Short Story: “Where the Silence Is Absolute” by Sreelekha Chatterjee

Unnat

The rain was intermittently descending in torrents from the swarthy clouds. Navigating through the slippery, filth-splattering streets, I reached the assigned lane. Parking my motorcycle in front of a white house, I checked the address painted on its front gate. As I glanced around, the house, the road, and the sky fused before me in a blur of ominousness. Few pedestrians I encountered were carrying umbrellas. From my raincoat, rain was coursing down from all possible points. Everything was wet, including the huge black backpack I was carrying. Road mud had splattered all over my black trousers, giving them a distinct polka-dot appearance. The raincoat wasn’t able to save my white shirt either. I wondered why I chose to wear a white shirt on such a rainy day.

I opened the black bag and fished out a parcel that had to be delivered to the address where I stood. The name on the parcel read “Aakash.” The guy lived on the second floor of the building. The house seemed to be a newly constructed, upscale property, with a stylish, steel-framed timber door. I pressed the calling bell that had a camera along with it. I stood, looking at the floors above me, hoping someone would come over to the balcony.

“Who’s it?” a voice came from the intercom beside the gate, after a minute or so.

“I have a parcel for you.”

The front gate opened with a metallic groan. Before going in, I glanced at the balconies. No one was there in any of them. Positioning the phone camera to catch the house digits over my shoulder, I took a quick selfie.

Pushing the wicket door situated on one side of the metal-jamb wood door, I went in. About four or five cars, along with cycles and motorbikes, were parked inside the premises. I squeezed in between them with my large bag full of packages to reach the elevator at one end of the parking lot. The facades of these homes promised greatness, but behind their impressive exteriors lay claustrophobic spaces filled with insular thinking.

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As I clicked the button to summon the elevator, my eyes shifted to the note taped to the wall beside it—“For residents only.” Unsure whether I needed to follow the instructions, I stepped insidethe elevatoronce its door opened. I had to reach the second floor that was actually the third floor, as the newly-constructed houses counted the first floor as the ground floor, and the ones above it were considered accordingly. It was with great will and determination that I took the stairs in most of the houses, which didn’t have elevators but still had the luxury of ordering items from e-commerce companies.

I pressed the second-floor button, but the elevator didn’t start. My eyes wandered around, while my fingers brushed against the metal housing of the console. My gaze fixed on a small card machine adjacent to the main panel of buttons. The residents followed a card system to operate it. Amid a maelstrom of rage, I moved out and took the stairs.

By the time I reached the second floor, I felt a bit exhausted. I tried to refresh my tired bones by reminding myself that it was only eleven in the morning and I had to deliver several parcels till the end of the day. My reflection fell on the polished teakwood door as I rang the calling bell and waited. A man, probably in his thirties, opened the door with a grim face. The day was a gloomy one, and the reception by the fellow somehow made a bad impact on my mood.

The work of a delivery boy wasn’t something that earned the love and respect of people. The job didn’t involve any risk as was in other types of occupations, but meeting several types of people and delivering parcels to them wasn’t as easy as was generally perceived. There were very few people who returned my greetings with a smile. At times, all we wanted was a pleasing smile from people, something that created long-lasting impressions on our minds.

“Aakash ji?”I asked.

The man nodded his head.

“You have opted for cash-on-delivery. Will you be paying by cash or card, sir?” I enquired.

“Card, of course!”

I dropped my backpack by the door and pulled out the card machine. Meanwhile, the man had gone inside and returned with a debit card in hand.

Taking the card from him, I swiped it through the machine. An error message appeared. I tried once again, but it wouldn’t work.

“It’s not working, sir. Probably you don’t have enough money in your account.”

Aakash

I decided to splurge on a premium iPhone that I spotted online. It was a new e-commerce portal. These delivery companies were sprawling like mushrooms that grow unchecked during the rainy season. Then the delivery was postponed by two days on account of the non-availability of the product that I ordered. Finally, when the delivery boy came with the phone, their card machine wasn’t working. Probably, they didn’t wish to carry out online transactions and expected their customers to pay by cash. How on earth am I supposed to have so much cash at home? These companies cheat the government on taxes by hiding the exact number of transactions, as they provide some discount if one paid by cash.

I headed inside to grab another debit card. As I was taking it out from the chest of drawers in my bedroom, I heard a noise as if someone had moved inside my living room. I quickly took the card and rushed to the living room to find the delivery guy had entered and was standing near the only window of the room. He was flicking through his phone. He seemed to be a gentleman, but appearances could be misleading.

