Write Up Contest Winner 2 - The Midnight Light

Presenting one of the winning entries to the Doodle Diaries Write Up Contest on the below doodle 

as the theme.

THE MIDNIGHT LIGHT

-Bhaskar Sharan

It was the December of the very year  I arrived in this town. Nothing has changed much since then except the recurring dreams that never let me leave the place. When I arrived , I was the typical struggling artist. Broke , observant and definitely in need for a place to call home. I scrounged through the newspaper classified section, for a couple of days while staying at a chawl with very meagre rent . But believe them who say that finding the right house in the city can take a whole lifetime. And after weeks of soul searching, I finally found it.

It was a quiet locality. A proper residential area with well built houses on both sides of aisle.  The house was not too big but definitely not small. Built in probably the old style of architecture, there was a backyard space and the building was two storeyed. The walls were freshly varnished and I had a feeling that the house was being let out for the first time. I immediately liked the place and decided on doing anything to get it. I went inside and knocked at the door. An old man came along with his wife and greeted me with a grin at the doorstep.

A couple of minutes later I was walking back along the way I came. The couple had agreed. It wasn’t a battle either. The rent was surprisingly within my budget. They were probably letting the place only for company. They had no one other than themselves, they said ,and company was all their concern. Feeling amazingly lucky, I took the offer. Little did I know that it something so seemingly insignificant, would become a turning point in my life.

It was already 4 months in my new house and I had become quite comfortable in the locality. I had a good relationship with my landlords and now life was back to seeking inspirations for my artwork. In that front, I wasn’t doing very well. There was a contract I had wanted to set up with my dream company, but when I showed them my portfolio, I was outrightly rejected. I was depressed. My savings were over and I was practically earning nothing. I didn’t even have next month rent for the old couple. I was trying to keep my calm but I couldn’t. I began getting sleepless nights. I suffered from insomnia. But, maybe it was all for the best, for a late night incident was about to change my life.

Insomnia, yes, but that day it wasn’t the insomnia but the heat that would not let me sleep. It must be around 45 degrees and the heat was almost unbearable. To top the heat our neighbourhood was experiencing load shedding and for some surely malicious reasons the municipality people decided to give power cuts to our area at midnight. I was strolling in the balcony outside my room to keep my mind from the heat and to get the little air I could, though basically there wasn’t any. I was walking in that darkness looking at the moon. It was a full moon day. The scene reminded of my childhood days when I used to play in my father’s farm. I gazed at the moon. I didn’t realise how and when I feel into a stupor. I saw myself as a child running in through my farm in the moonlight, my father asked me to stay close to the house but I didn’t listen. I kept running and running through the hay until I felt someone grab me by the shoulder.

I awoke from my stupor the next moment, and for some reason my gaze wasn’t towards the moon now . Exactly in front of my eyes was a house with a large window. It was the house opposite to mine across the road. I could see through the pane and saw a candle shining brightly in the middle of the room. The candle also put light on something which at first I couldn’t make out. It was something very beautiful and sparkled brilliantly in candle light. Then almost by magic, I saw a lady’s silhouette appear through the window. Clad in what seemed like a saree the figure kept staring at the candle. The whole scene gave me chills and I kept looking at the lady. Strangely the figure kept looking at the candle like a statue. I waited and waited but the figure did not budge. It was queer but being the insomniac I was, I decided not to give up. I waited and waited but nothing budged in that setting.

At last it was the candle which gave up and everything went dark after that. It was strange to me. The lady and her midnightghostly stupor. Was she sleepwalking? At first I dismissed it as something unexplicable. I mean, I had my own worries and stuff and who has time for investigating about other people? But when I saw it happen another day I realised it was a daily activity. One day I decided that I will get to the crux of this matter. Being young and an artist, my interest was piqued. So I decide to do something the other day.

In the morning, I crept inside the premises of the house to find a lady watering the plants, in a saree. I thought “Yes! This is the woman I see everyday.” Her maid was standing beside her. I made myself visible to them and approached them. I was welcomed with a smile . The warmth of the smile enhanced my guts and I introduced myself by telling them I was a tenant in the opposite house. My curiosity and incorrigible straightforwardness spurted out, “I see you everyday at about 1 o’clock with a candle.” Spurting out did give me sense of relief but the woman had turned pale.  I immediately realised that I had spoken something that I shouldn’t have had, but the damage was already done. The woman ran inside her house and I was left with embarrassment and regret. The maid gave me pitiful look and said “She is the bravest woman I know.”

I was regretting my actions in my room but more than that, my curiosity had grown. What was this secret? I had to know.

The next day I saw the same woman leaving in a school bus. Probably she taught at a school.  I could see the students screaming in joy when she entered the bus. This, sure was a great lady.

I had buried the incident at the back of my mind because frankly I was not going anywhere with my detective abilities and I sure wasn’t great at connecting the dots. Time passed and I continued finding the lady staring at that candle past midnight each and every day. I realised that she appeared exactly at 1:10 am and stood like a sculpture till the candle lasted. I saw the candle gleam everyday with the woman standing still as a statue. Apart from arousing one’s curiosity, the scene was terribly beautiful. I say terribly because something about the whole scene was tragic. I was inspired enough to create an artpiece out of this. Strangely, for some reason I didn’t.

Then one day, as I was passing through my street the old man of the house sprang up a conversation with me. The usual stuff basically, which I wanted to ignore because I was in a hurry. He was kind but I had work. I could figure that he had initiated the small talk due to his loneliness. He sensed my hurry and said that if I ever bothered, he wasn’t the worst coffee maker in the world. I thought. Here was a nice man offering coffee and I wasn’t even being polite enough to alleviate his loneliness. I budged, while reminding myself that an entry into this mysterious house may relieve my long and painful curiosity that I had pushed to the back of my mind with difficulty.

I followed him inside the house. It was quite big. The sitting area was beautiful. Among the many things, my gaze fell on the showpiece area. There, at a place made in the wall specifically for the purpose were  almost a dozen shields and trophies. It was unusual. I had seen such collections before and even had a small share of them myself but this was grander than I had ever seen. I went closer and realised that these were army given prizes. This place indeed housed brave people!

I asked the old man if he was the proud owner of them. His face fell. Somehow in a few moments it turned into the face of the most sorrowful man on the Earth. He said “No. It is my son’s. We lost him in the Pathankot Air Force Station attack.” I felt embarrassed at asking something so personal and blurted immediately that I was sorry for his loss. Then I saw something I had been seeing for a long time.

Right in the middle of the wall was a photo frame that was one of its kind. It was the most beautiful thing in the house and certainly the most beautiful one I had ever seen. There was a circular frame for the photo, which was empty for some strange reason and from the frame radiated a number of beautifully carved rays that had bits of glasses lodged in them. The light scattered brilliantly through them and lit the whole room. It definitely was a personalised item. Not loosely sold, I realised. Then, my gaze fell to the table in front of the wall. Lying on the table top was melted wax.

Suddenly, it all came to me.

That night, I slept even less. I wanted to pick up the canvas and splatter all the colours. But I couldn’t. Something stopped me. I went to the balcony at 1:10 am to find the woman standing there again.  As the candle burned completely I watched her. At the end she gave a salute. The one filled with pure love and respect. I burst into tears. I looked up at the full moon. It was beautiful. I kept staring.

~~THE END~~

Do let us know what do you think in comments!

Follow us :

Instagram – Doodle Diaries

Facebook – Doodle Diaires