Siesta

I wrote this fictional piece (of...) for a contest
Contest stipulations:
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theme: Evacuation
Word max: 2,500
Contest Result: Loss

“Evacuate! Evacuate!”

The call came, curiously, from behind the bathroom door. In my brother’s voice. Having just come in, I began to bombard the door with fists and Nikes and to shout in return. If I was evacuating, it was going to be to the sight of his heels.

“Stephen! What’s the matter?”

“Hey! I’m using the bathroom here!”

My panic waned to concern.

“What’s the matter?”

“I didn’t know anyone was home.”

My concern changed to confusion.

“Then who’re you shouting at?”

“My bowels.”

My confusion ignited to anger.

“You’re a shithead.”

“Probably. I’ve been constipated for like a week.”

My anger dissipated to contempt. I walked away.

Kicking off my shoes in the direction of the door to the garage, through which I’d entered, I went up to my room and sat down in the last of the good midafternoon sun, before it became just grayening orange illumination for couples in sweat suits walking their dogs through the shadows. I sat on my bedroom floor and attended to the half-finished (in space, for who knew about time, as it’d been sitting in approximately this state for the past – what? – two months now) miniature construction kit that had begun to look like an elaborate, multi-turreted castle. My consciousness was quickly melted by the warm light, and, as I lay on my side, perhaps to get a different take on the structure, I asked myself, again, why it is that we don’t have siestas.

The next thoughts I remember were, 1.) Why am I awake? 2.) Why is the sun still in the same place, and 3.) Why won’t the feather duster let me be?

In a strangely asymmetrical resumption of consciousness, I pegged the relative passage of time before I realized it was our dog’s tail that was buffeting my nose like a belligerent cloud.

However, it was rare that I would awaken to such a fate, as 1.) I rarely slept on the floor these days, and 2.) our dog hadn’t been allowed up the stairs since he’d wagged goodbye to puppyhood, at which point Dad had stated that he wasn’t “going to raise another worthless slug like the two of you,” meaning that, unlike Stephen and me, Gus had to earn his keep by sleeping at entry level.

In practice, this came to mean that, instead of sleeping on the floor of my parents’ bedroom, as he had as a puppy, Gus had the choice of three different couches as his bed. His preference usually tended toward the short-but-plush model in the den, though, on nights when thunder rang out in the distance, he would move to the longer one in the family room so as to provide a place for repose for whomever descended to staunch his whimpers.

I realize I may have digressed from my main task, which was the relation of the manner in which the eventual evacuation was effected. The point to be made here is that the presence of Gus’s tail in my face as I lay in my room was quite unusual and sparked in me, half-asleep though I was, and fully though I wished to be, a certain unsettlement of thought. Following the imaginary line from Gus’s raised tail to his upturned nose, which usually led one directly to a plate of brownies or a turkey sandwich, my gaze sidled through the crack in the window and followed the color gradient of the smoke I saw outside until it ran smack dab into the neighbors’ window.

The boy known as Stephen was downstairs blending food in the mixer and loudly.

“Hey! Steve?” I shouted, when the aural carnage recessed.

“I’m blending!” came the reply.

I stumbled down the hallway and the stairs as I regained full consciousness and avoided the helpful, anticipating form of Gus doing his best to lead me wherever I was going. We reached the lower stairs as Stephen once again took up blending.

Gus, torn between the terror that was for him the blender and the uncompromising law of inertia, borne on by the low-friction tile at the stairs’ landing and his eagerness to track the smoke, managed to skid into the wall next to the opening to the kitchen, turn himself 80 degrees to the right, and sneak, head down, over to the door to the garage, seemingly undetected by the blender.

“Steve!”

“What?”

“I think the McPherson’s house is on fire.”

“Really?”

He shut off the blender.

I followed Gus to the door, collecting my shoes on the way. I opened the door to the garage and then the automatic garage door. Gus led. Stephen followed.

We ran through the hedgerow into the neighbors’ yard. We looked to the street and saw it as vacant as ever. I had a vision of the house going up in a blazing orgy of black smoke and remorseless fire and everything outside this plot of land continuing on untouched in sunny afternoon suburbia.

The front door was closed. We could hear the fire alarm inside. Stephen went to open it, then withdrew his hand as if realizing he’d mistaken the handle for a viper. I pushed him back and felt the door. It was only slightly hot.

“The key!” he shouted and ran back toward our yard. I took off my shirt and made it into a hand turban. I got a grip on the handle through it and rotated it, confirming its lockedness.

Stephen was back with the key. He unlocked the door with a bare hand. I turned the knob and pushed it open.

