(6) 14th November, 2022
set between Gangtok, Sikkim, The Republic of India and Sakkyong, Sikkim, The Republic of India
14th November, 2022
Father is sixty-eight years old, and yet he wakes up somewhere between four and five in the morning from a nightmare, drenched in sweat. The sweat, to be clear, is related as much to his age as it is to the amount of blankets laid over his bed; it is winter in Gangtok, and he is in the habit of covering himself in excess to be less affected by the chill. He lifts himself out of the sheets, taking care to fold them properly so as not to disturb Mother’s sleep. He goes into the bathroom. The pipe in the sink is not working, so he washes his face with the small bucket they use to shower. There is a little moonlight coming through the window, but it is otherwise dark. Father cannot help but catch his reflection in the mirror. The pudge of fat above his eyebrows is covered in sweat.
In the last two months, Father has been assaulted by dreams of his mother. They usually involve the few sweet memories of his childhood juxtaposed against the agony of her current health condition. Often, the situations are exaggerated in ways to draw out Father’s guilt, and they leave him going to the hospital in a disturbed and under-rested state.
However, as Father takes a better stare at the mirror, he sees the wrinkles over his sandy-coloured cheeks, the wear and tear and soot that have collected under the baggy hoods of his eyes. This was the exact same way his father looked. With age, their faces are almost identical.
Father feels a churning in his chest. Father feels an anger. It is not because time has made him the inheritor of a face that is aged, ugly, or unpleasant to look at.
It is because his nightmare for the first time in a long while revolved not around his mother or his son, but over this abusive farmer who spent most of his life traumatising his children.
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