Reverse transmogrification

We lived in a house that swayed with wind. When we moved initially into the new home, all the neighbours were taken by surprise. The house was pinioned by one end of the diagonal firmly in the ground. And, it swayed; at first it was barely perceptible. But as the days went by, the sway grew increasingly clearer. I was fourteen and I sold dreams; father was an architect, he made it a point to live in the house he designed himself; mother a gardener, she would break into interior monologues to entertain the flowers in the garden, ‘pink roses ay! There is a beautiful lass with vast shoulders and firm pony, neatly drawn tight and you, all the pink roses would be perched up on that pony one after another to visit places’. Both the twin sisters planned for their married lives, they planned to marry twin brothers.

One night, there was a knock on the door, it was late and everyone was wide asleep. I gently rubbed the sleep off my heavy eyes and opened the door. There was nobody outside; heavy wind was presently swaying the house. So heavy that the wind pelted gravel lying in the perimeters of the garden hither and thither; dry leaves found solace in the dim lit surroundings of our house. A sleepy white dog whined boisterously, the wind was playfully tossing things up in the air and whirling them around. I followed the trail of the whine and found the dog curled up as an old sack of coconut cord beneath the house. The pinion point was under a lot of stress, ‘must oil it in the morning’ I thought.

I gathered the closely curled up dog into my arms, held it against my chest and took it inside. Made him a bed and offered to cover him up, but it was not going to happen, for the dog went round and round chasing his tail, very neurotic dog he must have been. Another knock on the door; there was a body lying outside in a stretcher. The victim was slowly descending into trauma, treatment was inevitable and no time to lose. I brought the victim inside and woke up father. After repeated applications of ointment and having him drink the green potion, the victim recovered.

Next morning, he confessed. The victim was a vampire. The constant need for blood had driven him made with rage and discomfort, so he burnt himself by jumping into a furnace. The men from furnace, who wished to stay anonymous, left him by our door. He wanted to leave, but did not quite know where to. The morning was quiet; I oiled the pinion on which our house was resting, left some food by the dog’s side. He was in his usual curled up posture and refused to eat, I let him be.

The twin sisters were moved by vampire’s story and expressed a wish to father of marrying him. Mother shared a universal aversion to vampires, so she lovingly fed the vampire bread and toast dipped in the red potion that transmogrified any creature into another of mother’s choice. She made him into a snake and left him in the garden to feast on all the frogs and tadpoles that her twin daughters found repulsive. The whole episode was kept a secret. Father and sisters knew nothing about the whereabouts of the vampire; they searched for him in the city for a couple of days and gave up. As the days went by and the farm decimated of any creature, save few earthworms, mother decided to hide the snake for a while, lest he eats the earthworms. Mother’s farm, an eco system depended very much on the earthworms and their impeccable quality of nitrate addition to the soil.

But the drowsy little doggy sneaked into the box lying in one of the corners on an attic. His sniffing woke up father; it was a windy night as usual. The house was swaying more than usual. Father threw the snake on the floor and killed him; but the snake persevered despite repeated battering on his head by a strong wooden bat. The house was swaying violently like a ship stuck up in a storm. He later tied the pinion that was under enormous pressure to a support by the snake that refused to die, and the swaying reduced to a bare minimum.

As the days went by, the vanquished warriors entered the battle field with firm and resonating resilience. All the frogs and tadpoles eat up the roots of all rose trees in the garden and soon the garden went dry leaving mother desolate and devastated. One day, father found the drowsy little dog taking a leak on the desolate garden. He surveyed the farm and located areas of rejuvenation where the plants were coming alive. Soon he concluded that the dog’s urine had characteristics of the yellow potion or a creature administered with one. This revelation triggered a thought in father’s mind, he conducted ‘reverse transmogrification’ procedure on the dog and to his astonishment the dog turned into his childhood sweetheart.

Father enraged with the use of his potions by a foreign authority, in this case mother, administered the potion on all the rose plants in the garden. The plants resuscitated into disciples that father had assumed dead. The new and perplexing details of his life bothered father. He no longer trusted mother. Mother on the other hand feared that the most terrifying conclusion that father was reaching towards, was one of devastation.

In those days, Father’s potions cured people, but he explored the anti-effects of every potion and found an anti-potion for every effect. He talked one of his disciples into swallowing an anti-potion; potion was for curing skin rashes, the anti-potion blew the disciple’s skin apart and killed him. The episode left father with a feeling of compunction, he threw away all his potions one night into the garden. Mother later found a piece of paper on which the ingredients for making potion to treat amnesia and transmogrification were scribbled, she prepared an anti-potion for amnesia and mixed it in father’s food. She also fed all the disciples with a mixture of an anti-potion for amnesia and transmogrification. Next morning, father forgot the guilty episode and took to preparing potions again. All the disciples were now turned into rose plants.

But, presently father no longer trusted mother. Although neither he nor his disciples remembered anything, he suspected mother of treason and spent time with his childhood sweetheart. Mother was incensed by this; she untied the vampire snake from the pinion and set him free in the house. He bit father’s sweetheart, the drowsy little dog, the twin sisters, father, mother, all the disciples and me. Since then the vampire snake had been living in the swaying house all by itself. There was no one left to conduct reverse transmogrification on him. He lived as a snake in the house that swayed boisterously.