.Short Story | The Dream

The Dream : A Short Story

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Copyright © 2021 Shikhar Sumeru

All rights reserved. No portion of this story, its parts, or any other section from this website, may be reproduced in any form without permission from the writer. For permissions contact: TellTaleArt09@gmail.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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The Dream

“Why don’t you go out by yourself? Exploring the local market, the people, the places … everything on your own. You so love doing that,” suggested the attractive young woman, alternating her gaze between her husband and her laptop, the inbox showing a slew of red-marked ‘urgent’ emails.

“But you promised, Suparna! Isn’t that why you took the day off? It’s our anniversary for heaven’s sake. I would anyway stick out like a sore thumb alone,” protested the distraught tall well-dressed man.

“Look, I am really sorry. I know that you didn’t really want to spend our anniversary at my parents’. I really appreciate your giving up on the jungle cottage reservations; I do! But you of all people should understand. Your work is just as consuming as mine. There has been an escalation and much as I want to show you around, I don’t think I can get away from the laptop before evening.”

The disappointment was apparent on the young man’s face.

“Look at it this way. The longer you are out of the house, the less time you have to spend in the company of the in laws you are so fond of,” she said with a wink.

“You can go on one of those long walks you so sorely miss in the city. Just return before the party.”

“And what shall I find? A wishing well? That won’t be such a bad idea actually, if it can take me back to my dwellings. And to an anniversary party where I don’t have to deal with all those people. Just you and me.”

“A wishing well?” wrinkles formed on Suparna’s face.

“You know, if you feel so adventurous, there is something on the island here you could see,” she opened the ‘maps’ application on her phone and started typing.

“Islander’s fall? A ‘Waterfall of Wisdom’?” Rajesh said looking at the screen of his wife’s phone.

“What’s that? Like the Niagra Falls that cause brain waves?”

“No, silly! Read the description. It’s the most picture-perfect site in this part of the island. From filmmakers to selfie-takers, everyone goes there. What the description doesn’t mention is the legend behind the fall. A sun starved traveler from the Nordics, Iceland I think, settled there, hundreds of years ago. I don’t think many people know about it now since it was renovated and opened to public. Even its name has changed. It became Islander’s Fall, instead of Icelander’s. So anyway, the Icelander passed, but he left a myth behind. If you ask for something, the fall grants it.”

“With a rider, no doubt? I tell you these wishing-wells and demon-deals were the intellectual ancestors of insurance business.”

“Ha, ha, yes, there is a rider. A sacrifice to be made alright. The fall grants the asker’s wish but takes away something that’s dear to him.”

“Like the Norse god’s right eye.”

“Like Odin’s eye,” Suparna nodded.

“That’s a load of codswallop!” laughed Rajesh, “and I will prove it to you.”

“Whatever you do! Don’t make a wish.”

“Why? You sound like you are speaking from experience. Did you make a wish for a rich prince charming?” Rajesh laughed, glancing at himself in the mirror.

“No, silly! If I had the option to wish for a partner, any partner of my choice, why would I stop at you?”

She quickly added to mute Rajesh’s protests, “So anyway, this is from back when I was a little girl. I really wanted a bike; I really did. Dad would not get me one. Always telling me I am too short to ride one and he would get me once I grew taller.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“So, anyway, on a Sunday picnic to the fall, I wished for the bike, from my heart. And lo and behold, Dad had a sudden change of heart.”

“You are sure it was not your persistent nagging that changed his heart?” Rajesh taunted.

“Ha, ha. Very funny! No. So, I got the bike. But two days into learning, broke by ankle. I was on a crutch for months.”

Rajesh burst into laughter.

“It’s not a joke. My ankle still hurts sometimes. Don’t laugh.”

“Listen to yourself! You will laugh too. My dear, Sups, the fountain didn’t break your ankle. You yourself said that you were too short to start learning bike-riding. Now, your dad bowed down to your … how shall I say … persuasions, but he could not stop you from falling. No one could. Most children fall when they learn anyway. In your case, your height, or the lack of it, made it even easier.”

“Whatever! Tell that to my foot. Anyway, make yourself scarcer now. And just don’t utter subjunctives when you are at the fall, will you?”

“As you command, my queen,” Rajesh said romantically, “I still wish – sorry for using the subjunctive”

“Oh, don’t worry. Here you can use it. I am used to ignoring them anyway.”

Seeing Rajesh raise his eyebrows, the woman added, “So, you were saying you still wish…”

“I feel we should have gone to the cottage. With no internet, these ‘work from home’ escalations would not be there to interrupt us, you know…” Rajesh held her left hand and kissed the back of her palm, as she used the right to hit ‘Reply to All’ on an email marked ‘Urgent’.

