Chapter 11: The Dream of Eyes

11

The sixth hour:

My stomach had started to writhe in pain.

Cold sweat dripped from my forehead, and my vision blurred.

There were complicated, noisy sounds buzzing in my ears.

The air was thick with the smell of burnt ghee, and I could almost hear my Amma calling from the kitchen, but her voice was twisted, echoing from somewhere far away.

My mausi handed me a bundle with one hand, smiling gently:

“Aryan beta, the road ahead is long. I made you new clothes.”

My chacha ji closed his eyes and patted my head:

“Take care of yourself. Don’t worry about the village.”

I saw outside Shantipur, at the stone tablet with the village name, crowds of familiar people sending me off, all telling me to be careful on the road.

Huh?

Strange:

Was my mausi one-armed? When did my chacha ji become blind?

Suppressing my doubts, I walked halfway, turned to look, they were still smiling and waving.

I instinctively kept walking.

I don’t know how much time passed; after walking through ominous grey mist, I looked up and was at the village entrance again.

“Aryan beta, the road ahead is long. I made you new clothes.” Mausi used a multi-petalled hand to hold out the clothes.

Black veins pulsed, suckers soaking the white fabric.

Chacha ji opened all his eyes, patted my head: “Take care of yourself. Don’t worry about the village.”

Chacha ji’s eyes multiplied like the eyes of a yaksha from old temple carvings, all fixed on me, all smiling.

“In chacha ji’s eyes, you’ve always been a child. Remember playing gilli-danda when you were little?”

Oh, I remember now:

When I was little, I poked his eyes for fun, like playing gilli-danda.

If I poked an open eye, I could dig out the eyeball.

Thinking this, I once again reluctantly turned and left.

The gaze behind me was loving,

but I actually felt…

afraid to look back.

The thirteenth hour:

Outside the window, the bronze bell chimed softly in the wind.

Ding ding ding—

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding, ding, ding ding

I tilted my head, looking at the dark sky outside.

Thick juice poured down from the sky.

I said: “The bell rang nineteen times.”

Ding ding, ding ding ding ding

I said: “The bell rang nineteen times.”

“The bell rang nineteen times.”

“The bell rang seven thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight times.”

I paused, then suddenly said: “Who are you?”

The room suddenly felt colder, like the time the power cut out during a monsoon storm and everyone huddled together in the dark, listening to distant thunder and the creak of old wood.