Love and the Dark Night

Love and the Dark Night © Bob DCosta, 2021 *  Dear Readers, this story is about abuse, neglect, and the silence of secrets, but also about the power and the possibilities of hope and love. The result is a breathtaking odyssey into the uncharted zone between fantasy and reality, a journey into the world that might have been – or might yet be, perhaps… Please read and comment, dear readers, because it’s you wonderful people who will help a writer to better his/her craft. The book is a free read till several chapters. And if you like the story, please buy coins to unfurl the chapters and read. We try our best to entertain you. * THEME Fate VS free will: I want to lead a free life but I’m fated to follow the path of the sound in my head and the e-mails I receive. * BLURB A sound of crying in the ears followed by a dog’s sudden appearance in the house and a freak e-mail trigger off a series of incidents connected to Rudi’s past ancestral wrongs, leading him to encounter silent prostitutes in a room and a strange relationship with a French journalist. By now he is addicted to writing the diary of a foetus in a trance. But what is the connection between the several deaths in the city and the little girl, Damasque, appearing and vanishing now and then, and the prediction behind the Witchcraft Man’s rituals? Will Rudi continue to hide all this from his girlfriend? And what is her identity? In a crafted, crispy and precise prose, walk down with Rudi as he opens doors of his secret ancestral past of love, s*x, power, greed and money and tyrannical rule in this paranormal romance genre story.   PROLOGUE Day One Dear Diary My love and feeling for my girl friend has been diminishing of late. I don’t know why, but something pulls me out of bed, and I stand at the window and look out into the dark night. There’s something in the darkness that whispers to me… Day Two It is only after I heard a strange cry in my ears coming from far away did I begin to realize that I possess the ability to reach out to the unknown. How am I connected to that sound? What do I have to do with the dog that sleeps on the road and mysteriously enters my house? Does my family roots lie somewhere there beyond the outskirts of the city?   1   Rudi’s POV She unzipped her top, slipped it over her head, it rumpled her hair; the bra was the next to go, and when it did I could see where the black straps had gouged themselves on her dusky back. She unzipped the mini skirt, held the sides and wriggled out and let it drop. Then she turned to me, naked and smiling. * But my house was draped in darkness though it was eleven in the morning.             It stood beside the pond at the far end of the deserted street. From my window, the concrete street lay in darkness, the yew trees watching me in their silence. When one of the trees stretched its arms to tell me something, the sudden jingle of an incoming call made my heart leap to my throat. I thrust my hand into my pocket and on touching my cell phone, my hand froze. I concentrated. Yes, from the corner of the fridge, the cry of a child reached my ears. No, a whine.             A soft whine, rising and falling, sometimes high-pitched, sometimes low, broken here and there by small hiccups. It could only have been from a small chest of an animal.             I turned from the window, my cell phone slipped to the carpet with a dull thud and woke up the dead silence of the house. And then all eyes turned towards me. I drew the drapes aside and looked this way and that, right and left, but nothing fell in my sight. Except, of course the darkness of the dark morning and the black street. And a dog.             Yes, a dog.             I looked out again. I could make out two white patches on its right ear where something had chewed at its fur. Its tail was a mere stump. It must have fallen asleep under a parked scootie right in front of its rear wheel and the owner must have reversed without looking, shearing a bit off the ear flap.             The dog lapped at the black water of the puddle, sniffed and sifted, scratched an itch and finally sat down. There was no traffic at that hour so the canine curled up in the middle of the road and lowered its head between its paws. And by the time it closed its eyes, the whining stopped.             I turned to go to bed, when my eyes caught something next to the fridge.             The dog. The same dog.             Yes. Next to the fridge. I looked out, but it was not there on the road.             It seemed it was familiar with the house. Not giving me a surprise look, not even a welcome whimper or an unwelcome growl, it took out its pink tongue and wiped its mouth all over, then lay curled as it had been on the road. But strange, the instant I saw its presence in the room, the whine in my ear stopped. I too went to bed and closed my eyes. But in the middle of the morning-night, I twice heard something else: the wail of the child coming from far away.             When I woke up in the afternoon, I had forgotten about the crying. Only once or twice during late afternoon, when I dropped something small, insignificant, a lady’s hair band – Whose is this? – a flavoured condom, and bent down to pick it up, did that crying return. Then I noticed it: the crying returned when the dog was in the room; when it walked away from me, it was as if the crying would fade, get softer and softer with every step it took. So that when the dog left the room and went to the kitchen dining space to lap water from the small plastic bowl, or roam and curl itself on the living room mat, the crying became a strain of sound from some place far, far away, carried by a wind so empty I could hardly feel it. It stayed in my ears for a fleeting moment to scarcely register itself, neither in thought nor in feeling.             But that evening the dog went down the red-oxide coloured stairs, paused and looked at the redness, as if scrutinizing it. And as it did that, its own black colour changed to a glossy chocolate brown. Perhaps realizing I was looking at it, it turned its head mid-stairs and gave me a blank stare, as if driving home the point: Nothing’s wrong with me. But there’s something not right here for sure. Nodding its head, it continued going down the stairs and out into the approaching evening.             I went up, warmed water for some coffee, and sat at the table. It was 6:34 PM.  I opened my e-mails. Mail from a content writing company and a few from the online writing community appeared. And soon another mail popped up.                  