The powerful, shrill whine of the smoke alarm shot out at us on the heavy, particulate air. Immediately, my eyes began to burn, and Stephen and I both began to cough. Gus sneezed continuously.

I stepped inside. The air was caustic. Even just inside the front door, I felt I could barely breathe. I coughed uncontrollably. I looked behind me but Stephen wasn’t there. Then he came around the corner, holding his shirt, balled up and dripping, over his mouth. He motioned around the corner and I saw the water spigot was open.

“The fire department!” I said.

“I hit the button!” he said, pointing back to our house.

I took off my shirt and held it under the spigot. I turned to follow him in, then thought again and went back to the spigot and did my best to wet my pants from the knees down, as well as my shoes. Then, following Stephen’s lead, I put the shirt over my mouth and entered. Amazed I could breathe, I followed Stephen to the foot of the stairs and began shouting.

At the door, through thick tears, I could see Gus barking and continually entering, sneezing, and leaving.

“Gus, no! Stay!” I shouted.

As usual, he didn’t.

I ran to the door to push him away, but he wouldn’t give up.

“Suit yourself,” I said as I stepped outside and tore my T-shirt in two. I encased his muzzle in one of the sleeves and tucked another piece of the shirt over the end, covering his nose.

He ran straight for the stairs and began to climb them until his head was level with ours. At that point, he sneezed, backed up a step, backed up some more, almost to the floor, then stood barking.

“Steve! I think…”

He said, “I think he thinks there’s someone upstairs!”

“Yeah!”

He looked up the stairs, then back at me.

Then he motioned toward Gus.

“But he’s an idiot!”

I shrugged acknowledgement mixed with uncertainty.

He said, “Yeah, I know!”

He started up the steps, then turned and said, “If I don’t come back, tell them where I went!”

I froze in indecision and responsibility. I should have gone first. But now, I couldn’t follow him – if neither of us came back, no one would know we’d gone.

I waited and looked at Gus, expecting accusation. Instead, I saw he’d turned his head and was now barking directly at the opposite corner of the second floor.

I focused on the ground, trying to think. My gaze fell on the shallow plastic trough my mom had given Mrs. McPherson when our parents had given up trying to train us. Every time she came back from visiting Mrs. McPherson, Mom would then tell us, disappointedly, that it always held one pair of shoes for each member who was home with that jealous gleam in her eyes that backlights the reflection of a utopia one knows one deserves but whose gates one must stand idly by as one watches another enter.

Now, it was as empty as it had always been at our house.

I ran out to the garage. I looked through the glass panes in the door. The smoke was less here, and the garage was clearly empty.

I ran back in the front door. Gus was still barking in his new favorite direction.

With Gus’s barking and the smoke, I couldn’t hear or see Stephen. I started climbing the steps. Halfway up, even the T-shirt-filtered air was too harsh. Coughing, I knelt down and began to crawl, then realized I needed both hands for that. I wrapped the shirt around my face and made to tie it in the back. I only had enough slack to make a perilously loose knot, but it held.

Summiting the stairs, I saw Stephen fifteen feet ahead of me, moving down the hall, the sleeves of his shirt sprouting in opposite directions from where they were knotted at the back of his neck. He was moving toward the darkest of the smoke.

“Steve! I don’t think anyone’s home!”

He didn’t turn.

Moving a foot in there felt like ten yards. I pulled off my shoe and threw it at him. It hit him in the backside and he flipped around as if it had been a falling beam or a red-hot poker.

“No one’s home!” I said.

He crawled closer to me.

“No one’s home!” I repeated, shaking my head, and, pointing toward the door, “The shoe tray’s empty!”

His brows communicated confusion, then comprehension, then – was that judgment?

“Gus! Stay!” Stephen said, and I looked to see the barking dog halfway up the stairs, still turned as if he were trying to scratch his back with his chin.

“Gus! No one’s home!”

Then I heard a meow from the other end of the hallway. So did Stephen. He began to follow me toward the noise.

“Get him out of here!” I said, pointing to Gus.

“OK!” he said.

“One cat – that’s it, right?”

“I think so!” he said as he took Gus’s collar and rose up into a crouch near the bottom of the stairs.

I crawled toward the room at the far end of the hall. Entering the master bedroom, I finally got a visual on the cat. I headed straight for it. It was near the far corner of the room. I felt my pace quicken as I got close.

I made to crawl the final six feet between us as quickly as I could, and it shot back into the corner. It felt as if the heat had just increased, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up – I had seen myself emerging in a few seconds, cat in hand, as the house crumbled in the background. That picture changed – I was going to die trying to rescue a suicidal cat.