“Who asked you to come inside?” I screamed, feeling the nerves pounding in my head.

“I was checking whether there was a network in here. Probably, there is no network at the staircase area,” he said calmly, far from being perturbed.

“What’s your name? You are not supposed to come inside without my permission. I will file a complaint against you.”

“Sir, I am really sorry for barging in like this. Please don’t complain to my seniors,” he said, with a head tilt, pulling his shoulders inwardly, hunching slightly. “My name is Unnat. Please, sir. I beg you.”

My wife Sunita had gone to her parents’ house for a few days, and I had to manage the entire household in her absence. She never really understood the level of effort required to survive in a corporate house where I worked. Managing my work, along with the household, wasn’t easy, as my work demanded a 24/7 involvement where I had to remain in touch with my office all the time. Stress was a routine element in my life, and people seldom valued the kind of effort that had to be put in to meet stringent deadlines. It had been a few days that my phone wasn’t working properly, and there wasn’t any good store nearby from where I could purchase the gadget that I wanted. Moreover, these days we usually find almost everything online, starting from our underwear to highly sophisticated equipment.

But who had anticipated the problem of a non-working card machine?I wondered whether the product was actually an authentic one that the dispatch rider had brought.

“Open the parcel. I want to see the phone,” I said, suppressing the energy to go full villain.

“No, sir! Once the cover is opened, I cannot take it back.” He gave me the puppy dog look.

“Try this card.” I handed over the other card.

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He swiped it through the card reader. The result was the same as before. He eyed me, with both a startled and an ironic look at once. As I stared back, a cold tremor went through me.

“What the hell?” I snapped defensively. “Why can’t you get a proper goddamn machine? You rascal.”

“Sir, please don’t use abusive words,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Why do you people always take such an infernally long time to process payments? You know how much valuable my time is…” I said, feeling him getting on my last nerve. “Give me the parcel, and I’ll pay you once you get a working machine.”

“Sir, that’s not possible. Try to understand.”

“Why? What will happen if you leave the phone here and collect the money later on?” I asked, discerning a swirling menace about to unfold.

“You guys live in such big houses and don’t have this much brain. You think you can do whatever you feel like,” he said, looking wide-eyed at me.

I coughed and fell silent.

Unnat and Aakash

Unnat took the parcel from the table where he had placed it and was moving out when Aakash quickly went around and blocked his way.
“I won’t let you leave with the phone,” Aakash said, balling his left hand into a hairy, boney weight.

Extravagant goods often exercised a powerful, beguiling temptation that could successfully entice even a civilized mind into erratic behavior. Acquiescent in the face of such an impulse, Aakash ventured into the treacherous, uncharted waters of toxic control.

“No, sir. I told you before…” Unnat’s voice trailed off, as he noticed a heavy metal candlestand in Aakash’s right hand. “Please listen to me. I can’t take decisions on my own. I have a boss to report to,” he resumed, after a brief pause. Almost on the verge of falling down, his eyes jutted out, cheeks paled, and chest heaved, anticipating a disorderly conduct.

“When I am asking you to leave it here, you have to listen to me,” Aakash said, continually flying off the handle.

Unnat rehearsed the whole scene in his mind before pushing Aakash on the floor. Aakash fell onto the ground, but quickly caught hold of Unnat’s left leg and pulled him down. In the spur of the moment, Aakash lifted his forearm with the candlestand and threw it, targeting Unnat’s head. A white foamy layer thickened on his clamped, grinning lips just as the heavy brass candlestand struck Unnat with a dull, stomach-churning thud. For a fraction of a second, time seemed motionless, as if taking a moment to cope with the terrible shock.

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Unnat’s eyes widened in a brief flash of baffling comprehension before the light in them doused. His head snapped violently to the side, knees buckling beneath him, with the entire body bulging out awkwardly before crashing down. Within seconds, blood came oozing out from his sweating forehead. A deadly silence jammed the room, broken spasmodically by the clang of the deadly candlestand, ignorant of its doing, clattering across the marble floor.

Aakash stood like a mannequin, eyes darting between the prize and the casualty. Perhaps he was shrinking back in dread from what he had inadvertently done. Perhaps his mind was occupied with framing an explanation that was part apologia and part contrition.

Before Unnat fell into a swoon, the last thing he remembered was about his old mother, who would be waiting for him to return home at the end of the day. Who said that the job didn’t have any risks? Hit in the line of duty, he was a soldier clad in red, eclipsing from a vibrant carmine to an obsidian black.