“’Just you and me’,” Suparna said imitating him and cupping his palm with hers.

“I will make it up to you in the evening, I promise,” she said planting her lips on his ring finger, “When you come back, after the party, be ready for a night full of love. Now off you go.”

As Rajesh left the room, he saw Suparna furiously typing a reply to another email marked in red. Carefully avoiding his parents in law, he sneaked out the back and started on a long, lonely walk.

Following the directions on his phone, and criss-crossing the houses of the little coastal hamlet, he headed towards inlands. And exactly two hours later, found the reward of his perspiring journey. The fall was everything the pictures on Google said, even more. White, foggy and frothy waters descended from a height of about a hundred meters, straight below forming a series of round green pond with crystal clear water. The force and persistence of the water had changed the destiny of the rocks that had the misfortune of jutting out of the hill and blocking its vertical fall, their sharp edges being blunt after years of struggle with the water.

The sound of the gushing fall, enhanced by the recent rains was deafeningly calming, if the two words ever described the same object. Tourists bathed below in a smaller pool away from the fury of the thicker water column. Rajesh counted all sorts of people in the waters below – the daredevil young ones, the cautious middle-aged ones, the free-spirited, romantic ones. It’s the third kind that locked his attention. For he himself had planned something similar for his anniversary. A colleague at work had spoken of a secluded jungle cottage. Away from the maddening crowds, but near an enchanting lake. With a fully stocked kitchen and a bar, the place sounded like an ideal romantic getaway. Even the room-service was conspicuously absent.

He had pulled all strings to book the place for his second anniversary. For they both deserved a break from the back-breaking work schedules their respective MNCs ensured that they kept.

But that would have to wait now, as despite the advent of nuclear families, social customs superseded getaways that could be categorized as personal pleasures by the quickly judgmental eyes.

Thus, there he was, trying to avoid the party and the very people who had ‘invited’ the couple for their anniversary.

“To hell with it, let water wash my worries away,” a rush of adrenaline forced him to take the meandering steps carved out of rocks, leading to the base of the fall. He deposited his belongings and stepped into the water, occasionally glancing at the people around who all seemed to be in groups. Some large families, others in groups of friends and yet others in pairs. He took a deep breath and held his head inside the water until he no longer could.

“Haaaaaah!” he breathed hard as he held his head out. He was right. The water did lessen his disappointment at missing out the fun of the remote jungle house.

“Another for the in-laws,” he said out loud and took a deep breath before submerging himself completely.

The crystal-clear water with its green-ish blue hues offering clear view even below the surface.

He saw children being helped by their elders in futile attempts to teach swimming in one day. Teenagers pulling each other’s legs, quite literally. And, the romantic pairs treating the waters as a blanket to shroud their amorous endeavors.

As Rajesh’s head emerged from the surface and sucked in the much-needed oxygen, he realized that with each plunge, he did get distant from his earthly concerns. Perhaps momentarily, but he did. And hence, the exercise was repeated countless times, until the day passed to afternoon and then to a beautiful evening. With the time of the day, increased the people, especially the third sort. Finally, when Rajesh got out of the pond, it had begun to resemble a couples-only retreat, with the several pairs regarding him as a deviant, an outlier. The effect of the countless plunges was undone in seconds.

He dressed himself and started climbing the steps, carefully avoiding the slippery slopes. He heard the phone ring as he climbed the last step.

“How goes the escalation?” he asked.

“I have been calling for hours. Where are you? You didn’t forget again, did you?”

“What? No. No, of course not. I am just leaving.”

“The guests have started coming. As soon as you can, please,” Suparna nearly yelled.

“Guests I don’t really know, or even care about,” he retorted.

“I really wish this anniversary weren’t so much about pleasing strangers, people we are hardly going to see again, than just about you and me, you know,” Rajesh remarked, irritated, turning back to catch the white waters one last time.

Suparna tried explaining.

“That’s not how social construct works, Rajesh. You know that. For a few days a year, we cater to the whims of people we don’t care about, so that we can live the rest of the year in peace. You said that.”

Perhaps the only reasonable thing you have.”

“Alright, alright. I am out of the exit now. Let me hail a ride, if I can find one,” he said as the beautiful view behind him went out of sight.

Hitchhiking with a horse-kart, a motorbike and running the remaining distant, he made it to the house in just about an hour.

“We will be back as soon as we can, son. It’s an emergency. Happy Anniversary, by the way,” his father-in-law said huffing, as he ushered his mother-in-law in their car, the last of the vehicles departing the house.

