A Night of Morosity | Aswin Seshasayee

He opened his eyes to the dim sight of a rickety ceiling fan rotating away, seemingly dissatisfied with its inability to show off its advertised prowess of powering down and circulating heavy, stagnant air without breaking sweat, and instead rattling round and round, its blades visible like the ribs of a mangy dog. It did not matter, for the night was cool. Yet, he raised his hands to his forehead, wiping down a dollop of sweat on to the pillow on which his head, feeling heavy, rested.
He coughed once, he coughed twice. He heard the rustle of someone twisting and turning on the bed. He turned to his left, and saw his boy, all of eight years old, mumbling something incoherently, munching at thin air, and going back to blissful stupor. “jo, jo”, he whispered in the boy’s ears, the hoarseness in his voice making his whisper a silence. He ruefully smiled to himself, and turned around one hundred and eighty degrees to his right, his eyes resting on the serene, placid look on his wife’s face, the depths of her mind undisturbed by his wakefulness or the drumming of the fan, or anything else going on around them.
He drew in a stream of air through his nose, and realised the futility of it as the air whistled out, snaking back and forth through the indeterminate maze of slowly shifting phlegm constricting his nostrils, already narrowed by inflammation of the myriad tissues lining the airway. He sighed loudly, opened his mouth into a pout and sucked in the dry air, laden with innumerable signatures of everyday pollution. He coughed, more violently this time, his cough more a high frequency bark. The violence of his cough transformed into kinetic energy that made him sit up for a minute and rub his throat gently. He silently ensured that the peace of his family was undisturbed, and rested his head back on his pillow.
He closed his eyes, the noisy draw of his breath notwithstanding. The lightlessness, beyond the darkness of the night, which filled the space between the black-and-white of his eye and the inner wall of his eyelid quickly became illuminated by spots, lines, curves, and other two-dimensional shapes of non-existent brightness, before dissolving into an image of himself, dressed prim and proper, waiting outside the sacred consultation chambers of Dr. Moira, the snooty neighbourhood physician, the entire vision appearing as blurry as a reflection from just under the surface of a lightly disturbed water should.
“Mr. Warrier please”, the owner of the indifferent, expressionless face boomed – her voice a little garbled as should be appropriate for a vision seen through closed eyes – while scribbling something certifiably illegible on a scrap book.
He stood up from where he had been sitting: on one among ten plastic chairs without legs, nailed immobile on top of a dark rod, which in turn had been affixed to the floor by way of many metallic legs. He nodded at the indifferent, expressionless face before coughing, clearing his throat, blowing his nose loudly into a dotted handkerchief, and finally pushing open a heavy mahogany door advertising Dr. Moira’s many medical degrees and society memberships, and entering the physician’s sanctum sanctorum.
Dr. Moira, dressed in a grey bespoke jacket and a crisp white shirt, looked up at him through his moony glasses resting halfway down the bridge of his nose, and nodded a curt welcome, urging him with a wave of his hand to take the patient’s seat: that stereotyped uncomfortable stool whose occupant is left to look forlornly envious at the thin air that often gets to occupy the plush leather chairs reserved for the patient’s companion or other mysterious guests of importance.
“Your symptoms”, Dr. Moria declared, his voice low and intellectual, but itself hoarse and nasal, “may be indicative of small cell lung cancer”.
Plop! A large piece of stone appeared out of nowhere and dropped on the surface of the watery screen through which he saw himself sitting in front of Dr. Moira. The ripples settled, and he saw himself once again leaning in front of Dr. Moira, his mouth wide open, thus encouraging the ray of light from Dr. Moira’s powerful torch to inform the medical practitioner of the nature of his client’s ailment.
Dr. Moira took a deep breath through his slightly open mouth and cleared his throat. “Did you happen to eat some castor beans Mr. Warrier”, the doctor asked. He nodded. “I am afraid”, said Dr. Moria, “that you might have been poisoned Mr. Warrier. Ricin, found in castor beans, is toxic…”
Plop!
“Mr. Warrier. I am sorry, but you might be suffering from a fatal case of congestive heart failure”..
Plop! “… bronchial adenoma”.. Plop! “… histoplasmosis” … Plop! Plop! Plop! Plop!
Plop!
His eyes opened with a start, his face drenched in the smelly secretions of his sweat glands, his fingers clenched into a fist and uncut nails pressing into his soft palms. His breath was short and fast, he opened his mouth to breath in and out, coughed lightly, the phlegm in his throat refusing to rise up beyond his adenoids. He quickly turned right and left, saw his family sound asleep, and a little further on, on a desk by the window, the dark screen of his open laptop.
Then he stared for a moment at the pitch black darkness of the night outside. Power cut. In his strife, he thanked God for small things – for letting him afford an apartment with a backup for the ever unreliable Government power, which kept his inevitably rickety fan running and his family rested, especially during the hot summer months. Power back on, and the distant streetlights, or the few that were functional, fired up.
And then he heard the crows caw. One crow, and then two and then innumerable, the voice of one merging into that of another, and resonating as one to raise a cacophonic crescendo. His heart raced, while missing a beat or two. His hands moved and fumbled under his pillow, until they touched the metal back of his smartphone. The touchscreen came alive. The time was an hour past midnight. What were the crows doing at this time of the night? His wife and son twitched a little, but were otherwise unperturbed by the call of the crows. The call of the scavengers. The call of the harbingers of death! And then, a solitary dog howled from the faraway street, the amplitude of its sound moderately flattened by the seclusion afforded by the gated campus within which his apartment nestled. Yet, the howl lingered, a sustained call – from the rover and the guardian of Indian city streets – to hades. And then he heard echoes of the voice of Dr. Moira, and closed his eyes.

