A Storm on the Mountain

CHAPTER IV

It was winter. The day was dim, gray. The lights were on, even though it was just the middle of the day. It seemed like it was about to rain, heavily, thunderously; but it didn't. The clouds were just a warning- perhaps a moment to be passed just as simply.

Aanav was outside. He was playing in the grass, running around with his hands spread over parallelly to his shoulders, breathing in the fresh, cold air, taking in the smell of freshly wet mud. He loved it like that- outside, where it somehow meant freedom. No chaos. He eagerly waited for the pouring, as if wanting it to claim him. He chose to belong there- the place where crickets sprung out of the deep grass, the birds flying above the trees or piercing fiercely through the air. He hated insects, but was somehow fascinated by the fact that, the monsoon was so romantic, that even these tiny creatures, that usually scared the living daylights out of him, preferred to make love in the wet and stormy chill of the outside.

One only needed to be that perceptive, or silent, to listen to the world; to understand what it meant to be a part of something so magnificent, that he was perhaps the most unknown to the universe.

But silence was always a missing element as a child.

While he ran, foot-naked on the grass, no one came to call him, or look, or even check if he was out there, OK. He knew why, and more than anything, it was the reason he was outside.

The house must be sound of bickering, or yelling, or heated abusive words that he didn't really need to know. There was more thunderstorms in that tiny receptacle of a home, than it was outside in the open.

Instead of watching things being thrown around, and words being heated up; he preferred to be quiet, listening carefully the spraying of web from a spider in the grass, watching in dumb-found fascination. And he favored the idea of being so quiet- almost invisible or non-existent, so he could listen to the springing and spinning of the thin, sticky strings from one grassy leaf to the other.

Somewhere close by, as the child-in-innocence walked, he encountered an entire army of black ants, crawling in an order perhaps even more precise than in his school. He followed them, walking slowly in the direction they were moving to, each step making sure wouldn't be sound or a quake for them, only to realize that there was peradventure no end to this line, for it creeped out, eventually over the walls of the building. He sighed disappointingly, not able to know what the entire army of those creatures were up-to.

Suddenly, his eye caught something tightly dangling off a tiny stem on the twig of a plant. It was green, deep as the ground- almost pitch deep. He watched in quietness, not even batting an eyelid, still as a mannequin. A very faint sound of a crack, more of the tearing of a thin cloth or a paper sheet busted the silence. A head emerged and he was grossed out, but he still watched. Eventually every part of it's body tore through, it's wings wrinkled- like a crushed paper. It took it's time to straighten it's flaps, slowly opening and spreading, then almost as neat as an ironed shirt it spread out, and took a leap by flapping it's delicate colorful wings to push air. It flew towards him, and he moved suddenly, his hands pushing the insect afar, but only managing to touch it's flaps.

Aanav sat back on the muddy ground, with a gash of bluish-yellow above his elbow.

Out of nowhere, his eyes landed on a transparent gauze-like long trail, looking as delicate as glass. He knew what it was. A snake, who'd left behind an old skin, who perhaps now, unknown to him had a slithery new body, shiny and smooth. He reached out his index finger towards the delicacy, until he heard a voice holler.

"Snake! Is that a snake?"

"It's only a snake-skin, silly!" Aanav replied, to his brother, not bothering to look at the terrified face standing behind him.

"Oh?" Aarav sighed, a sense of relief both, visibly and audibly available in his breath.

Silence.

The elder sibling walked up right behind him, bending with his palms on his knees, trying to get a better look- perhaps inspecting if it was still alive or really just a life left behind. "MaPa asked me to look for you. They're calling you up."

"Did they stop fighting?" Aanav asked, with absolutely no affection on his face.

"They did. But when they realized you weren't home, they started blaming each other for being careless."

"Uff-!" He stood up, and his brother whipped his shorts-covered buttocks with his open palm, dusting off the mud as much as possible. They walked then, Aarav's hands wrapped around his brother, climbing up the stairs, one by one, as slowly as possible, in an attempt to not reach at all. They didn't want to go back, to the chaos that once scared them- now only made them used to it. Nothing new, nothing old. Their slippers made wet, screeching, muddy noises, that echoed and made their teeth vibrate and go bitter.

Every step towards their so called home, would echo a word or two- a squeal or two, or an angry bolt of voice flashing against their unwilling ears. As they reached the doorstep, their parents stopped, looking at Aanav, at first with worrying love, but soon replaced with heated and flared rage. The mother walked towards him, and for a moment, he braced himself for a slap or two, but instead there was a pull on his left ear, painfully scratching his lobe.

"Where were you, huh? Silly boy! Where?"

He tried not to screech in a painful tingle, he felt as if his ear was about to pop out, the wax within shifted, the insides of the drum now itchy due to the gashing and yet building pain.

"Maa!" he shrieked, holding her wrist tightly, trying to pull her hand off, finger by finger; pushing his head towards her hand, trying to somehow ease the pain. "Papa!"

"Yes. Call papa!" She said, and then turned around to tell her upset-faced husband, "See? See your son? How disobedient! Answers back! How? How he got this stupid? Careless, I say! How unfortunate? Such a stupid child! Tell him, tell him something! You're the one, you spoiled him! Say! Tell him!"

Aanav huffed, internally. He loved his mother, or did he? He'd always want to play with her, hold her hands, wanted to dangle off her neck while resting on her elbow. But he was never reciprocated with the same affection. She loved him, she did, but less. She disliked carrying him around because she always complained about body aches, she never took him out to play at the garden because she was too lazy, always late to feed, never to coax him if he sniffed and cried. It wasn't even the first time that she had raised hand on her own children, her own flesh and blood and bones. Her words like arrows and arms like sword always kept moving, piercing, on the move, ready to go.

His father sat there, on the couch, seemingly too calm to believe. The man stood up from his place- his nose a little misshapen, his eyes untraceable and lips pressed onto each other forming a thin line. His strides towards them were limited, not exaggerating, but pretty slow, or Aanav thought he was watching it in slow motion due to the stinging pain in his ear.

When his father reached him, he knelt down to match his son's height and removed his mother's hand from his ear. His ear was no longer twisted, rather really warm, stinging red and uncomfortable. He could feel heat wafting off the inside of the ear. His father cupped his face so tenderly, unforgivingly delicately that it all seemed unreal. Aanav loved his father so much; spending Sundays with him, being loved and pampered by him and spending time together, but until now, he'd never seen this particular emotion in his father's eyes. It was nothing but clearly questionable.

The young boy inhaled, sharply yet silently, almost as if he knew this would be his last breath. Before he could ever even realize it, a jolt of outrageous thunder echoed the house, followed by a long, mournful silence that only lasted a couple seconds. A long and loud wail was heard, unknown at first from where it erupted, but one could then realize that it was the child standing shoulder to shoulder against his kneeling father, who's face was already dripping off his chin, like raindrops from a metal roof in the monsoon. His right cheek was stamped with fingers, it's borders red and slightly swollen.

Everyone except Aanav stood still, as if unknown to them what had just happened.

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