The Whisperer

Source: Painting by Mary Maxam on DailyPainters.com

It was one of those days when the body seems to have lost all its energy, no longer willing to make simple movements like standing, sitting or doing anything at all. It just lays there…. lifeless yet full of life.

I sat there as still as water and as silent as a night, staring at the ceiling, lost in my own thoughts. My head ached thinking there was still so much to do… a long list of never ending work that had to be completed by this apparently lifeless body.

Ahhh!! It had been a long tiring week, shifting a home is exhausting for both, the soul and the flesh. From planning on packing, wrapping the whole house, moving to a new place to settling in… a task that literally drains all your energies in every way possible.

It was the same for me… shifting to a new place in all the hustle bustle was beyond exhausting. The process of moving is kind of like the start of a new life; you look forward to your future yet feel lost in your past.

It’s so strange that even though you are happy about moving to a new place, yet leaving your home makes you sad. See we get so much attached to buildings that the phase of moving away makes one feel like you’re leaving a part of you behind.

Isn’t it????

Just when I was trying to get my body up on my feet, I heard the doorbell ring…. Dinggg a linggg!!!!

I stood up and went to the window to see who was there.

And it was then when I saw this man for the first time….

I was staring out the window in all curiosity like always, when my cook came and told me the gardener was here and wanted to meet Ammi.

I nodded and told my mother… then left to finish off my long pending list.

Days had passed since we had shifted to our new place, settling in and making this house feel home.

It was almost the mid of August when one afternoon I saw our gardener again while I rested on my favorite couch in the TV lounge.

For some bizarre reason I just started staring out of the window, observing him while he worked.  And in an instance, all I could think of was what a strange person he was, smiling and talking to himself while watering the plants.

Source: Image by Anum Mohsin

But something at that moment made me even more curious to figure out, rather understand what was happening.

“Why was he talking to himself???”

But it was too soon to get an answer I guess….

Soon days turned to weeks and weeks into months as I observed him on and off whispering here and there in our garden. And the weird thing was that every time he’d see someone approaching he used to go quiet.

Source: Image by Anum Mohsin

There was something so mysterious about this young man...

It was during this time that I came up with the idea of sneaking up on him while he whispered to the plants. I often wondered if he was just singing songs to entertain himself or perhaps reciting verses from the Holy Book.

This whole fixation thing felt so strange, I had so much on my plate but all of a sudden everything else seemed to be so insignificant except this. I made up my mind that night…. I would definitely catch him in the middle of this craziness. And so I did….

The next day, I quickly finished my lunch and went to the TV lounge. I sat there waiting for him impatiently and then I heard the bell ring……

To be continued….