Between the Showers

By

Akash Chatterjee

Rajah glanced over the grandpa clock and started undressing. And then, he preferred to remain in his birthday suit.

          It was 12-25 p.m. of May 17 and summer was on. But that was not the reason why he decided to wear nothing. he chose to receive Meemie that way.

          Few days back Meemie had agreed to sponge him under the shower, and today was the day. He felt all excited at that.

          There were some jobs to be done before Meemie’s arrival and he got engaged to all that immediately. Meemie liked to see everything neat and tidy.

          And so decked up was the room. The water-filled jug and the drinking glass perfectly placed at the bedside table, the violet bed-spread, multicolored sofa-cushion properly placed, a well arranged CD rack... Happily he sprayed a room freshener all around.

          Ding-dong! 12-30 dot!

A little impatient, he now settled down at one of the windows to peep outside.

          The busy street, the rows of apartments, the pieces of motionless clouds, all made him bored enough.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock- it was now quarter to one 'o clock..."

          Dejected, he now settled down at the computer and pulled  out his special file 'Rajah the King' and browsed through it to stop at a juncture where the lines read, 'I'll never forgive Pupai. He's a liar.'

          He added a line after that -- 'Meemie’s no less a liar than Pupai.'

          A little thud at the main door made him rushing there immediately, but it was Billoo, the pet cat of the Evans family!

          Hopes dashed, he returned to add another line on the screen, ‘Who cares for whom in this world?’

          He then reached the end of the file and wrote, 'So Rajah, you are going to be jailed on 18th May! Do you want that really? My darling Meemie, I know you'll never write to a prisoner. Still, I love you forever.'

          Rewriting the sentence again and again he suddenly covered his face with his palms and broke into tears.

          Minutes after he went to the toilet and threaded open all the water taps to the full. The sound of water reverberated throughout the apartment.

          Fifteen minutes later a tired-looking lady tiptoed into Rajah’s room.

          Once in the room, all parts of Rajah’s new school uniform taunted her in unison from the rack and again hammered a fact in her mind, that today was the last day of their togetherness for the year, as Rajah was to be sent to a distant boarding school only tomorrow.

Now Rajah’s Meemie knelt down beside her sleeping son. His naked state, the parallel stains of tears down on his cheeks, the sounds of the running water, fragrance of the room freshener… All jacked up the story of the day while she was struck down with her own shower of tears. Absently caressing Rajah’s hair, she lamented with a sigh: “Only if your Dad, your great Pupai were amid us…”

Ends