Monsoon by Monideepa Sahu (India)

A red bus rumbles up parting misty curtains of rain. I stand tiptoe for a clearer view above the heads of waiting commuters.

No, this isn’t my bus. Squeezing into a corner of the bus shelter, I allow the crowd to plod ahead through the slush. It’s almost nine. The chilly wind raises goose bumps on my bare arm. If I don’t get transport within ten minutes, my bulldog-faced office manager will mark me late again.

A man continues to wait clutching his umbrella and briefcase. The others have boarded the bus and we are alone together. He has a full head of dark hair and a not-too creased forehead. His loose white shirt enhances his no-solid-breakfast-in-ages figure. I manage to avert my gaze the moment I meet his and examine the peepul tree outside.

A crow perches high among the heart-shaped leaves, their vital green energized by rain. Across the street a pigeon huddles in a cornice. The wild birds wait for the rain to stop, for their plumage to dry, seeking release from their cramped confines.

Still no bus! I pretend to ignore the thin man (didn’t he just wink?) and think of the floods in Mumbai. I’m late this morning because I sat with Mrs. Britto, my landlady, through the TV news. But I couldn’t leave her because she was tense without news of her sisters in Mumbai. What if monsoon downpours turn this city’s streets to rivers and wash us away into the sea?

What if? …

**** **** **** ****

I picture blue-gray clouds breaking in torrents over the doleful city. Murky waves surge through the streets carrying along cars and scooters. I entwine my limbs around the steel pillar supporting the bus shelter’s roof. But the deluge pries me loose and pushes me past flooded streets, fallen trees, and stray dogs floating in the current.

The thin man in the white shirt glides ahead of me. His head and briefcase bob above the water.

An icy force sucks me down. I see a broken branch farther ahead, no … a human hand… reach up in a final plea before vanishing into the water. “Help me,” I scream, reaching out to the thin man. “I’m sinking.” The howling wind drowns my voice.

The current propels us toward a deep drain; the one I cross every morning after leaving my room at Mrs. Britto’s to catch my bus. I see Mrs. Britto float out of her house and coast past me upon a torrent of water. She flails her flabby arms and her long pink nightie billows above the waves.

Mrs. Britto speaks to me every morning. She asks me whether I want corn flakes or toast. She is choosy about the girls she takes in as paying guests. Now there’s me, and Nita who says ‘Hi!” and waves on the days I catch her before rushing off to work. Nita and I share crisp, sizzling paranthas with her on Sunday mornings. Mrs. Britto joins her withered hands and prays in a wheezy, quivering voice. Then, she asks us about our parents back home and rises to clear the table before we finish replying. Sheila and Mr. Kumar, who share my cubicle at work, also talk to me daily in this city of strangers.

They are my only friends here. What if they all drown?

White lightening rips the slate-gray sky. I see the thin man’s face contorting in a muted howl. Something tugs at me, drawing me into the vortex of an eddy. The thin man’s drowning. I have to save him. I can’t breathe. I must break my numb body free from his stranglehold and save myself. I look into the bulging, dead eyes of the thin man and panic spurts through me and pierces the current carrying us into the open sea.

**** **** **** ****

HONK! The thin man taps my leg with his umbrella as he steps past me into the bus.

It’s my bus. I scramble behind him and clamber up inside. The bus lunges forward and I grip the clammy handrail to steady myself. The thin man stands balancing his briefcase between legs, which must be spindly underneath those damp trousers. (Didn’t he wink at me just now?)

I’ve seen him before, or someone like him, last Saturday evening in front of a movie hall. He brushed past a girl who rang a bell and wore a placard saying ‘Help Tisunami Victims’. He pinched the plump cheeks of the woman who walked arm-in-arm with him and didn’t notice the girl or that tsunami was misspelled on her placard.

My stop comes and I join the crowd cascading out of the bus. My wallet falls, spewing coins into the mud. The thin man stoops to collect them. His damp locks frame a refined, elegant face. If he asks me where I work or … will he…for a movie? I can’t refuse those playful black eyes. I thank him with the hint of a smile fit for a total stranger. He nods and turns to go his way while I go mine.

Monideepa Sahu is a former banker. Tired of managing money for others and not making much for herself, she quit and took to writing. Her short fiction has most recently appeared in ‘A New Anthem’, an anthology of short stories by South Asian writers. Monideepa lives in Bangalore, India, with her computer and her family. This story was previously published only in print in Apocalypse, the literary journal of the Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago.

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