Standing on the alternating rows of black and white marbles that connected the two buildings, Renu glanced at her watch. It was about nine in the morning. Sunlight obliquely (for the source was hiding beneath the veneer of enormous glass façade of one of the buildings) settled in the form of a parallelogram with the tip bowing obsequiously at her feet. Her white cotton pyjamas too slight and the heavily embroidered shoulder straps with no arms allowed the nipping cold to bother her. A shiver emanated from the dip of spine on the back and rapidly traversed her person, leaving in its wake goose bumps and a flushed nose. Beneath the reddened cheeks, a trickle, a sound, escaped her wide parted lips. Goose bumps ripened around her elbows, current carpeted the skin of her arms, broke at the shores of her wrists and receded, silently. The helmeted toy soldiers, sensing the back current of the broken wave, sank back into the sea of her skin. The blitzkrieg was over.
Through the great glass doors that slid into their cavities with an approaching gentleman, Renu noticed the lift doors opening. She rushed inside. A sudden calm had enveloped the occupants of the lift, one was gazing at his polished shoes intently, another at the floor numbers glittering in red before him, still other at the narrow rift between the lift doors as if to summon a demon that would trickle inside in the form of a smoke. Renu observed that a certain gent holding his bike’s helmet with gloved hand was staring at her feet, unawares of the fact that he was being observed. She was wearing her chocolate brown sandals that day; the leather straps at the back branched out into many arms in the front, covering the roof of her foot like a crab with its many limbs. Crowned on the crab was a mound of dark plastic with the pinch of an arresting jewel over it.
On the third floor, stepping out of the lift, a sudden relief caught the occupants in its graceful embrace. The gentleman with the helmet was presently collecting coffee by the vending machine that gurgled as if an air bubble had chocked its throat. Resting his arm on the steel frame guarding the colossal glass walls, he observed with an assumed enchantment, the twin building facing the one he was in. Renu sat herself on the brown leather cushioned sofas. From each floor, the peoples seated in the cafeteria of the twin buildings glanced at each other. They were enamoured by one another, as though the distance separated by two grand glass facades had plastered the view of one another with intrigue. A little mannerism such as a woman in business casuals on the second floor was lost in thoughts, caught the eye of a watchful observer. With her arms crossed over the steel frame, a lady lent her gaze downwards. Her posture, with the pelvis thrust to the left and the tip of left foot grounded on the roof of right rendered her a sartorial elegance, unmatched and divine.
Spreading the newspaper before her, Renu looked askance in the direction of the vending machine. To her amazement, she caught his observing eye and the suddenness of it had such an impact on the gentleman that he dropped his glance, in a fleeting moment, on his crocodile shaped shoes. Renu read news about Telangana rebellion for a while; unable to proceed further, she glanced at him again, sweeping her eyes in a wide arch, half expecting him to catch her gaze. He was facing the dustbin, lowering taj mahal sachets into it.
Back at the cubicle, running her fingers along the bend of the chair’s arm rest, she examined her white sock wondering if it had a smudge. That Evening, she found the gentleman standing in the sun before the great wide floor that clawed at the twin buildings. The newly constructed buildings were unusually cold; running water from the taps froze your blood vessels and left the fingers numb. The plush sanitised sinks carved out of white china in the restroom undulated in your eyes if you placed your hand in the running water.
Renu situated herself behind the railing. From the vantage point of a shadow cast, she furtively eyed him. Her back was against the wall washed reddish-brown, decorated with random scalar patches of white (the site was still under construction, patches of white were the remnants of slots that housed wooden pegs). Her tall figure imposed a lean shadow over him; it grew longer and longer till it swept the patches of green grass, and ran along to fold itself on the bricks heap (left there for laying the compound wall), crossed the guards who were seated chatting up, and ran into the woods. Hesitantly, the gentleman looked at the transformation renu was undergoing.
Out popped two wings ripping the back of her sleeveless top; anchored at her feet, the lean shadow fluttered with feathers so wide that the woods were consumed in the dark now. She felt her bosom frigid and immobile; with great pain she began raising her hands. But her attempt seemed to unfurl the wings as they floundered and the flap unsettled dust off the sand bleached wall. One, two and three…with each flap she rose high up in the air; brick crumbs, dry mud and loose cement blinded one and all. On the second floor, a mechanic holding a long screw driver in one hand and a metallic box embossed ‘elevator equipment’ ran up to see the spectacle. Before him, glued to the glass walls on each floor were people watching in awe. Renu was disoriented with the wings, a mis-flap between the right and left wing caused her crashing into the glass walls of the second floor. A crack ran in zigzag pattern along the length of the glass, a moment of unfettered silence elapsed, and the huge glass crashed down into the twin’s face which crashed inturn. With mad fluttering, like a butterfly found itself between the clap of two naked palms, she escaped into the garden of woods.
Once inside the woods, seated on the branch of a banyan tree, renu tried to comprehend the eventful evening. The root of her shadow was still anchored at the foot of the twin buildings, the tip as she observed was pouring ominously over the woods with a dark gloom. Beneath her left breast, a deep gash was left by the glass splinters. She moved her hand but the great wings fluttered, one of them was caught in the drooping roots of the banyan branch. Blood rushed out of the gash and soiled her white pyjamas; she was helpless.
The gentleman drove into the woods; up he drove over the felled tree’s branch, and down he fell headlong into the anthill. Quickly, he gathered himself, ran along the shadow’s trunk and found her disconsolately weeping with her chin sank into the bosom and knees folded over. Finding the courage, he shouted at her. Renu opened her eyes and found the gentleman dissolving in her tears; pointing to the wing that was stuck and torn, she crooned in a soft voice. Her sobs raphsodied the woods and it rained. He climbed atop the branch she was in, held out his hand and pressed hard against the wound and nursed it with his saliva.
Like a small kitten, she whimpered softly in his arms. Rain water gushed beneath them forming pools of mud water; streams of water carried dry twigs and buoyant leaves into the pools.
Next morning, the gentleman stood beside the bandaged angel. It was sankranthi week at the office, many flew rectangular pieces of thin paper tethered between their thumb and index fingers. Renu flew with her inamorato in her arms.
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