Remnants

It is true I seek you through my poems-- the remnants of the chimera.

You are the phosphorescence in the black night-- ice cold in summer.

Explanation- I have to give for each and every step 

to this world that never explained itself to me.

Pain- I take because its inevitable.

It comes together with the magic.

Lesser and lesser I get,

Until the veins stop

regulating and

The lifeline 

shrinks

into 

a 

[dot]

One Night's story

The heat of the summer is starting to decrease. Perhaps, because of the rains in the last few days. But the temperature is still above 40°C.

Today is Wednesday, 16^th of April 2014. The End-Semester Exam starts from 21^st, 5 days later.

Last night, I slept late. It was around 2:00. I think. After watching two movies, we went to bed. We exchanged our pillows. He got the softer one, I prefer the harder one. I tried to sleep but I couldn't. There were mosquitoes near my left ear buzzing now and then. It reminded me of the sound that comes out when you scratch on the blackboard with your nails. I grinded my teeth, got up, switched on the light and remained motionless. There it was, an unusually tiny mosquito on the wall just beside the bed. I turned the palm of my hand towards the wall and moved closer slowly. Then I slapped the wall. I felt the heat burning up on my palm.

I looked at the wall, then at my palm. Nothing. The mosquito got away. He heard the sound and woke up. I made him go back to sleep assuring him that I was just trying to kill a mosquito. I sat up for some time, looking around for that pest. But, in vain. I thought I better go to sleep. Just then, as I was about to get up to switch off the light, I saw…. Another mosquito, a much bigger one than the last, sitting on his cheek, its belly filled with blood. I knew this one couldn't get away, its body too heavy to fly or even move an inch.

I refrained myself from blinking and moved closer and closed and……tapped on his cheek. The blood burst out from its belly and smudged my fingers. Scarlet red.

Startled, he opened his eyes and looked at me in perplexity. I showed him my bloody fingers and asked him to wash his face. He got up, washed his face, came back, applied some mosquito repellent ointment and went back to sleep.

Why didn't I think of it before? I applied it on my hands and feet just like he did and lay down beside him, exhausted.

A lost Visitor

I asked my friend to drop me at the gate. She agreed and got her bike. All of a sudden, my dad called me from inside the house. I went inside the house to find out what he was telling. Just as I was about to cross the threshold, I saw my grandmother standing behind my dad. I just kept staring at her, standing there like a stature. I couldn’t properly hear what he was saying. She was twice as tall as my dad. I could see the upper half of her body. She wore her faded yellow Enafi that she used to wear whenever she went to Govindaji temple. She seemed to be wearing a garland on her neck.

There she stood, staring and smiling at me-My thin old grandmother, glowing like an angel.

I shouted, ‘Ba, Nang maningda akhoibok leire.’

He was beaming with joy when he turned back and saw her.

I ran towards her to hug her but she was already lying on her bed. My dad sat on the floor just beside the bed and held her left hand. I bent down, kept my knees on the floor and touched her fingers. It felt real. I told him, ‘Ba, Si asengkisu akhoibokne. Mai makhutse eingonda faowe.’

All this time, she kept smiling and looking at us.

Amo came in from nowhere. He also sat down and said, ‘Ba, si oithoktabane, moi nungdangda hougatpa ngamdabane!’

My dad answered calmly, ‘I know, son.’

I wondered if she can really come back. I suspected if what they burned down was not really her but only logs of wood.’

*                       *                   *                    *

My eyes are wet. I rubbed them off and stare on the ceiling. The fan continues to whirl. The room is silent except for the noisy fan.

My grandmother died last year. Her body had been burnt down to ashes on the bank of Imphal River. She was 96.

She was sick when I returned home after completing BA. We nursed her day and night. We took her twice to RIMS Hospital. Curse the doctors there! She died the second time we took her there.

She held my hands tightly, wriggling on the bed. She tried to take off the tubes on her nose a couple of times. That time, I had to hold her hands tight. I kept telling her not to take it off, that nothing is gonna happen, that she’s gonna get well and go back home. She couldn’t speak. Her feeble voice broke into silence. She only tried to look at me under her wrinkled heavy eyelids.

I felt her hands turning cold, then her body turned blue. Finally, she stopped wriggling and I could sense her heart beat slowing down. It stopped altogether, she lay on the hospital bed motionless, her eyes still looking at me.

Who is this person sleeping beside me? I know him. I stopped crying. I try to sleep again.