I decided I had to give it one fair chance. I forced myself to inch toward it, then I remembered that I had seen this cat once before, along with how it had only allowed me to pet it after I’d followed the McPherson’s girl’s instructions to lie on the floor a painstakingly long time, just calling it.

I figured I’d give it a shot. I lay down with my hand out, palm up, and called.

“Come on, Bisquick. Come. Come on. It’s OK, Bisquick. Come on.”

He inched his way out of the corner, performing practice retreats with his nose every other second. Still, he was making progress toward me. The smoke seemed to be getting heavier, but I forced myself to stay there, trying to exude as calm a demeanor as possible.

“It’s OK, Bisquick. That a boy…” I said, waving my fingers toward myself as I looked back down the hall and for the first time saw actual flames. They were making their way toward the stairs.

“Come on, Bisquick! Come on!” I said, staring at the flames, trying to will the fire into stasis.

Feeling the rough flame lick my fingertips, I whipped my hand back to my body and looked up to see the cat move from where he had been rubbing his sandpaper tongue on my hand almost all the way back into the corner.

“Son of a…Bisquick. Sorry. My fault. Come back. Come on. It’s OK.”

Strained now by the additional irritation at myself, my patience ran out. I moved toward the cat, figuring I’d either corner it or chase it into oblivion. Either way, I’d take the sweet tumble down those stairs any second.

Bisquick flattened to half his already-insubstantial height, but didn’t run. I moved closer. Making myself believe what I saw in his eyes was a look of waiting to be directed, I reached for him. Magically, I felt my hands close around his torso. I pulled him to my chest like a running back with a golden pigskin and slithered across the carpet like an earthworm.

I made surprisingly rapid progress, as, before I thought to check in again with the flames, I saw the banister at the top of the stairs at the edge of my vision. Realizing any flames in my path wouldn’t affect my route, I pivoted, cat brushing banister, and began what was shaping up to be a head-first descent.

My hip left the top step for the second with a thud, whipping my head into the stairs. The T-shirt dropped from my face. I didn’t think to hold my breath until I’d already breathed. At that point, I couldn’t do anything but cough. Trying anything else just made me convulse with each stifled cough.

I began to stand up, figuring I just needed to make it to the door. I stumbled down the steps and into someone’s bare chest. Stephen pulled me down the steps and pushed me out the door, where the air was the best thing I’d ever felt, like a combination of water and air and food and freedom.

I lay on the grass for a while, then retreated to the side of the yard when I heard the sirens.

Stephen had brought Gus back on a leash. He sat wagging his tail, sneaking glances at Bisquick.

“All right, Bisquick,” I said, looking at my stockinged foot. “We made it.”

Stephen looked at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Man, the cat’s name’s Biscuit.”

Whence comes this con...dom-in-the-win-dow?

Oh, myster’ous condom from the sky, ‘pon my windowsill — wherefore is thy Romeo casting the likes of thee out the grated vent?

Thou, who, I can see, performed thy duty to protect and serve, because, though, at first, I admit, thy integrity did I doubt, upon further inspection at the business end of my toilet-cleaner-liquid bottle, thou showed thyself whole and unbreached as the Allies’ front lines in The Battle of the Bulge.

Thou wert marked by a strange yellow stain off-tip about 1/8 of the way to base, and a downy pigeon feather clinging to thy exterior. Dear mystery condom, I implore thee, reveal what brand of sordid lunacy did up there transpire.

Furthermore, oh puzzling prophylactic, why such an unceremonious exit wert thou granted consequent to performing so ably thy duty? Not even a proper burial in the trash can was afforded thee? Ay, perhaps it is for daredevils like thee a far grander finale to leave the world of the undiscarded via a kamikaze act of defenestration, no doubt tossed off either as post-coital ablution or urination. Perhaps the bladder so full spared no time for erection redirection, and thou wert shot out the window as if an ill-placed camper who’d perched atop Old Unfaithful in Yellowstream National Park.

Or so thou must have thought, when thou began thy plummet so many hours ago, not knowing thy journey would reach only the fourth-floor ledge before quickly meeting with abeyance. With pride and sanguinity do I spur on thy daredevil descent with a poke of this stick, hopeful that to thee soon comes the purpose of thy new stage of existence and with that knowledge the blessing of the dutifully employed, for theirs is peace of mind.

Securely Yours,

Phone: The FBI reports that there is an attempted burglary in the US every 17 seconds. You can help protect your family and belongings by purchasing a security system. If you take advantage of this offer and place our sign in your yard, we will waive the installation fee.

