Storm Clouds
By Preeti Seshadri
In the everydayness of Paru and Mithila’s world, the edges of darkness seep into the mundane, making the ordinary heavier with the gravity of expectation
Paru strolled over to the chair with her morning tea. She paused at the window to look at the morning light. Such a beautiful start to the day, she thought, as she blew into her hot cup of tea. After a few minutes, she sat down in the chair next to the window. She didn’t quite enjoy this chair — its colours, shape or how straight-backed it was. But this was the one Mithila wanted and Paru had agreed, so here it was in their tiny ‘morning room’, as Mithila called it.
Paru picked up the book at the open page and started reading. The story made no sense and then she realized she was at the page Mithila was reading.
Mithila.
Paru sighed, wondering what today would be like.
Mithila was holding the pole of the slide and waiting for Sanjay to come down. As she turned to look around, she caught the eye of a man who seemed to be scanning the playground just as she had been. Mithila tried to look away quickly but no such luck. He smiled, and she smiled back instinctively, and immediately kicked herself mentally. She didn’t really want to make polite chit-chat, why on earth had she smiled back?
She realized that he was walking over to her and she couldn’t move away since she had told Sanjay she’d be standing there.
‘Which one is yours?’
Pointing to Sanjay, she said, ‘Red T-shirt boy, at the far end. Yours?’
‘I’m here with my niece,’ he said, pointing to a girl in the blue shirt.
‘Oh, you are Shayna’s uncle? She and Sanjay are in school together.’
Just then Sanjay came whizzing down the slide, interrupting Mithila’s conversation. Sanjay then ran up to her and said, ‘Mamma, I’m hungry.’
In a practiced move, Mithila took his hand, turned slightly and waved to the stranger, and briskly walked away.
In the distance, she could hear the loud siren of a police car crossing the park.
Mithila strode into the morning room with her coffee. She put her mug down slowly on the table, making sure not to spill any and fluffed the cushion on the chair. She sat down heavily, crossing her legs. She liked the support this chair gave, so she could sit for long periods and read.
She picked up the book with her left hand and leaned over to pick up her mug with her right, and started reading. A line into the page and she realized it wasn’t her page. ‘Ugh, this must be Paru’s page. Why does she do this? Read the same book as I am reading, at the same time?’
She closed her eyes and went back to the one memory of Paru that calmed her. The only memory that still remained. It was at the animal shelter. She had gone there with a friend who wanted to adopt a dog, and she had seen that familiar messy, curly hair in a half-bun. The girl from the café. She is cuter when she smiles, thought Mithila then, and smiled again now, as the charm of the first meeting washed over her. She had gone there that day for Paru. She knew this. She knew this now.
Her friend introduced herself to Paru and launched into a whole bunch of questions, and Mithila watched Paru struggle to answer them, until she laughed and threw up her hands and said, ‘I don’t really work or volunteer here. I’m here to see if I can adopt a dog.’
‘Why did you behave like you do work here?’ Mithila had asked.
Paru had locked eyes with her then. ‘I didn’t. I just thought we were introducing ourselves.’
Mithila walked into Paru’s studio quietly.
She knew Paru was at the sink, cleaning up.
Mithila wandered around the studio, from corner to corner.
She straightened the dirty towels here, folded and put them one on top of the other.
Put the paintbrushes together there.
She moved all the books to the shelf and set them in order of height.
Picked up a dirty cloth to wipe paint spilt on the desk at the far corner.
And finally made her way to where Paru was at the sink.
She saw the empty water bottle there and hoped Paru wasn’t absent-mindedly filling water from the sink and drinking it.
Paru was drying the dishes , her hands moving slowly, while humming to herself, out of tune, mixing up multiple tunes halfway through. It was driving Mithila crazy.
She leaned on the counter, her back to Paru, and let out a big sigh. When that didn’t work, she sulked, thinking Paru no longer noticed when something bothered her. Annoyed, she walked away and picked up a fruit.
Paru put away the last glass she had dried and looked out of the window. She could see storm clouds gathering in the far distance. It was going to rain heavily tonight.
She turned towards Mithila wiping her hands and saw there was a storm brewing inside as well. Now what had she done to bring this on?
‘What happened, Mithu, why the frown?’
‘Nothing.’
Over the years, Paru had grown to understand that she was meant to pacify and cajole. Today, however, she wasn’t in the mood and decided she’d take Mithila at her word and started to walk out of the kitchen.
As she was leaving, the coconut lying on the counter caught her eye.
Picking it up, she asked, ‘Should I break this open and take out the inside? Are we making chutney today?’
