Space

A Story by Jayanthi Manoj

SPACE

The twitters chimed the morning entry and the exotic garden bloomed happily. This frame of beauty was the only umbilical cord tucked to happiness. I turned my eyes away and peered into the rubble of mundane leftovers where I lost myself.

The shelves hosted my bookish companions and I sat there at the end of the table running the pen over a diary at my passion. As my fingers ran over the read titles searching for the unmarked, the cooker’s whistle reminded me of the breakfast I had to host. I paced to the kitchen and headed to turn off the gas stove when little Jo Ann screamed through the whistle “Ma- a- a- a- a- a!” The left hand did the honours of hushing the cooked idlis while the right foot hurried to the bed – room. Crossing the hall and ready to barge into the bed-room, the calling bell rang...

“Must be the long-awaited maid” thought I and answered the bell only to be disappointed. It was a sales-woman! Irritated at first for invading the precious morning hour, I started off with an unpalatable tone, but tuned in empathy and closed with an appealing,“No thanks!” She wouldn’t give up and I had to impolitely shut the door. I started to hear “Ma! Ma! Ma!”

“Coming darling!” I went and swapped her in my arms.

Those were the jiffy minutes I spend with Jo Ann, which salve my guilty hours when away at work.

The next one-hour I gave a bath and got Jo ready, scraped through my dressing, attended breakfast, got help from Anoj and packed ourselves to school, college and work. When I locked the door to get down, the helper strolled in. Hot fumes choked my system. Repeated requests and pleadings never brought in any understanding of my need to have the maid assist me those crucial morning hours. It was 8.30 in the morning. At 8.45am Jo’s first bell would go and at 9.00 am I ought to swipe at the campus and lo! She stands here in an un-alarming fashion. I couldn’t let her go, as the evening would invite more tension with undone work. I felt as helpless as a worm under an elephant’s foot. I had to burrow under the earth and let the trample pass over me.

In the next few seconds I unlocked the door and asked the helper to take the unwashed utensils and clothes upstairs, clean and leave it there.

I sent Jo with her father and I rocketed to college, left my bike unlocked, flew to the office and swiped exactly at 9.00am. Only then I took a deep breath.

“Did I breathe till then? Should be! Thank you Lord for making

it as an involuntarily action, that saved me some work”.

That was my prayer for the morning in the chapel.

Four hours of class, innumerable table work, and paltry time to study and eat and ever on heels were the next six hours at college.

On my way home that Friday Afternoon on my bike from work, I poetically silhouetted,

“Today the ride seems to be long and calm

I find vehicles on slow wheels

Enjoying a leisure drive

I noticed that the people even walk on roads

And buses like full-blown balloons

Sometimes out of proportion

Passengers jutting out, hanging on to the rails!

There were trees that swayed

Like nylon bristles on the brush!

I noticed All This!

On my way home this festive Friday afternoon,

The satisfaction of accomplishing a week’s lash

And the joy of a weekend ahead

Brought alive the world that I passed everyday

Which I forfeited to view on moody Monday Morns

When I shoot out of my home

And land in a jiffy at office

Like a rocket.

In this machine – led world of strife.

I am happy I am not yet misfired

And still there is Life

LIVING!”

At four I was there to sit with Jo for some study, play and dinner. I rather juggled between a dozen balls Jo, my priority, dinner, vegetables, household chores, husband, phone calls, internet, books, garden, and more, till my poor self announced ‘That’s it for today Jenny, ‘go to bed’.

As I staggered into my room I longingly peeped into my room where I left my short- story waiting in the morning when the hot idlis whistled the beginning of my expected roles.

“Sorry! I am tired,” I whispered into the dark room.

The pages rustled announcing, “we understand you

and you need rest, sleep dear”.

I smiled and dumped myself next to my daughter in the bed. Jo and Anoj were fast asleep. The clock clicked 12 am.

I gently enjoyed the eyelids lovingly cover my tired eyes. Suddenly I jerked out and remembered, “Oh God did I lock the door?” “I would rather be robbed than to walk down from my sleep and shake myself away from the numbing smoothness”. I mumbled.

(ii)

Another mechanical sleep was whipped aside with the alarm clock in the morning.

Trinnnnnnnnggggggggggggggg. STOP!

“Oh! How I hated that sound”, Brushing my teeth I thought,

“Why is life policed by alarm clocks that sound like sirens and deadlines that take us to death bed”.

Ruminating these mechanical stills that blew frame after frame, I walked into my sanctity.

Standing in front of that small cubic room, I read the little board, which I had pasted.

“A room of my own”. Hey Virginia! Now you’ve got one, get in!

This was a room where I see myself in a decade or two. It was more than a room.

My passion, My perseverance, My confession, My altar.

Every time I walked in, I saw my garden out of the window, I breathed in the smell of books - an intellectual inhale on the right. Towards my left I had my table, dumped with letter pads, magazine and papers. It was a pile of disorder for others, but for me it was a mountain of creative ideas. Every paper piled up there had ideas scribbled for short stories, storylines for novels and good poems. I had hurried through them whenever I skipped in with inspiration. That was a pile of gray matter, beautifully in muddle, which I yearned to set right. On the left of the table I had a dozen of books, which were my pride. I nostalgically picked one and fingered the contents and proudly touched the line, which was imprinted.

Stagnation. By Jenifer Anoj

They were a collection of anthologies.

The cogitation of thought and inspiration had found their footsteps into a few books.

The writer in me grew over the long periods of gestation.

Creative delivery cried out through the routine.

I left the book on the shelf and announced to myself,

“Jenny, today I need you… A Saturday - when the work-a-day world has fastened the bolts of the college gates - Even when the maid is to halt the day with her absence, you’ll go on… When longing- Jo mumbles for attention, handover the motherhood to Anoj - he’ll understand - when loving visitors invade your door, smile at them gently and close your door for your room of one’s own is not the cubic space of the four-walled structure, but the mental space. A space where long hours of labour pain, give birth to the Lord’s inspiration. The Space your soul needs to talk to language to create Literature. The Space, the charged writer needs to unleash the energy to pour out to the world. A space that’s essential to evince that you cannot be man- handled by the mundane world”.

“Jenny set yourself on anchor today. Let the engine gear up, and sound aloud. Let calls of daily life be drowned in the rising engine’s hoots. Maneuver your vessel, gently over the risky waves. Deep down the sea is the sound of the soul. Fathom it. Once the voyage is over, trance passes over, you can lounge on the shore, your loving home shall wait with welcome smiles,” I told myself and sat to finger the undone manuscript.

Just then the calling bell rings, Disturbed, I sat still.

Anoj peeped in and whispered, “Go on! I’ll answer the call”.

I smiled thankfully and the cubic room expanded and extended into all rooms. My table elongated and my notebook grew in pages. I wrote on. All sounds of the world were distant. I could hear only this voice, my soul, and pen on paper, the petals’ whisper, the hustling leaves, the whistling breeze, Jo’s gurgles and Anoj’s laughter.