Dude: Hello.

Me: Hey.

Dude: Can I help you?

Me: So, there’s a burglary every 17 seconds?

Dude: According to the FBI, there’s an attempted burglary every 17 seconds.

Me: Are you saying that you don’t believe that information yourself, or just like can’t confirm or deny, or…?

Dude: Yes. I can neither confirm nor deny.

Me: Ha. Nice – neither confirm nor deny.

Dude: So, are you interested in a securing your home?

Me: Well, but, how recent is that information? Which report is it actually stated in? Do you have a name, or…?

Dude: It’s pretty recent.

Me: OK, pretty recent. OK.

Dude: So, are you interested in a security system.

Me: Yeah, sure. I mean, every 17 seconds, right? I’d like to learn more.

Dude: OK, so, do you own a home?

Me: I do not own a home.

Dude: …

Me: But my parents do. I could talk to them. I bet they’d like to secure their home.

Dude: OK. And what state do your parents live in?

Me: Well, now that you know their home isn’t secure, I’m not sure I should be telling you that. How can I be sure you won’t try to exploit them using this information?

Dude: Well, it’s up to you, if you want to take advantage of this offer…

Me: OK, well, I can tell you which state, but I can’t tell you more than that. It’s not a state, actually. It’s a Commonwealth. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Dude: OK. We offer installation only in the continental United States.

Me: Does that include Alaska?

Dude: No. Only in the continental United States.

Me: Well, but, do you mean the contiguous United States? Because Alaska’s still in the same continent - North America – right?

Dude: Well…

Me: I mean, I think. I think…

Dude: OK.

Me: So, can you give me some details about what’s being offered?

Dude: We’ll provide wireless transmitters on all of the external doors and pet-friendly motion detectors. We’ll install three panic buttons. We’ll provide you with a crest and window stickers to prevent a break-in altogether. And, since this is a special promotional offer, we’ll waive the installation fee in the hope you’ll tell your friends about it.

Me: OK.

Dude: You’ll have a connection to us that is active 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If any alarms are tripped, we’ll be notified and can have the police on their way within 36 seconds. Since you won’t be charged any installation fee, you’ll only have to pay for the maintenance and monitoring contract, which is about $1 a day. And, if you move, we’ll move the system with you for free.

Me: OK.

Dude: …

Me: Hello?

Dude: …

Me: Hi?

Dude: Yes. Sorry.

Me: OK, so…

Dude: Do you think your parents might be interested?

Me: Yeah. I’d have to go over it with them, though.

Dude: OK.

Me: So, do you have a number, or…

Dude: Yeah…866…

Me: 866…

Beep beep beep

“Signal faded.”

A Pink Oasis

Upon entering the Pink Katalyst head offices in Mumbai Central, seated, as they are, at the head of the hallway and behind their glass door, the vibrant pink letters championing the company’s name, and its preeminent product, Singchana.com, visible from one side of the seventh floor to the other, a visitor can expect to be soothed by the smooth, gurgling sounds of a miniwaterfall. A new acoustic addition to enhance the aural aesthetic? Perhaps a natural counterpoise to the columnar concrete honeycombs that rise unnaturally straight from the paved earth, batting the music of the metropolis - the battling braying of horns - between their walls like unholy, unyielding badminton champions?

Perhaps.

The origin of this particular sound is, however, and however prosaically, the temperamental toilet that lies just inside the entrance to the home of those brothers who love you never more than when you play the singer in you. A simple jiggling of the handle can render the device mute—but, I ask you, especially in such a temple where daily gather adherents of the ancient art of soul-healing through the medicine that is melody-making, "At what cost, brother? Oh, at what cost?"

The Harvest/24-Hour Short-Story Contest

I wrote this for the Fall 2010 WritersWeekly.com 24-Hour Short-Story Contest and was mentioned as having lost with honour. I used the prompt that was given as the first two paragraphs of my story. The story had to relate to it, though not necessarily include it. And the story had to be 900 words or fewer, and finished within 24 hours of the prompt having been sent out. The rather original title is my work, and wasn't included in the word count, which, for mine, was 896.

The Harvest

He stood on his tiptoes at the small cabin's rear window, staring out at the deepening dusk, sensing the excitement in the town's air. The cold wind seeped through an old crack, tickling his chubby cheek, and a whirlwind of red and orange leaves made him laugh. The corn stalks rustled in the brisk breeze, waving to him. He waved back.

