A Woman, Squeal, Weddings and Marriage, a Short Story. 

This is my blog post for Blog Chatter's weekly prompt, 14-20 May.  I haven't participated in the prompt for a while for one reason or another.  I am submitting this with hesitation because I am one day late.  

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A Woman, Squeal, Weddings and Marriage: A Short Story.

''Be good to my mother.  Remember, since you were not her choice, she will be picky about everything you do." Anandan hurried into the launch, looking crisp for another day in his button-up band collar grey shirt and tight-fitting black jean pants.  Bobbing from place to place, he loaded his backpack with the coffee flask, lifted the laptop from his work table, cuddled it to his chest, and waited impatiently for the coffee.  And slipped his phone into his shirt pocket.  The playful sun shifted through his jelled hair. 

She shifted the coffee from one cup to another to cool it down to his Celsius level.  The smoky coffee aroma subdued his cologne aftershave. 

"I would have made it early after work if the Australian team had been through with the project yesterday." 

Making the last draw from the coffee cup, he grabbed the car key and approached the exit door.  "Remya, I forgot one thing; don't use the kokum in the fish curry, only tamarind.  My mother hates it."  

Before exiting through the door, he turned to circumvent the living room and lamented, "the house is in a mess.  You know, my mother is a purist when it comes to cleaning." 

She heard his car engine rumbling and vrooming out the building gate.  A rush of irritation thrummed her temple. 

She wished she had received a call from the office where she attended the interview last week.  But then, she pinned her finger on her cheek, ruminating about the impending double tasks.  Then, there is childbearing, about which free reminders started flowing in from all thinkable corners.  

Huh!  She felt foolish at poopooing other girlfriends who wanted to remain single and feel good.

A storm of dark Monsoon clouds puffed out through her nose, and she stood there armed with an apron, a broom, a mop, a bucket of water, and a bottle of Lizol.  She mapped out an action plan in mind-- do the floor first, dust and pattern up the living room, then the cooking, and last, arrange the bedroom.  

She added double measures of Lizol Citrous floor cleaner to impress his mother.  After cleaning, he made the dishes.  She pinned Anandan's instructions on his parents' meal delicacies on the cookbook stand, which he had printed out in the early hours.   

"A tip to get my mom in your favour is thumping on the fineness of traditional dishes, and Papa's too, but both are inclined to regional delicacies from where they come; Kozhikode and Trivandrum.  And they were a romantic pair at the University campus." He stopped for a moment to chuckle when his face flushed. 

"Still, they fight cats and dogs when it comes to food delicacies; he fights Amma for her spice-less vegetable dishes against his meat choices, which made me sometimes stop eating with them." 

The first time Anandan opened up about his family intricacies, Remya noticed pride flashing in his eyes, which opened and closed with the excitement of a child.  Remya's inner mind was weaving out her husband's inner personality.   She could sympathise with him at several claims that made him look like his parents' pet.   

She is from Kottayam, halfway between the two regions, Remaya thought.  In the three months together, while mostly eating out, she hadn't had a chance to grasp his regional delicacies if he had one. 

"What is your region?" She asked him.

"You will learn it in due course," he warned her.   

That is how a parent's pet suddenly becomes a man; her inner voice talks to her. 

 

She mopped away the sweat from her forehead using a towel and googled the recipes, but each recipe repeatedly concluded with salt to taste.  Once she finished cooking, making wild guesses about the salt measure, the mish-mash of the aroma in the kitchen made her stomach tighten.  She heard her inner voice to get ready to fight for a divorce.   

She entered the bedroom, which was a mess from all the night activities.  His rush over things on the bed reminds her of the usage-like a monkey got a flower garland.  She pulled out the soiled sheets, stuffed them inside the washing machine, and dressed the bed with those she ironed after cooking.  

Neglecting her stiff back, she bent down to clean under the bed when she heard a loud squeal.  It made her recoil like a gun towards the wall, but she was lucky to escape without an accident.  On tipping toes, she searched everywhere inside the dresser, cupboard, chest of drawers, behind the door, and inside the bath.  

She opened the wardrobe last.  What if his ex had been hiding inside and threatening her to leave him, or his mother had sent someone to create a spooky message about the house being haunted?  But nothing came to the notice of her human eyes.  The broomstick slipped from her hand, hit her feet, and she jumped out in an ache. 

After a while, she heard it again.  This time, she fixed it as coming from the next-door apartment.  She remembered a couple opening the door the previous week and entering; a newly wedded, she guessed from their unfamiliar stare at each other.  An arranged marriage.  The woman wore a long thread of dark red sindoor on her forehead and wedding line.

The poor woman is in danger; she should do something.  She should report the squeal to the police station, but before that, she should get the details and circumstances. 

She called Anandan and briefed him on the situation like a person in charge of a rescue mission.  

"Are you mad?" His response felt like a sting. 

"The lady's life may be in danger.  We should do something to save her."

"They are husband and wife; they will sort their issues.  You mind your business.  And the police have other businesses to attend to, and if you bother them with the squealing matter, they will come to get you."

She couldn't counter Anandan based on similar incidents reported in the media.    

After a while, she heard the squeal one more time, but then a loud cry ensued with sounds of breaks, shouts, and crashes.  People were rushing into the apartment, and she saw a woman's body carried on a stretcher to an ambulance parked by their apartment.

Between then and the great event of the day, the arrival of Anandan's parents, she was in turmoil. 

The event started with his mother sniffing around the living room and initiating a sequence of sneezes.   

"She is allergic to Citrous stuff," Ananadan's father declared dutifully.  

The Citrus scent acted like a bullet in her nose as well.  More damaging was Anandan's bullet look at her.  She looked back at him with an inner thought; you wrote an easy about the do's and don't of your parent's visit, but not about the Citrous stuff.

His mother began to lose control of her body and was tumbling down when she was carried into the bedroom, which Remya had freshened with a room spray containing Citrus elements. 

When his mother fell onto the bed, her skin reddened, and her cheeks swelled from where she was hastily moved onto the living room sofa. 

Anandan summoned his friend, Doctor, who arrived at lightning speed.  

The Doctor suggested an emergency hospitalisation, for which he made the necessary phone calls, including the ambulance. 

When the ambulance arrived, Remya was, in a way, relieved that her in-laws hadn't got to taste her food.  She had added almost every possible ingredient to make them the most favourable to his mother; instead, they tasted horrible.  And that would have been the end of her marriage.

The ambulance arrived, and her mother-in-law was carried inside.  When it moved toward the gate, Remya saw the ambulance carrying the woman next door getting inside the building.  She watched through the glass box inside it.  The woman next door was inside it, her face covered in a white cloth. 

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