Senan had a nightmare of a furious small black snake spitting poison on his face as it turned around at him violently. He got up, startled, wiping his face with his right palm.
He scrutinized his palm in the dull yellow light that oozed slowly from the electric bulb through the clogged darkness of the room to find any fluid-like substance. No sooner did he think so than he fell back to the bed and dived into deep sleep, releasing no snores.
As soon as he was awake, he recollected it and moved towards the small broken mirror affixed to the front of the almirah. It always delivers hazy reflections as if its eyes were veiled by fumes of steam, smoke, or fog. He moved so close to it, stroking his cheek. There was no visible mark, scar, or anything else. Doubtfully, he scrutinized his face but found no proof of any attack.
He thought that the feeling of remorse dragged him to such inexplicable nightmares. It could be a warning from the Naga energy that the natives believed to be omnipresent in that forest area. However, he decided to follow the natives' way of dealing with the snakes, unharming them. He should cultivate tolerance and love for the creatures that may harm him.
He had to hide it from Pakirappa to escape the possible apprehensions he might induce in Senan, relating it to the killing of the cobra. Usually, Pakirappa returns home from tapping the rubber trees by seven in the morning.
Senan thrust open the about-to-fall wooden window and peered out. The sun strived hard to show its face to Senan, peeping out at him from behind the lush green heads of big trees on the hills. At the window, Senan moved a little to the right and then to the left to have a better view of the Sun as the hot red full moon on the rise.
As the Sun moves towards the north or south a little, Senan will shift his position accordingly at the window. He would even climb on a small unstable wooden board and peer through the cracks of the window by tilting his head and stretching his neck as far as he could. Thus, Senan found that the Sun rises not entirely in the east but moves slightly to the south or north. He had to change his beliefs according to his experiences.
As soon as he had the first glimpse of the Sun about to break into numerous rays of light, he folded his hands in reverence and said as loudly as he could, 'Oh, my Sun, you see the whole planet and it's all kinds of beings, but being here, I see only you. You're God, lord, and everything to me.'
Pakirappa and Dhani took it absurd. But Senan took it as something great he could utter in an unfamiliar wild natural atmosphere. Senan developed the habit of saluting the Sun which stretches a thousand hands to touch everything on the earth in the morning.
Since those familiar or unfamiliar began to fade away in his life, he turned towards everything around him. he found that no creature, no phenomenon was mute. They had their language, sound, voice, or way of communication. It is not only the human language that matters but the language of everything in nature. Sometimes, those who conveyed in silence told more than those who communicated in the languages of love, hatred, or estrangement.
Savithri, in all her beauty and quietness, flashed into his thoughts. He suddenly wiped it out with the teardrops from the white sky of his eyes torn with the lightning memories. He smiled at everything he could see through the window, folding his hands in reverence. He closed the window, and sat on the bed desperately thinking about Savithri.
He wiped his face with the hand towel as though her memories were stuck on his face. He beat the hand towel vehemently twice in the air. Everything stuck on it broke into numerous unrecognized atoms on the floor.
It was already seven in the morning. He went to the kitchen and made two cups of strong tea for Pakirappa and himself. He opened the worn-out rusty door with an annoying sound to find Pakirappa sitting in the sit-out in the costume of a tapping laborer, soaked in the foul odor of the rubber latex.
'It'd curse you,' Pakirappa said as he smelt Senan behind. He took the cup of tea from Senan and sat on his haunches in the yard.
Pakirappa repeated it louder, 'It'd curse you,' as though the killed cobra should curse Senan. It sounded like a reminder to the cobra than a warning to Senan.
'Who?' Senan asked calmly.
'The killed cobra, the Naga,' Pakirappa replied tremulously, and seemed revengeful.
'Hmn!' Senan approved it. Sipping the tea, he stayed calm.
(to be continued)
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Invincible Naga
Mystery / ThrillerSenan had strange encounters with snakes, both in dreams and real life, when he was employed as a laborer in a vast farmland in the deep woods in a remote village in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, South India. Later, he finds that the snake had bee...
