It was just a patch of sunlight, quite ordinary in fact. The light streamed in through the upper part of the window, went through the filter of the ochre yellow curtains and projected the final patch above the clunky, cream wall clock.
The room lit up in the warmest orange, the one that reminded you of cold orange squash on hot afternoons. There was a bit of melted butter too in it, golden white, a couple of shades shy of yellow. The time was 4:30 pm.
The mosquito net still hung over the bed. The mattress, covered with a cream sheet with orange and green tendrils, was something mattress companies had been trying to sell, but had never quite delivered. That mattress summoned peaceful sleep. It was not a fancy one; one of those many which is filled with cotton that had to be fluffed every two years. After the inhabitants of the house died, no one had fluffed the cotton, or even given it a thorough dusting. However, the mattress retained its sleep-conjuring capacities. For years, a mother had lain there, thinking about her children who were far away. She wanted them to build lives of their own. Sometimes, while she would read a book, she would pause and think if the son had taken medicines for the nasty cough she heard on the phone.
For years, a father would read the newspaper there, wearing glasses which would never fit him. Sometimes, they slid down his nose, and at other times, one of the temples would be missing. But he did not pay attention to such technicalities in a pair he needed only when he would read the paper. He scoured the paper for items he could dramatise and tell his daughter who was studying to be a journalist. He skipped the news pieces about rape and murder. Those would make him nervous.
Both of them had devised ways to crane their necks at an angle which gave them a partial view of the TV in the next room. If you upped the volume of the TV, you could claim that you had watched a movie (which was not worth watching anyway) and slept at the same time. Though they did not admit it, there was a slight tension between the two as to who would occupy the spot after a soporific meal of mutton and rice. However, time decided the winner with the wife having a definite edge. She had a longer neck.
They are not there any more. The impressions that their bodies made on the bed has long ironed out. Years later, I stood transfixed at the bedroom door, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the dying light. The rays which made the patch over the wall clock, squeezed in through the perforations of the mosquito net, and set the bedsheet on joyous luminance. The bed looked inviting and cozy, much similar to the embraces and kisses I had received there. Do you know what I miss most about them? Their hands.
That day, however, I was not overcome by the dread I usually felt at that house. The objects which could ignite my anxiety earlier had lost their abrasiveness. I was, in fact, feeling something I hadn't felt in a long time - peace. I savoured slowly the blank slate of my mind, which was, for once, not tip-toing around the world, ashamed of the burden of pain it carried. It had, for a few moments, crossed over to the side which had not seen death or loss. The absence of anxiety was so alien that I could not remember the last time I had felt that way.
Can a brick and mortar structure be called home? Traditional wisdom says 'no'. You need people to make a house home, they say. Yet there I was, on a dying day, the room illuminated shades of fire, experiencing peace only a home could bring.