Behind him, Mommy was busy in the small kitchen and delicious smells wafted his way, making his tiny tummy grumble with glee. She was making lots of treats to tempt the town's children. After all, she'd promised him a new brother or sister.

That promise inspired in Johnny glee of perhaps an-even-more-intense strain than the aroma. After all, he’d been bugging Mommy for a new brother or sister since, in fact, his very first words to her: “Do I have a little brother or little sister?”

Of course, such may seem an unusual inaugural verbalization to one’s mother, but, then again, it was the unusual child who met his mother at the age of three. She encouraged him not to see himself as “adopted.” She always used the word “chosen.”

“You’ve been chosen,” Marcus had told him on that day Johnny initially discovered he’d be staying. Marcus was his first brother—first sibling of any kind. An older brother he’d acquired at the age of three—that was another unusual piece of Johnny’s family history.

That day, the harvest festival attendees had flooded the yard and first floor of Mommy’s cabin, with the pond of people lapping at the edges of the corn field, squealing young children and whispering young lovers trickling in and out of the stalks, families and neighbors concentrated at the wooden picnic tables and large picnic blankets that had condensed into a communal hive, where, by dusk, the jagged grass footpaths in between had atrophied to mere memory and a trek through them become an act of contrition.

From this, it was difficult to notice a subtraction of one. Certainly one like Johnny.

Thus it was that Marcus, eight years his senior, had easily corralled him into a corner of the cabin and down a minimalist flight of stairs half-hidden behind a large wooden trunk.

Down there, Johnny had encountered a heaping basket of candy apples, an artful arrangement of circus-sized lollipops, and various toy vehicles, balls, and blocks.

Marcus almost found words superfluous in convincing Johnny that that would be his new home.

Not that he was likely to be missed. His father had a problem with sobriety that consequently caused him no end of difficulty with work, relationships, and child-rearing. The last sighting of the man had been weeks before. Johnny had been subsisting on scraps of food and kindness from a neighbor who already had too many children of her own.

The light transitioned from the dusk that decreasingly permeated the darkening air to that of the sulfur-yellow bulbs that hung at regular intervals and irregular locations from the line strung over tree branches, around fence posts, and off of roof corners. The scene could have almost undetectably been swapped with the one two years earlier, when

Johnny had been ushered into the house and down the stairs.

Though he hadn’t eaten one since, nor even desired to, a sudden craving for lollipops seized Johnny. From his position on the porch, he ventured to the head of the stairs, pulling aside the curtain that now obscured the descent, and saw the boxes and plywood that, most of the year, barricaded the way were cleared to the side. Fitting easily on the half of the stairs that remained, Johnny followed the map still so clear, though not once refreshed, in his memory—down the stairs, to the left, down a short hallway, and right, into a room.

As he approached, he heard voices. As he paused just outside the ajar door, they were clear.

Johnny’s heart leapt as he listened.

“You heard me, Marcus—I promised him a new brother or sister!”

“But Mommy,” Johnny heard Marcus say, his voice disconcertingly supplicatory, “she was the youngest I could find. They guard the little ones so closely!”

“It’s taken me months to prepare this, Marcus. Last year, nothing. And this year, with so many new parents, all you can find me is this antique?”

Johnny peeked through the opening between door and jamb to see a girl a little older than he sitting in the corner, chewing on something and combing the blonde hair of a doll.

“Maybe this is a clear sign you’re ready to go from acquirer to producer, Marcus. If you can’t find Mommy a little one, you’ll soon be old enough to make her one.”

Johnny pictured Marcus assembling a baby, snapping together arms and torso, as he’d had to do to dolls such as the one the girl now played with on some occasions when he’d been less gentle than intended.

“Mommy, no!” said Marcus. “I’ll find you one! I promise! I just need more time! I’ll go out looking! Just give me until winter!”

“Fine. Take this dinosaur away,” she said, and Marcus swiftly approached the girl. Johnny moved to the dark corner of the hallway as Mommy turned to leave the room.

“But remember—until the first snow, Marcus—that’s how long you have.” She laughed. “You’d better pray for an Indian summer.”

The Necessity of Bears?

(Editor's note: If you enjoy this story, I urge you to view the first comment for an inspired remix.)

The most outrageous thing has happened in my apartment building — on the ground floor, where, for the longest time there was a closed-up, unoccupied space, it seems that someone had the bright idea to open a Bear Shop.

Yes, you read that right. Do a double, even a triple take if you want. I know I did, when I saw the sign, but every time I looked back, there it was, same as ever: Now Open! Bear Shop!

What? A Bear Shop? In this neighborhood? There are stray dogs everywhere!

