The Street Light

He wished to curse those who looked at the rain and wrote poetries of love and life. Bullshit! Not a single of these drops intends love or peace—only ruination and despair. His lips trembled as his shoulders drooped under the weight of splashing droplets, those who did not abandon him. He glanced up at the sky, night stretching its inky hands and smearing the colours across the bluish-grey canvas. In the chorus of hoots and disappointed clicks of tongue from everyone those whom darkness began engulfing as the electricity was sucked out of the city, he heard the wind snaking near his shoes with a soft hissing.

A few piss-coloured emergency lights came on under the thatched roofs of the dingy, street-side shops, and the traffic began to move again. The street seemed to swim as the bewildered population got over the shock of a sudden power cut at the verge of a storm and everyone hurried towards their destination. He smirked at the irony—a few years ago, power would be out for days and nights in this very town, and nobody would have batted an eyelash. And now—

But things change, don’t they? This city changed. Its people did. His steps faltered as the realisation seeped in along with a chilling drop that managed to slither down his back through the sweat-stained shirt. How come am I left behind?

He heard the owl hoot that his friends of childhood imitated in his head. It was their call. They had somehow mastered the art of dropping whatever they were doing the moment the curtain of darkness fell and in three seconds, a cacophony of almost synchronised shrill calls would pierce the gentle wind. Some of them are lawyers, doctors, scientists, government employees—even those who failed in school are still employed. They have all changed.

A bulky shoulder ran into him, followed by a hurried but apologetic sorry. The hulk of a man held his briefcase over his head, and when he entered under the tin roof of a closed sweetmeats shopfront, the man’s earpiece caught his attention. Panting, he wiped his wet stained shirt and pressed on the earphone.

“Dear, I’ll be home in a few minutes, don’t you worry,” his voice was pleading and calming at the same time. He spoke a little louder than the drops drumming on the roof over his head, “no, no, I’m not wet at all. I left the office a little early, so I’m already near the auto-rickshaw stand—no, no, I won't drenched, okay? Yes, I won't move an inch until the rain stops—”

Talking to the worried wife. Huh. Why not worry? These storms can turn lives around in the blink of an eye. The man's voice faded into the background and he hurriedly stared at the asphalt road to avoid the dried leaves along with skins of fruits, peachy vegetables, papers, plastic wrappers turned to the folder in his hand. When will mine turn around? It’s been more than the blink of an eye.

It had been the seventh interview in the last three months. He was so proficient at reading their doubtful stares and avoiding body language that two minutes into the interview room today, and he knew by the air that his old friend rejection hid behind the sugar-coated words. Every time, he’d hope for "something better" than the last time. A callback, maybe an excuse that he hadn't heard before. The last failure plagued, confused and scared him as he waited for that something better. But deep inside, he expected it again. They said his qualifications were excellent but simply not what they needed right now. A dialogue that was nearly the only kind thing he was hearing these days, even if it was a sham. His parents had stopped talking to him altogether, his friends shied away with cursory smiles, any phone calls to her would straight go to her voicemail.

A thunder rolled behind the fat, dark clouds, a shade darker than the night itself. The streaks of lightning like a brush of silver slapped across the black canvas thundered to the bottom of the southern sky. Even after the light was gone and the patchy gloom came back, he saw the ghost of the light and his eyes twinkled. He wondered if he had been daydreaming, like always, or did he just saw a star get covered by the relentless bouts of shower. He was never the sky-gazing type, but she loved to see them.

After midnight, when the city slept and the comforting cold washed over the hustle-bustle of the day, he would sneak out of his apartment, cross terraces of three building over their separating walls, and tiptoe to her balcony on the top floor of the building. Thank God to the idiot who thought it was okay to not put a protective grill on literally the top flat of the building. They would sit there for hours, watch the tiny, twinkling spots crawl across the mostly greyish nights. No matters how many times she said it, she would go on again, each night without fail, to curse how polluted the city has become, the smoke and the dust poisoning anything remotely beautiful. For a human being, she sure hated the human species. And he would listen to her talk about the burning diamonds of the sky, unseen galaxies, solitary planets sometimes and often visiting droplets of meteors, even though his understanding of astronomy was limited to the eight planets and Pluto. She would never be tired of telling him about everything she studied, and he wouldn’t be tired of hearing her chirp away in the shadow of the night.

Was she watching the sky too? Did she see the stars as well? He then remembered where she was; thousands of miles away from him. Maybe that place hasn’t yet been poisoned like this, and the stars are brighter there. Maybe she was happy.

The thought of her being happy forced him to smile, although it was more of a pity smile. For all his promises to keep her happy, he accepted that she was happy away from him. All her hard work, hours of straining eyes and headaches and sleeplessness to someday research the stars and look upon them closely had been brought its fruits a few months ago. To say she was ecstatic would still be an underestimation. He knew he had lost her that day. Rightfully, for her.