He saw memories through the watery surface of his inner projection wall. A younger him, prancing and dancing around a sofa in his house, his 3 year old son gaily laughing from his shoulders, his wife facing the man and the would-be man from the other side of the sofa, trying to catch them and teach them a lesson for their naughtiness.
Plop! He remembered the jingling voice of his wife’s laughter, provoked by his son sneaking up and biting his unsuspecting bum, while he was busy rummaging through the garbage bin for a missing document of some importance.
Plop! He saw himself signing on the home loan documents for his rather nice house, his wife looking on, unburdened and unmindful of the eventual dampening of the experience of living there by the low standard of essential, yet not inexpensive public services in his city.
Plop! He saw the mix of disbelief and longing on his wife’s face when the lady behind the “Admissions” signage said, “our annual fee is Rs. two lakhs only, and our curriculum includes compulsory sports and …”, and he saw himself facing his wife and nodding his head with a confident smile, rubbing the back of her palms and ruffling his little son’s hair, before turning to the school representative with a cheque book in his hand. The least he could do to his doting, true wife, raised and educated in the unsullied, bucolic air of a southern small-town, who had divorced herself from all finances, devoting all her time to the wellbeing of their little son, allowing him to make his career an unqualified success!
Plop! The ripples cleared, but the water remained murky, and his closed eyes strained to see through the nearly opaque screen of dark slime that swirled on the water’s surface. He was nowhere to be seen, except on the yellowing photograph of himself and his wife, taken not too long after their wedding. He saw his wife returning home from work, finding her twelve year old son hard at his homework. She smiled at her boy tiredly, black lines around her lower eyelid. He did not recognise the house his family lived in, and the peeling paint on its walls. Concentric circles popped in and out of his vision, and he saw his son walking to school, not the posh school that he had admitted him to, but one that was visibly more modest!
Plop!
His eyes opened again, and his heart must have beat at well over a hundred and fifty. He could not stay on bed any longer. He threw down his light blanket, stepped off the bed, opened the bedroom door, and waddled down the beautifully walled living room to the balcony. He needed fresh air, and a view of something that would make his future feel bright. He violently pulled at the door to his balcony and started as a gust of cool breeze shocked him into momentarily bright wakefulness.
He looked into the distance at the highway, which wound its way from the city of his residence to the next, still dotted with the twinkling headlights of nighttime traffic. He turned and looked down, getting a tenth-floor-eye view of the landscaped common area of the walled garden that he and his family lived in. It was late autumn, and some trees, even in this semi-tropical part of the world, shed their leaves during this season. The cold air seemed to finger its way into his already sore airway and he coughed, his chest drawing in and out briefly, sending a spasm of pain down to his tummy. And he saw the last thing – or was it the one thing – that he wanted to see: the Last Leaf desperately clinging on to a solitary tree standing right below his balcony.
The morning rays of the sun danced over his face, and combined with his wife’s vigorous shaking of his torso, defeated the fatigue of a sleepless, morose night. He opened his eyes, and saw the bright look on his wife face, her eyes wide open with childlike enthusiasm at confronting a new day, her brows betraying concern. “Wake up, sleepyhead. Your son left for school thirty minutes ago”, she said, her voice bright, revealing no sign of her knowledge, and delphic and accurate interpretation, of her husband’s night-time travails. “I think you should see Dr. Moira today. I called his office and have taken an appointment for nine thirty. You have thirty minutes. Kelambu!”, she said. He did not remember how or when he finally caught some sleep, but, in the present, smiled weakly and nodded his head.
He brushed his teeth, coughing occasionally, turned on the water heater, and twenty minutes later was dressed prim and proper, ready to visit Dr. Moira.
An hour later, he was back home, after being typically shaken out of a stupor by the bullying voice of the indifferent and expressionless assistant, and awed by the magnificence of the accomplished medical man. His face was flushed, and his eyes shifty in puzzlement but willing to look ahead. He handed out his prescription to his curious wife, who urgently unfolded the paper, and somehow managed to decode the doctor’s squiggly maze of handwriting, which said, “Allegra 0-0-1, after food; Crocin cold and flu 1-0-1, after food; Steaming with Vicks, 4 times a day; Nasal drops SOS”. Dr. Moira had told him, “allergic rhinitis Mr. Warrier. Or as you would have it, allergic cold. Non-infectious. You should be ok in two or three days.”
He purposefully strode to the balcony and peered down. He saw the solitary tree, totally bereft of leaves. The Last Leaf had fallen, and there was nothing wrong with him.
He walked into his bedroom and plonked down on the bed. His wife followed him, held his chin, lifted it up and turned his face until he could see the lighted screen of his laptop, reminding him of the last thing he had done before going to bed the night before. An internet browser was open, and in it was a website that screamed “Check your Symptoms! Get Timely Treatment before it is Too Late”. Colourful, pay-per-click advertisements popped in and out and from every corner of the webpage. Below the banner was a search box that read, “nasal congestion, hoarse voice, cough, sore throat”, and a long list below, which included amongst common cold, allergic rhinitis and hay fever, congestive heart failure, lung cancer, and many other devious and unpronounceable things direct from hell! He looked up at his wife, his face red in embarrassment, his countenance childlike, and she gently grabbed his head, held it against her midriff, and as he snuggled against her warmth, ruffled his hair in gentle understanding.

---

 

Indian Review| Literature and Fiction | Author | Aswin is a scientist, leading a research group investigating the biology of bacteria at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India. He is an amateur carnatic musician. He writes popular science for thewire.in and has written on science policy for Fountain Ink.