying halogen. One could look at it only for so long before being blinded.
Subrata was not used to this routine. Yanking a sock with his leg sprawled midair, he dribbled into the centre of the room. Nilobhona and Subrata were married for ten months now. A middle class arranged marriage following all customs, spiced up by a courtship of six months before the big day. The implications of knowing the would be partner made time fly by for both of them. The lengthy and elaborate affair called wedding, the tiffs with the purohits, the honeymoon to Lakshadeep, families and home made erotica, everything made an appearance in Subrata's hard disk albums.
He was breathing heavy. He felt he was not processing parts of his surrounding properly. He did not remember how he reached there, what he saw on his way up or what he heard from outside his rented apartment door. He could just see what was then and there. The dining room and hall was dimly lit. The corridor felt long, gloomy and gray. The bedroom door looked like an entrance to some jurassic cave. The tiny rented flat reeked of dust and sweat. Nilo's stare, smudged with apprehension, caught his eye. A sock in hand, Subrata walked towards their bedroom.
Shilajit's silhouette appeared as Subrata neared the corridor. Unshaved stubble, askew shirt, long black hair melting down his face. "Subrata it's not how it looks", Shila grumbled from beneath the french cut. "Please leave", a voice whimpered from distance. Shila, tucking his shirt, walked away slowly as the sound of sobs erupted from Nilo. Subrata stood there all the while thinking how dark it would be inside a television set when it is not powered on.
Her howl ebbed to a sob then a sniffle. Nilo sat there, her shoulders redefining gravity, kohl melting away like silt, fingers of her feet curling into a tight semi knot. Her breath came minutes apart, interspersed with writhing gasps. Subrata felt terrible to have caused her so much pain. Then something told him that he was being the spineless climber that he always had been. The snigger escaped before he could bury it. He followed through with an icy laugh, eyes closed, head rested on the pivot of his two index fingers.
"Hello. Shubhi? Hey, how are you? Are you home? Alone? Of course! Hey, promise me you would do something! It is. Yes. Sorry. Hmmm. Ask Shila where he was when he comes home tonight? Tell him Subrata called. Just for fun. Don't forget. Yeah. Gotta go now. Yeah. Bye."
When he finished the call, Nilo was dragging a half filled bag across the floor, her movement was disjoint, not alive, as if a carcass was being dragged by a puppet string. A bolus of clothes thrown in at a moments notice peeped from inside the bag. Nilo was tying her hair in a high ponytail. Strands of hair caressed her nape as she stroked them down and tackled them into a bundle and clasped it with the ivory clip Subrata gave her. "This is for old people" she had quipped. "Then you get to wear it when we are old together". Subrata was always a corny mess around her. The love wound stared right through his skull, knocked the wind out of his stomach, left him nauseous for a moment. He poured a glass of JD, dabbed it with copious quantities of coke and headed for the TV. As the cold perspiring glass melted away in his palm, the familiar feeling of being unable to remember something grasped him. "Hey Nilo, did you ask me to pick something up?"
As her shrieks grew shriller, her arms flailed wildly to clasp her head, time slowed down for Subrata. Her words came out in colours melting away momentarily after they left her, the smell of dust and sweat formed a penumbra around her skinny existence. Everything is dark inside, he assured himself. Subrata picked up his phone. In a practised motion, he typed "Come over tonight". Then he looked up towards Nilo, glanced at the TV and said, "wanna watch something good"? As he sat there, Nilo howling away in the corner, he grew strangely aware of the music box he had given her last summer. Shubhi always loved that tune.
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