Not for long, I suppose.

And children just wander around. Even if they stayed home, there’s a slum of about 20 families not 50 yards from this ursine-animal vendor.

The shop is done up nicely, I must admit. The last I’d seen of it, maybe a month ago, it was a large plastered room with various debris scattered about. Now, the walls are stylized, textured, dark-pink tile. The ceiling fan’s speed recalls a jet engine. And various spirit containers sit in a hollowed-out shelf along the back wall and in a shiny new glass display case in the front counter.

True, it seems like a safe place. Not only did I fail to spy even a single loose bear—I saw no signs of any. Not one bear, nor a hair or paw print. I didn’t even hear what could be considered a gentle roar.

Nothing.

Obviously, the bears have been well contained.

So far.

Now, admittedly, I’m no bear expert, the most extensive study I’ve done of that kind being some heavy petting in my dad’s Olds up at Procreation Point during a spell of low self-esteem back in high school. However, it seems to be common knowledge that the bear is a difficult animal to manage. Not for naught are they considered powerful, ferocious creatures.

“Run! It’s a bear!” is a saying every child knows. There’s a reason you won’t hear “Run! It’s a hare!” And, outside of those from Berrian DC and Dalian Chicago, I bet none of you’s ever heard “Run! It’s the mayor!”

No, there seems to be a general consensus that bears are more than a handful, which makes it suspicious that they would be peddled from a shop that is probably 200 square feet on a dry day, less when it’s humid.

The other suspicious observable is the partiality of the place toward alcohol. And whom’s the alcohol for? The bears? Their handlers? Complaining neighbors? Pesky officials? Victims’ relatives?

That, I have yet to discern. Also, the shop seems devoid of any brandy, bourbon, whisky, gin, vodka, rum, wine, schnapps, cider, liquor, liqueur, arrack, or even toddy.

A lot of cans. And some bottles, I think.

I can tell the neighbors are on edge—they definitely seem to have been drinking more than usual. And that isn’t just an imagined correlation—those who are drunkest are those milling around the Bear Shop the most—obviously, putting themselves in danger for the safety of their fellow man, ready to sound the alarm and provide the first line of defense.

Thankfully, so far, disaster has been averted. No tragic maimings. Nary a close call. Still, something doesn’t add up. Dog shop—sure, this place is filthy with filthy dogs, and some people even own a few of them. Goat shop—yeah, a couple of my favorite upstairs neighbors are goats. Cow shop—now there’s a moneymaker if I ever heard one. Even a monkey shop—sure, you see the occasional Mumbaikar with their monkey on a leash—even in the general compartments of the commuter trains—but you never actually see any monkeys around. Not wild, and certainly not for sale.

Any of these, and I’d have no problem. The raison d’être would be obvious. In fact, their absence puzzles me, now that I’ve given it some thought. But bears—the only bear I can even remember associating with any part of this country is a talking specimen named Baloo.

No, something doesn’t add up, and, as a responsible member of the community and a reasonable member of the human race, it’s my responsibility to pay heed my hunches, and mind my instincts.

For now, this citizen remains wary.

The Two Gentlemen of Baroda

Weighted down by sleep but kept conscious by hunger and the three hour nap I’d apparently just finished, I groped for the remote and turned on the TV to find Braveheart.

Half an hour later, when the cute chick’d been murdered and I was more hungry and less sleepy, I groped for the room-service menu. Its terminal hour was 11. My clock read ten minutes past. Summoning energy that can only be mustered when one has already verified that the minibar has nothing but water, I grabbed my card from the let-there-be-light slot and made my way to the front desk.

Doubtful that I could get something from the kitchen, thinking maybe a nearby restaurant would be open, and confident in the reserves of the well-stocked vending machine I’d noticed when arriving, I addressed the kids working reception.

“Hey, is there anywhere I could get food here?”

“Sorry, sir. The kitchen is closed.”

“Any restaurants?”

I pointed at the door, but, in a way that, I knew, indicated I meant “beyond the door”.

“No, all closed.”

“Oh. Ok. Well, how about the vending machine?”

“Vending machine is closed.”

What? Was I in one of those Kafkaesque novels by Kafka? Was this some kind of comedy of the absurd? For what purpose vending machines, if not to vend? And to vend like hell, as long as there be electricity? And preservatives?

I stared at him with unbridled contempt saturating my glare. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so angry. Not irritated, but angry — usually, I just get irritated. And frequently. But this was something else.

Typing a text message on my cell phone, I walked to the door that leads into the accommodation area, having just finished keying in ‘the vending machine is closed’ — for those were to be my motivation — as I turned around and headed for the door.

