The Bangalore Review

The house seemed to be riddled with mysterious happenings. One evening, while he was climbing up the stairwell to his room on the second floor, he felt an unexpected gust of cold wind. It was the last spell of winter, and he knew there could not possibly be such a wind from the south, yet he could clearly feel its bite.

I grinned at her and her enviable energy, soaking in her palpable brightness. She practically hopped around the kitchen, half humming a half-familiar tune, as she noticed every detail most people seemed to miss. There was no use in trying to stop this on my own.

The Body. My body. My body thus became insignificant, irrelevant even. I owned it, but I didn’t own it. I felt it, but I didn’t feel it. But I felt the times it was battered, abused, spited, pinched, pushed around, shut down.

He climbed up into the cabin half afraid that the machine would jolt to life and crush him or trap him. Once inside the cabin, he felt safer, less exposed. His father’s cologne lingered in the stale cabin air, rousing the memory of yesterday and all the secrets hidden under the soil.

When Rokon Mama arrived the following winter, I waited for him with all the curiosity of an eleven-year-old busybody. I wanted to know more about him. I had asked Mother too, who just hushed me up. Nanu had set his breakfast separately from the rest of the family.