I sat up and leaned against the pillows, and blinked, feeling absolutely disoriented. Totally lost.
I tried to knuckle away sleep kinks from my red-rimmed eyes and peered at the wall clock. It showed three.
Was I really at home or somewhere else? I looked around from the corner of my eye and hastily turned away, with a sheepish air- the disorder in the room an assault on my aesthetic sensibilities.
My eyes fell on the book lying on the nightstand. It was the mystery novel, The Woman in White by Willkie Collins. That made me realize that I was very much in my room, reading the book for the tenth time. A book that used to be my father’s favourite, and continues to be mine; many of the lines from the book have stayed with me.
Why is it that demons, monsters, witches, and ghosts try to intimidate us only during the night? They creep out from all shady corners to give us company.
And owls too.
There it was at it again. Hooting – hooting. Hey, did it mutter something?
“I am thinking,” he remarked quietly, “whether I shall add to the disorder in this room, by scattering your brains about the fireplace.” *
“How dare you!” I almost out-hooted it. Was it in love with its voice? Did it believe that it had a moral responsibility to serenade nocturnal writers? I was amused at my barely irrepressible mirth at the pranks of the pesky owl, almost having the urge to burst out laughing. But it was not right to laugh at the expense of anyone, especially at good-hearted owls who had nothing but the writers’ good at heart.
Oh, what an irony! I banged my head. It was the moonlit night that had given me a touch of the sun! Incredible, but true! It was actually my mind playing nocturnal games, always churning, and whirring especially at 3 am. The poor owl had done no mischief.
It was my cluttered mind, recycling words that clung to it, resiliently. My mind was again in its favorite mode- recycling words from classics.
Yes, I do plead guilty to the charge of the pathetic disorder in my room. But, I reassured myself that this house had no fireplace. Where would it scatter my brains? But, yes, I recall, we did have a fireplace in our home in Kashmir.
Our beloved home, where it crackled, merrily on winter nights, adding its fiery notes to our jubilant chorus of juvenile glee. I recall the tongues of fire that leapt up forming patterns on the wall, while we munched on luscious winter snacks.
The memory of that fire warmed me, and I soon drifted into sleep.
Snug and safe from all cacophonous assaults of the night.
*The Woman in White: Wilkie Collins
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