Weevils in the Wok | Sangeetha G

She opened the lid of the container to see hundreds of weevils crawling over the lentils. A tingling sensation crept over her neck, back, and face. Her forehead and nose wrinkled in disgust. If it had been a normal day, she would have hurled the contents into the bin without a second thought. But today was different.

“I don’t know when the shops will open and when I can buy the groceries. I will have to preserve as much as I can,” she told herself. 

She emptied the lentils along with the repulsive pests into the wok and placed it over the fire. As the bottom of the pan heated up, scores of weevils hidden underneath emerged on the surface. The weevils scurried for cover over the lentils. By then, heat at the bottom of the pan had already charred the weaker ones. 

“You just need a couple of bugs, the entire area will get infested. They will gobble up everything and keep on breeding,” she mumbled in disgust. 

   As the heat spread upwards, the insects started scaling up the sides of the wok in a bid to escape. Many were burnt and fell back while some managed to reach the rim of the wok, only to fall into the fire. A lucky few managed to climb onto the spatula unnoticed and escaped to safety when she set it down on the kitchen slab. 

When the insects in the wok were motionless, she removed the wok from the stove and put the lentils into a winnowing basket, and waggled out the dead insects into the drain with revulsion. Perhaps she derived a certain sadistic pleasure from their plight.

She cleaned the lentils and cooked them while looking down at the street through the window. The downpour continued unabated. The roads were all flooded and the water had started seeping into the ground floor. 

“The water levels are rising,” her husband said anxiously. The presenters on the news channels were yelling at the top of their voices, terrifying the already anxious viewers. Visuals of water-logged and inundated places and rescue operations in the low-lying areas of the city were aired again and again in quick succession to heighten the drama. The husband was glued to the television, hoping to find something new in the repetitive bulletins.

The lights went out just as the couple and children sat for dinner. “The dams are brimming and it seems the government is releasing water from them. The canal nearby is already overflowing. I wonder whether the water will rise further if the dam water is let out,” he said, sounding worried.

“Please check on the elderly couple,” she requested. 

“I will,” he said as he finished his dinner. He took a torch light and climbed down the stairs to the ground floor apartment. Water had entered the apartment. The elderly lady opened the door. She was picking up things lying on the floor. He joined her, lifting the heavier objects and placing them on tables.

“Sujata aunty, why don’t you shift upstairs? What if the water rises?’ he asked.

“It will be tough carrying Ram uncle upstairs. He has already slept,” she looked at her bedridden husband, sleeping soundly in the bedroom. “Even for me, it is tough to climb the stairs. Let’s wait till morning. If the situation worsens, we will get help from the adjacent building to carry him and his things up,” she said.

“Call me whenever you need help at night,” he said and left. 

The rain was unrelenting when they went to bed. Late in the night, he woke up with an urge to relieve himself. He put his feet down into knee-deep water on the floor. He was shocked. “Get up, water has come in,” he shouted startling his wife from her sleep. Both of them frantically began picking up bags and other items lying on the floor. They were already drenched. “Wake the kids. We will have to move to the terrace,” he panicked. 

They hurried out and climbed up the stairs to the terrace. It was still raining. They sat under the gazebo on the terrace. “The old couple?” she exclaimed while letting out a cry. Looking at the bewildered faces of the couple, the children started weeping, “are they dead?” He hugged them, his mind filled with thoughts of the elderly couple and their watery grave. Images of water gushing into their mouths and noses, filling every little cavity in their bodies, and bursting the cells, flashed in his mind. “I was sleeping unaware under the blanket just a layer of concrete away when the ground floor couple were struggling against the mighty water,” he thought. He tried to dodge the thought of their swollen bodies floating in dirty water.  

In the morning, he walked towards the stairs to check the water level in his apartment. The water was still rising and had reached his waist. He waded through the water to the kitchen. A few dead weevils were floating over the water in the kitchen sink. He searched for food and found only the leftover lentil curry from the previous night on the kitchen counter. He carried the wok upstairs and gave it to the children. Famished, tired, and cold, they sat the whole day on the terrace, waiting for the rain to subside. They tucked in their hungry bellies and huddled up like bugs for warmth. Someone above in the sky was probably deriving sadistic pleasure from their plight.

The next morning, they saw a helicopter of the rescue forces circling in the sky. He removed his son’s red shirt and kept waving it. The helicopter came down above their terrace and swirled and splashed the cold rainwater on them with great force. Rescue personnel descended on a rope, fastened the harness around each one, and lifted them one after another into the carrier. The copter flew over the flooded city.

Sangeetha G works as a journalist in India. Her flash fiction and short stories have appeared in Sky Island Journal, Down in the Dirt, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Kitaab International, Indian Review, Nether Quarterly, Muse India, Storizen, The Story Cabinet and Borderless Journal. Her stories have won Himalayan Writing Retreat Flash Fiction contest and Strands International Flash Fiction contest. Her debut novel ‘Drop of the Last Cloud’ was published in May 2023.