Damasque? Who is she? I didn’t know anyone with that name.             Would like to meet you. The mail read.             My first reaction was to stare at the mail.             The second reaction, I ran my eyes over the words: Would… like… to… meet… you.             DAMASQUE.             Do I know her?             You receive so many junk mails that you begin deleting them. When you click on spam you have a host of mails. From                                                   Subject Free Viagra                                        Trial Viagra offer Married People’s Dating                  Uncensored Dating Site Only for Adults Zoosk                                                  Find Six New Sites on Zoosk But this one in my regular inbox, I mean this mail from Damasque, rang a bell – a bell far away – like a peal floating in the air and entering through the open window. While I was ransacking my brain, my cell phone rang. It was Anais. I pressed the green button, but didn’t say hello. A long pause. “Hello Rudi,” the soft voice sounded clear, crisp from the other side. Pause. Five seconds. “Ya. Hi,” I said in my usual drawling voice. “Are you okay?” She sounded a trifle concerned. “Ya…” “You don’t sound so. Did you sleep alright?” “Ya, I did,” I said with a light vagueness as if I was surprised at her question on the bare fact of staying awake. “Anyway, I’ve got two tickets for The Tomfoolery of the Not So Foolish. Tomorrow evening at Gyan Manch. I thought of telling you beforehand before any other engagement could catch you by the collar.” And I heard a soft laugh in Anais’ voice slipping out gracefully from her throat.  Anais had studied in the same school with me, Max and Raj but in our freshman year we had Creative Writing as a common subject. She was majoring in Mass Communication while I pursued English Honours. We didn’t know we had common friends such as Hermen and Sophie. When I went to the canteen on the second day along with Max and we were digging into cheese sandwiches and French fries and constantly talking to Bosco, the canteen owner, a fair hand with a slender steel band clasping a steel-bodied watch in the size and shape of a coin reached out from behind Alex’s right shoulder. It held the half-torn sandwich and immobilized itself over the plate, freezing the fingers in semi hardness. That extended hand. At first when my eyes fell on it, the hue was ivory white with a shade of brown all over. But on looking at it intently, the flesh and skin around the knuckles silently cracked open and the bones appeared yellowish white. I could not remove my eyes from the wiry bones joined at the wrist. What I can’t forget till this day are the slender bony fingers over the plate, and their first joints with four prominent marks. I wish I had taken a picture of that hand over the snacks that day and saved it and used it as wallpaper for my cell phone. Of course I can make Anais enact that scene over a plate anywhere else – Halloween time would suit the finest – but it would not be the first day’s natural act; and somewhere at the back of my mind my conscience would make me feel restless. Alex’s first reaction was to grab at the wrist and simultaneously jerk his head sideways to look eye to eye at the intruder. When he did so, he smiled, loosened his grip and lifted the plate forward. Alex introduced her as Anais and very soon we were at a table in the canteen itself, sharing our snacks from two plates. Anais then bought three cups of chai. Since then Anais and I have become good friends – inseparable. And the friendship had stretched till the third year and beyond. We’ve had our share of togetherness outside and in bed as well. I composed poems, dabbled with oil painting and taught creative writing fifteen hours a week to help pay bills and she was a freelance journalist. Do we love each other? Are we in a relationship? Is the friendship reaching towards the station called Love? I wondered at times. She too wondered and we discussed it on several occasions. But she was romantically inclined towards me, with feelings of love of a serious note. “Ya, ok. I will be there.” After hanging up, I stared at the name. There’s something in the name, Damasque, that’s magnetic. It’s feminine, no doubt, but a certain aura of majesty enveloped it. Somewhat like a Lebanese woman – grace, good height and light copper skin; and of course striking features. No, I wasn’t sure if it was a woman’s name. I didn’t know whether behind the mask of the name a face of a woman or a man, or gay for that matter, would show up. Staring at the name, the mail and sometimes wandering away into an imaginary timeline, I shut down my laptop. It was Friday and I badly wanted to visit the coffee shop at Park Street. Suddenly the door bell rang. Anais stood at the door, a smile on her lips, her hair shaved as usual to make her look an exact twin of Sinead O’Conner. “I said I’d meet you tomorrow.” She smiled. “But wanted to surprise you.” And she planted a kiss on my lips. She stayed back the entire day but I slipped into quietness every now and then. She came and stood by the window. “Rudi,” she said. “You know I love you. And I know you will say, stop loving me. But Rudz, please share anything you want to, anything you have to. I’ll respond by remaining quiet. But you should open up. I know something’s bothering you.” I looked at her, but I didn’t say anything. That night, during the entire time we lay under the sheet in bed, naked, the whole sequence of the previous day repeated itself. The crying began, I found myself walking to the window and looking out. Once again, there was nothing except the wail and the dog with its glossy chocolate brown colour. This time the dog, turning its head and looking at the window where I stood, began running after something which looked imaginary, till at the third round, its face began broadening at the jaws; its ears grew larger; and its body slimmer. It began to chase the imaginary being. The chase was faster, like Usian Bolt’s sprint. A certain smell, musty and deep rooted, reached my nostrils. Then the dog ran into the abandoned park across the road next to the wilderness. When the crying stopped, I returned to bed. By eight in the morning Anais stood at the door, her lips locked into mine. Then off she went flying down the stairs. But as I closed the door and turned, a tap-tap reached my ears. I opened the door in slow measures.