Thomas Eldo and Other Stories

Eldo thought this was the slowest part of the day. He sauntered into the lumber yard. The giant water-wheel was there, slanted to the wall, resting after a hectic seasons work: dried and shrivelled weeds from the fields still sticking on to their blades. A thin film of dust enveloped everything. A solitary centipede was slowly locomoting on one of the blades. He tried to pick it up with a spindle and it circled on it like jam-roll from a pastry shop. Eldo went to the garden walking past the cattle shed, puffing up hay in the manger for the cattle. The ‘changing roses’ had sufficiently changed their colours and the petunias were yet to open up. Balsoms were in full splendor: white pink and red. Eldo gently pressed the ripe pods scattering their seeds all round. Nothing was moving and life was at a stand still. He went to the kitchen. Grandma was churning the butter milk in a large earthen vessel. Eldo sat by her side and watched the buttermilk froth and the butter slowly settle at the sides. He ran out and came back with a jack-tree leaf and sat there peering into the vessel: waiting, waiting-- ---- ‘Yes, yes’-grandma mumbled. Her voice was gentle and soft. She skimmed the butter with the leaf. Eldo licked the leaf clean till it glistened. By evening dark patches of clouds were shoring up in the sky from behind the tamarind tree. Grandpa came to the courtyard and scanned the sky with one hand on forehead. Evening quickly merged into dusk and darkness crept in from all corners. Clumps of clouds hung very low and a sudden gust of wind swept through the court yard. In a split second a silver lightening snaked past the tamarind trees followed by a deafening thud as if the sky was breaking apart. Eldo ran into the bedroom and buried his head under the pillows. For a second all was quiet and then the rain started. It came slanting into the courtyard and chanted the whole night in different tunes accompanied by staccato bursts of thunder and sizzling flashes of lightening. Eldo was terrified and could not sleep. He lay awake in the bed rolling from side to side, eyes wide open, gazing at the kaleidoscopic images revealed through the window panes with every flash of lightening. He saw the branches of the tamarind trees surging at him with a thousand arms. Wind whistled and shrieked from the bamboo groves. At times he thought the skies were cleaving apart and something was surely imminent. Perhaps the’ Second Coming’ was at hand. ‘Was it going to happen so soon?’ Verses from psalms floated into his memory like dark clouds. ‘Then earth trembled and shook; foundations of the mountains rocked and quivered--------.He tore the sky apart and came down with a dark cloud under his feet.’ Eldo tried his level best to forget them; but in vain. They continued to pour in with every flash of lightening; verses he thought he never knew surfaced like butter from butter milk. His mind was churning and churning. ‘He travelled on the wings of the wind. He covered himself with darkness: thick clouds of water surrounded him-----.’ ----another flash, and another blast. Eldo pulled the blanket over his face and pasted tight on his mothers side. For the first time he was angry that she was sleeping soundly, oblivious of all the happenings around her. She just hugged him sleepily. But that was not enough for Eldo.