The Husband at Night

Why does he get up every new moon night? What calls him to his rooftop? Why can't he sleep?

                                                       Rick put up the mosquito net over his bed and got inside it. Inside, the bed was damp, there was that heavy, smoggy winter smell that creeped up behind Kolkata at the very middle of November. It will be tough to get up at 3 am on such a prickly winter night, but he must. He set the alarm, put the blanket over his thin frame and tried as hard as he could not to melt into its warm embrace, which, mixed with the dampness of the bed, made things all the more pleasurable. 

                                                        At exactly 3 am the alarm wrang. He snoozed it and got up with the blanket wrapped around him as if he had drunk 3 bottles of cheap regional liquor 6 hours back. He went up the stairs and with a key opened the locks to his rooftop. 

                                                         Goddess Kali prefers the darkness and that is the time she is worshipped. One could hear bells from a faraway temple, the soothing tune of cymbals tearing the wintery new moon skies open to drench the people beneath it with its dews. The cold of Kolkata, wet, wet with the longing for Diwali, Kali Puja, Brother's day and families planning their picnics with their 35 or so relatives. On such a night, Rick put a chair on the floor, sat on it, and waited, and waited. Waited for her, on this cold, dark night, surrounded by concrete jungles and the faint sounds of chants, bells, cymbals and lights from the festive lamps.

                                                           Suddenly, there came a woman through the door, wearing a housecoat, her hair as dense and luscious as the night sky. Her movements held conviction, comfort and most of all, a relief. As she approached the railing, she put her one leg upon it and was venturing to put another leg on it when came Rick:

"STOP! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, WOMAN?!" "No, baby, no, you can't stop me every night." Tears welled up in his eyes, while she looked at him like how a fatigued mother looks at her stubborn child, with helplessness, weakness, sympathy and pity. There was no rage in her. A woman's rage is far more comforting to a man than her weakness.

"TALK TO ME, TALK TO ME, YOU CAN'T KEEP DOING THIS."

"I can try Rick, but it will be like choking a pen down my throat to vomit. It's not easy to talk, you have not given me the ear Rick, never have you given me an ear. I've never searched for your ear. As a housewife, I never had much ears around me. If I shall get no ears, I shall cut my lips and that is what I am doing. I feel good, Rick, as a schoolboy on a Friday. I feel good."

                                                            Rick got down on his knees, crying, crying with such force that spittle covered his mouth and his snot kept dropping to the floor. As his neighbour looked up at the roof after returning from the washroom, he saw Rick doing his nightly routine: Shouting, crying, begging... to the smog that hovered so ruthlessly over Kolkata in the middle of November. 

                  

Author's Note

First time here, show me the way. Thank you.

Reviews

[Phil]

OK, so he is seeing a ghost / vision that nobody else can see. The latter is maybe a bit voluble; have her say less? and the room geography is not quite clear; also I am not sure whether Kolkata is hot or cold at night from this description.

It is atmospheric and interesting and I want to know more about who these people are.