The storm raged around him, the raindrops sharp and slant, cutting through the air, threatened to knock his air out with every punch. Water dripped from his hair as he pulled them back from his forehead and blinked eyes to bring himself out of the murky pit of the past. The headlights glared at him as the vehicles ran with a frenzy on the narrow road that was nearly empty. Most of the pedestrians were clustered under the pitter-patter of the tarp roof that served as the permanent ones for most people in the city. Logged with water, they swayed wildly and once in a while, the wind would knock one of them over and spray upon its bewildered guests who had no choice but to suffer the cruel joke.

Water slandering his vision, he saw the men and women and children wiggle in colourful rough patches in the new wave of darkness that had begun washing over from the main streets of the city as the downpour thickened. The shopkeepers and the wooden cart owners turned off their lights as another lightning struck behind him, bathing everything in its silver lights for a second as it roared and roared. Some had covered their pushcart with colourful plastic sheets that stuck out in the raven’s feather night. He stole a glance over his shoulder and found himself walking alone on the path. His instincts said to take cover but something else told him to keep walking. It pushed him to look down the curvy path that wiggled on and on and take one step at a time, even if it meant sporting his clothes stuck awkwardly against his body. Again, thank God for white inner wears as well as the idiot whose idea was it to wear a colour that would appear dirty even with an atom-sized stain to damn interviews.

He was more than surprised when nobody bothered to stop him. Sure, the hot gazes burned into his flesh and the whisper tore through the mix of wind and rain thumping on the road, displacing grains of soil and gravel. The folder in his hand had gained slight weight as the papers that proved the worth of his futile existence drank the rainwater. He looked through the watery layer in his eyes at the shapes that lurked at him out of the darkness and wondered whether any of them would worry about what’s wrong with him? Does anyone even care?

Their averting gazes as he caught them answered his question. A few wild calls claimed in a language that he failed to learn despite living in the city for more than twenty-three years his insanity and stupidity. For all his life, he had heard these comments except they were more to the tune of him being different than others. He thought back if being “different” had done him any good. His entire life of moderate success in a hundred things played in front of his eyes like a flip-book. The idea of having succeeded in just one thing, like everybody else, filled him with strange energy. A threatening force, hungry to truly consume his sanity. He strode against the wind on the narrowing, lonely road, darkness closing upon him.

His house was a short distance now. A house that had everyone living in it yet felt no better than a graveyard. But could he blame them? His parents did not raise him with all their efforts and patience and maybe, love, just to see him fail in everything he chose to do. Their silence suffocated him, their pale faces reminding him of his misery. Again today, hot, bland food would be served in front of him, and he would eat together as a family in front of people who disgusted every free morsel, he fed himself. Oh, did he not know their contempt, their anger, just below the surface of quiet.

The highway came. Light didn’t. The wind had slowed down to the point where the old, scarce trees swayed at their thin crowns of yellowish-green leaves and frail branches. Monsoon had arrived today, the first full rain, and they would be rocking again soon. For them, there was a silver lining to their suffering in nature’s oven named summer. What about me?

A truck zapped past him, its bulky tires throwing a splash of muddy water as it lowered into the tiny pothole right next to him. Mud stuck in the bottom of his black trousers as the water tingled over his leg down to his shoes and off. Another lightning struck, shaped like a trident, its silver pointed arrows spreading upwards in the endless sky. But this time, there was a blue edge to it. A soft one that lingered a second longer and died with the echoing thunder, but there it was.

He watched the empty highway. The silver lining. Was there one for him? Or was he meant to live a lifeless life, courtesy of those who owed him absolutely nothing than basic humanity? Why not test?

Scrunching the thin folder at the middle with both his hands, he tossed it into a nearby shrubbery that also served as the dumping ground for the market. Inhaling a lungful of air, he then stepped into the middle of the road.

And waited. Kept waiting. For the next fifteen minutes, he stood there, watching the expectant direction for a pair of bright yellow eyes to approach him and not stop. But none came. Fatigue soon washed over him, his legs trembling and the cold seeping in his skin. The whipping rain had eroded to a merry drizzle, singing off the calming leaves and whispering with the cool wind that ruffled his hair.

He quivered as the cold took over him, and chuckled. A low chuckle first that eventually burst out into a fit of laughter. He threw his head back and cackled, the sensation vibrating his chest. It fits, he thought, shaking his head, his friends chose to become what they want to. The love of his life chose to leave him. His parents wanted to feed him and keep him alive. Those people in the market wanted to escape the rain, and they did not want to care if he lived or not. The lightning burst out into shapes and sizes as colours as it wished. That tree could have fallen to the ground in the storm, but it held itself together. There isn’t a silver lining for anyone who didn’t want it.

The tears ran across his cheeks and the sobs interfered with his breath as he gasped for air. He wanted to cry, and so he did, falling onto his knees. For some reason, there wasn’t a single sound of his uncontrolled whimpering as the salty water crossed his lips but a song of the crickets. A kind of happy song. Because they wanted to sing.

A minute tickled by. He stood up. The hybrid cotton of his trousers was stained with mud from below the knees, but he didn’t care. He wanted to forget about his friends, and her. No, he wanted to go home, eat something, sleep and get up. He wanted to not think about the failure, the futility, but what the success and what could bring it.

As he strolled towards the isolated cluster of buildings that housed his parent’s apartment, the street light above his head wheezed, and the tranquil yellow light came to life.