“I just hope it’s not raining,” I thought as I exited through the thin, motion-triggered, sliding double glass doors.

The drops fell steadily and confidently upon my head and shoulders, and I quickly realized that if I didn’t find an eatery shortly, I’d be soaked. I headed toward a top-of-the-building sign a few doors down that looked to advertise a food-provisioning facility, but the illuminated sign proved to be the sole source of light in the building. Seeming to have reached the end of the road in terms of nourishment possibilities in that direction, I continued on without altering course — I'm nothing if not hesitant to backtrack over verified food-free territory when seeking immediately sustenance.

However, just then, by me passed two gentleman of Baroda who seemed tentatively interested in offering help, so I asked the less tentative and more interested-looking one where I could find food.

This more-bold one simultaneously pointed in the directions whence they’d come and whither I headed.

“No food that way,” he said.

Duh, I thought, I could’a told you that…

“We are going to the station for food. (He pantomimed feeding himself some granola mix, for clarity.) Would you like to come?” (He tilted his head, presumably, stationward. For clarity.)

“Yeah. Sure. Thanks.”

As I accompanied them, I twice learned and forgot their names. One may have been Arjun. I think the other’s name began with an “A” and ended with a “J”. I learned that they were firefighting trainees from Gunjapuh.

I later learned they were firefighting trainees from Mithapur who looked at me with confusion when I asked questions about Gunjapuh.

I decided the less bold one, AJ, was only necessarily less confident with English. I appreciated him because he, as I, lacked any kind of rain barrier like the mackintosh Arjun wore.

We walked in a row along the empty, dimly lit streets, collapsing into a column along the left side of
the road as cars approached from behind.

Arjun motioned toward the lights above the wall we approached that ran perpendicular to our direction of travel.

“Station,” he said, as we followed AJ to the left.

Here, there was some activity — some buildings; hotels, mostly; had lights on inside. Roadside vending carts were often attended by their roadside vendors, and the street-center lights were more-closely placed.

As I sought to avoid an approaching bus, I followed Arjun’s lead and realized we’d be exiting the edge of the right lane for the middle of the left, which was submerged in water.

As we waded back toward the recently departed shore of the right lane, I asked Arjun and AJ why only Arjun had rain gear.

“Yes. Raincoat.” Arjun said.

Sensing a hint of miscommunication, I amended my query to something resembling Hindi.

“Uske pas raincoat nahin hai,” I think I said, motioning toward AJ.

A murmur went up.

I tried again.

“Uske pas…”

“Uske pas…no. No raincoat,” said Arjun, motioning toward AJ.

“Kyun?” I asked, asking why.

“No, no raincoat,” repeated Arjun.

“Kyun nahin?” I asked, asking why not.

We collectively moved closer to the banks of the left lane to avoid an approaching truck.

Reconvening back at the right lane, Arjun explained.

“In Gujarat, in the barish, in the rain, many people like to…” (He motioned with open arms toward the sky. The water.)

“Walk in the rain?” I asked.

“Yes.”

And then we had arrived.

In front of the Indian railways interstate railway station, which, as luck would have it, was celebrating 150 years of service, as noted on its facade, many people, mostly men, gathered at food stalls, huddled under the upward-opening sides of the stalls like prospective entrants to a 1940s proto-DeLorean.

AJ pointed out a vegetarian pav bhaji place where he and Arjun set me up with some bhaji, buttered rolls, and chopped onions before walking over to Naseer’s Omelet cart. I ate the hot, spicy bhaji as quickly as possible, asked for some napkins or water with which to clean my hands, received newspaper, thanked the bhajiman, paid him 20 rupees, and forded the parking lot over to A&A, trying to stick mainly to an impromptu stone bridge-path.

As I arrived, Arjun received his egg fried rice from the chef, who was aided, I noticed, by a man wearing a black, collared shirt with MTV written in shiny yellow-green on the left breast.
Arjun several times forcefully encouraged me to order some rice for myself, but it looked hot, I’d just eaten, and I didn’t want to wait for it to be made. He offered me some of his, to which I began to accede, then hesitated, asking if it was hot.

“Yes,” he nodded, as if it were a desirable quality under the circumstances.

I spooned a forkful, tossed it into my left hand to avoid dirtying his fork with my mouth, then, wondering if everyone watching me (and, yes, everyone was watching me) would think me uncouth for eating from my traditionally rear-end-wiping hand, quickly tossed it into my mouth.
It was hot. Instinctively, my tongue, cheeks, and the roof of my mouth retreated from the hot rice, but it followed my tongue and mouth-bottom unfailingly. All there was left to do was open my mouth and try to let the stream outward flow.