“What’s happening?” he said, but they had left.

He entered the house. The table was set, as was the bar. The presents lay stacked in a corner. The cake on the table; a piece cut of neatly. Probably for a child.

But no guests.

“No guests, no party!” he exclaimed, pouring himself a large drink from the decanter he had seen his father-in-law reserve for special occasions.

He gulped the aged whisky.

“But what was the emergency?”

He dialed Suparna’s number on his phone. There was no answer.

He ran up to their room, where he had left Suaprna with the laptop.

The lights were dim. A pair of candles on either side of the large bed, covered in silk sheets, illuminated the room. The missing piece of the cake lay on an expensive porcelain plate on one of the bedstands, a vase of assorted flowers on the other. There was something else too. Lavender; perhaps perfume.

The potpourri of fragrances of the perfume, the freshly baked cake and the fresh flowers intoxicated his nostrils.

“Suparna…” he called out again.

As he held out his hand, scrolling for his beautiful wife’s photo in contacts, trying to dial the number, he felt a familiar touch from behind, a figure pressing itself against his from behind. The soft hands he had kissed in the morning surrounded him tightly.

His phone fell out of his hands, more by shock than by the temptation.

“Well, I know we had agreed on ‘a night full of love’, but you won’t mind terribly if we started a little early, would you?” the familiar voice that had yelled at him less than an hour ago said seductively, almost whispering, pressing her lips against his ears.

He raised his little finger to itch his ear, but held back, surprised at the absence of a familiar tickle his body was so used to experience at her warm breath.

He asked casually, “What’s happening? Where is everyone?”

She held him tighter and replied absent-mindedly, “A cousin went into early labor. She insisted that mom and dad accompany her to the hospital. Funny thing is…,” she said biting his ears, “she doesn’t even like my folks.”

“You are not worried? You didn’t go?”

“What’s there to be worried about? It’s a happy occasion, isn’t it?” she turned him around and pushed him back.

In a flash of a second, he found himself on the silk sheets; she on top of him.

“But … but … shouldn’t we go too?” he replied, perfectly aware of, and surprisingly uninterested in what was going to happen next.

“No, silly! Not yet. Our turn will come,” she said as she winked at him with a smile.

“But we need to be in business for that, don’t we?” she added circling unknown designed on his chest with her fingers.

“But…” he was curious still, surprised at how slow he was in reacting to the signals. ‘What was happening?’

“How would you like to taste our anniversary cake together?” she asked, taking a frosty mouthful between her lips from the plate on the bedstand, and bringing it closer to his, mumbling with her stuffed mouth, the icing spilling on his face, “we are fufosed to fare it, after all, filly.”

As the cake was ‘shared’ by the couple, so were the organs that ‘tasted’ it. Their faces against each other, the tongues intertwined.

“What’s up, my dear? It’s our anniversary. Are you not … excited?” She asked, baffled by his cold and composed breathing, sans any hint of excitement.

“I … I don’t know. This never happens.”

“I know.”

“But It’s not you, it’s me.”

“I know that too,” she raised her eyebrows.

“Something is…” Rajesh replied, calm, unnerved … unaroused.

“No guests. No in laws. It’s just you and me. There is cake, liquor, food. A night full of love awaits us. Isn’t this what you wanted?” Suparna asked with astonishment, alerting Rajesh’s mind. There was something in her words that was suspicious, almost frightening.

She continued, “You know… Half this work-up any other day, and you used to gasp for air like a man drowning in a pond.”

Now the words hit him.

“What did you say?” he asked, gazing ahead -- physically present, but mentally absent -- with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Half this work…” she said making a last-ditch attempt to wake the lover in him.

“No, no. After that. ‘Like a drowning man in a pond…’”

“Well, looks like somebody’s pond has gone dry,” she remarked, getting away, mumbling disappointedly.

“No, no… Suparna, the pond… the waterfall… didn’t you say it takes something away once it grants your wish? Your bike and your ankle….”

“But I never could enjoy the bike I so badly asked for; I told you that. You didn’t really say anything ridiculous there at the fall, did you?”

“I … I think I did; not knowingly. But … back when you called me… I didn’t realize it. But I think I wished for the anniversary to be just about us. You and I, together. Just how it would have been at the cottage.”

As she blew out the candles, she fleetingly glanced at his unstimulated frame lying on the silk sheets. Turning on the lights and her laptop to resume work, Suparna remarked wryly, “Well, Rajesh, what good is a granted wish if you cannot live the dream.”

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