The Alternate Love Story of an Old Man( Part 5)

 The tea cup sat woebegone at his side, the creamy milk having condensed to a flaky, coarse brown. He was slouched on the wooden chair,listless- a bag of bones assembled untidily. Vacuous eyes, supported by dunes of withered ancient skin. A rancid stench; of hair oil, vomit, stale daal and June's dried, pasty sweat emanated from him. The jowls were more prominent, the skin papery,decaying with more of black, livery spots. Like an old,crusty yellowing parchment. His eyes were vacuous in a face bleached of all emotions save one. Grief. Growing, glowing, stabbing grief. Like a dove being tormented, its button pink eyes ravaged with fear screeching and yawking; blood curling cries and a final pain stained cry before falling limp. His silence reeked of wails; of hair raising mourns of agony. Even the sky weeped, a diahrrea of water. 

It was now five days.She was dead.

A white morning, the sun rays plasticky; turning even the juicest green into a fake neon color. June summer sky at its best. They had put her body in a stretcher- a bored young man and an equally drugged wife. They had cast a white shroud on her and shelled peanuts while hired men with their black skin hoisted the stretcher on their firm shoulders. Even in death she looked beaitiful, in the somnolent heat, she looked placid, almost in bliss. At first, he wasnt worried, when the curtains dint fall open in the morning, infact, an adoring smile creeped on his face at the thought of her sleeping in late. When the dimunitive orange had washed over the skyline and her familiar pacing wasnt visible, he wasnt worried again. Maybe she had a cold, she often caught a cold in the summers. On the those days, she would tie a towel across her head and sniff some concotion from a bowl. But when night time dawned and the veil of sputtering pinpricks fell over one half of the world, a small fire of terror started brimming in his heart. It turned into a full fledged forest fire by the next day and when at 9am he saw a sudden flurry of people breaking in her door- a vulpine faced man, the excited milkman, he knew that his chapter was over. She was dead.

A clap of thunder shook him out of his grief stained torpor. Slowly he lifted an ancient hand and fished the newspaper from the stand. Let his colorless eyes wash over the headlines before flipping slowly to the obituary section, a habit ingrained without the need of a thought. The newspaper crackled. The thunder boomed again. 

" My Mother, Miss Anamika Basumatary expired of a heart attack in the evening of June 26th, in her apartment at G7, Chowringee street. She led a peaceful, graceful life and we hope God carves a little place for her in his sublime palace called Heaven.

                                                                      Ma, we shall miss you. Rest in beautiful peace.

                                                                                                                                               Your son and daughter-in-law,

                                                                                                                                                                Sonnu and Shweta"

Th fake words scrawled across the paper in black- jolted him, jarred him. A sudden wave of nausea, a sudden spasm, another clap of thunder.Cataract eyes pooling with water and shamelessly, they traveled down the length of his withered face. Shaking his head in irony, at the quixotic ways of life, his lips parted at the faintest hint of a smile; showing yellowed, broken teeth.

Anamika. Her name was Anamika. The nameless. His nameless wisp of hope, his nameless garland of happiness. She had woven herself, into his dull dreary life, flushing it with trembling, innocent Shakespearean love. She hovered, a nameless seraph in his dreams in his daily life. Anamika.

In death,she was finally his. His tongue, spittled with saliva, his eyes limpid with love, his hand on his heart, for the first time, he whispered the name of his wife ,now dead.. Anamika.