Mithila just continued to scowl at the counter. Paru couldn’t tell if she hadn’t heard her, or if she was willfully ignoring the question.
Paru took a deep breath and left the kitchen, coconut in hand, wondering briefly if things could have been different if she hadn’t noticed her at that café? If she hadn’t been drawn to her beautiful, intense eyes? If she hadn’t overheard her plans to visit the animal shelter later? Why had she been always intimidated by her?
Paru walked into their bedroom and headed straight for Mithila’s bedside table.
She opened the drawer and found Mithila’s wallet.
Picked up the wallet and opened it to look for the credit card.
No luck.
She bent down to look in the drawer and found a strip of tablets.
This is new, she thought.
Picking up the tablet strip, she turned it over to see what it was.
Melatonin. A full strip.
Why did Mithila have this? Was she going somewhere? Was she becoming an insomniac?
Paru joined Mithila at the checkout counter, ambling her way through the detergent aisle.
They both paused as the PA system came on. A car was being towed away. The car number wasn’t theirs, so both of them ignored the announcement and continued emptying their cart and basket.
As she took things out of the cart, Mithila picked up something from the counter and tossed it aside. The action startled Paru out of her reverie and she looked up.
‘What was that?’
‘The maggi packet. You know it’s bad for health and I don’t want Sanjay eating any of that.’
‘I know but he hasn’t had any in months. It is okay to eat once in a while as a snack.’
‘Do you know what all….’
‘Mithu, don’t start listing all the synthetic ingredients. Please add that packet back in. I told him I’d buy one of those. All the other kids get to eat it.’
Mithila looked at Paru, her eyes turning dark, and hissed into Paru’s ear, ‘Just leave it behind and tell him you forgot.’
Paru realized she needed to pick this fight or leave it. The lady at the checkout counter was staring at them, watching the argument unfold. She must see many of these, Paru thought. Wonder what the others do. . . do they cave in too?
Paru held the back door open, wondering if she should call Mithila in. Mithila looked beautiful, lost in thought, her head lifted up. The dark clouds moved and a sudden shaft of moonlight fell on her, as if she was in a scene from a movie or a play. Paru missed those days when they could sit in silence and just take in the night sky. The days of happy silence. Today’s silence was anything but that. Mithila had been in a bad mood all day and Paru had been too tired to turn Mithu’s mood on its head.
From somewhere nearby, she could hear snatches of a familiar 80s pop song. As Paru turned to go back in, Mithila started coughing as if something was stuck in her throat.
Paru brought a stainless-steel bottle of water and silently handed it to Mithila.
Mithila took a sip, while Paru stood there and watched her.
‘You know, you could just say how you feel and not wait each time for me to ask,’ Paru said softly.
Mithila glared at her and said, ‘If you know what I am feeling, why can’t you just ask about it instead of ignoring me?’
Paru shrugged and said, ‘I just wasn’t in the mood to ask.’
Mithila flung the bottle on the ground and stormed back into the house.
Paru picked up the bottle and followed her. The storm clouds were almost above them. She could feel the air change and looked up in time to see the first flash of lightning.
Mithila started at the front door and made sure it was locked, even though Paru had already done it. She walked through all the rooms to check the windows and draw the curtains. Paru didn’t see the need since they all had grills but Mithila felt safer this way. She checked in on Sanjay, who had gone to bed hours earlier and was fast asleep. She finally walked into their bedroom and could see Paru watching something on her iPad. Mithila adjusted their window curtains. She hated it when patches of morning light slithered in through the gaps in the curtains and woke her up earlier than the alarm. Paru was an early riser and didn’t understand how much it bothered Mithila.
She went into the bathroom, used the toilet, brushed her teeth and picked up her hairbrush and walked out, shutting the door behind her. She sat on her bed and brushed her hair till all the tangles were out. She put the hairbrush on her bedside table and got into bed. Paru had put away the iPad, turned on to her side and had fallen asleep. Mithila got into bed and drew the bedsheet up to her chin. She was tired and decided not to read or watch anything. As her eyes shut, she thought, ‘I hope Paru doesn’t ruin tomorrow.’
She fell asleep to the steady patter of heavy rain.
Preeti Seshadri has spent almost twenty years working for large and small companies, loves to travel and has been trying her hand at pottery for the last couple of years. She is currently based in Bangalore. Read Preeti’s other story from the ‘Rain in my Sky’ workshop here: https://medium.com/wordy-tales/bird-with-a-broken-wing-d80eb7b797b9; and from the ‘How Many Unicorns in your Garden’ workshop here: https://medium.com/wordy-tales/magus-sword-e9456daaa161