Eventually, I swallowed and assured Arjun that I’d found it very agreeable, though, in truth, the intense heat of it had burned from my memory any taste that may have registered.

At one point, as they ate and I waited, AJ disappeared to another stall and came back with three half-litre, clear, polyethylene sachets of water.

When Arjun and AJ had finished, they used some of the water from the sachets to rinse their hands, then drank most of the rest, throwing the bags on the ground. I fished my sachet out of my pocket, where I'd stored it, and tore at the corner with my teeth, managing to rip a hole but failing to severe any plastic, so that the water just dripped down the stretched plastic corner as it would a melting icicle. After a bit of moral debate and level-headed reasoning, I figured this wasn’t too much worse than anything else I seemed to be consuming, so I held the plastic icicle over my mouth and squeezed the sachet.

Folding up the empty sachet and shoving it in my pocket, I followed A&A. We went to a chai stand, where I think I was successful at communicating my ambivalence towards tea. As always, that required an explanation, and a lengthy one, if my hosts were to not be insulted by my refusal. Then arose the inevitable coffee question, to which, as usual, and because I do, I said I hate it.

Let me tell you, friend — a foe of coffee is understood and respected. An enemy of chai can find acceptance. But a friend of neither — well, there's a man without a beverage, and such a man just isn’t to be trusted.

“What do you drink?” they’ll usually ask.

My reply of “water” is met with skepticism, as if, fine, water, yeah, but, wouldn’t you really, in your heart of hearts, prefer it to be heated to very high temperatures and flavored using either beans or leaves?

If the conversation continues, I’ll be asked if I smoke. Since I don’t, the next question is (and, why wouldn’t it be?) whether I drink. Sometimes the gesture of “thumb to mouth, little finger in air” is exhibited in order to make sure I understand the implication is alcohol, although I don’t know that I drink other beverages any differently than placing them in containers whose bottoms I proceed to tip above mouth level.

When I tell them I don’t do drink, either, there’s really nothing to save me. If they somehow find out I’m a vegetarian, it only confirms what they already know. I’m given a knowing nod and told I’m “a good guy”.

This vexes me, mainly because I’m not. But is such a situation either the time or place to delve into an unsolicited list of my vices, shortcomings, and failures? I almost always find myself deciding that it’s neither. I offer a simple, “Well, no. Not really,” and leave it at that.

Luckily, this conversation lacked the steam to surpass non-alcoholic beverages, transitioning to where I was from in the U.S. soon after I made eye contact with the pair of guys who were sitting next to us under the tea cart-rain tarp, and they inquired as to my origins.

Having finished the chai (they, not I), I waved goodbye my new friends — the pair of guys, and kinda the chaiwalla — and we hit the road.

Asked by Arjun if I wouldn’t like to take something back to my room with me, I said I could probably handle some jalebis. We went to the jalebi cart, and Arjun ordered me what looked like a typical order. I looked in my wallet and was reminded by the sight of the 500-rupee note there that all I had was a 500-rupee note, which, while sufficient, probably wouldn’t sit too well with the jalebiwalla, who was probably going to charge 15 rupees.

He charged twenty, and I looked guilty and showed Arjun the 500-rupee note. He waved it off and paid for it himself.

The rain had all but ceased, and our walk back was quiet and pleasant. I tried to explain what it is I do in Mumbai, and why, and I asked them a few questions about their hometown. When we got to my hotel, I gave them my card, telling them that if they’re ever in Mumbai, to tell me so I can pay them back for the jalebis and we can hang out. They thanked me several times, said “Goodbye,” and walked on.

I re-entered the hotel lobby a little after twelve a.m., happy that I hadn’t shouted at or assaulted the desk clerks over the whole vending-machine debacle. As that occurred to me, I turned to the source of my earlier frustration to see it there, shining bright as the midday sun, happy orange and yellow wrappers half-full of preservative-laden food staring welcomingly out at me.

I thought, “Oh. Maybe the vending machine reopens at midnight.”

As I walked past the front desk, the clerk told me that the machine was now open.

“There was a problem with the machine, but we fixed it.”

I wondered if they’d fixed it just for me, and I felt a bit guilty.

“You can use it now,” he continued.

“Thanks,” I said, nodding sheepishly, and sidestepping toward the hallway door. With a pocket full of jalebis, I didn’t see much need for the vending machine at the moment.

Plus, I only had a 500.