OF HAWKS AND SPARROWS

THE MANSION Nilima stared outside the window, fascinated by the storm that raced through the garden and lashed the trees with a vitriolic force of a monster on the rampage. Windows rattled, calendars flew off the walls, papers floated, utensils fell cluttering the floor, but she was unmoved. The spray spurted inside wetting her bed, her pillow, her body. Slowly, as the rage subsided, Nilima fell into a languor, the wetness somehow calming the turbulence inside her. She fell asleep on the moist armchair and dreamt again the same dream. The huge mansion looked serenely beautiful, glinting in the last rays of the setting sun. Glossy pillars, black marbled steps, mosaic floors, carpeted halls, plush curtains, dazzling chandeliers----and Nili, as everyone called her, on her mother’s knee in the garden. Then, the inevitable----the rusting, peeling, breaking,----dissolving into rubble- - -after which a phenomenal up thrust—an ugly blackened face-; diabolical—rising out of the netherworld—rising up , reaching for her. Frightened, Nili woke up and started to cry. Inside the still, decrepit wreck of a house, the sounds ran amok, hurtling through the dusty gloom of corridors, past the stairs to the garden. The rain had stopped. The afternoon drifted to purple and shadows of trees began to lengthen, describing sinister patterns on walls where darkness connived with yawning cavities of brick and sand.