On Saturday morning, though her soul had not left her body, her heart was still beating and she had an urgent need to pee, Goldy Kaur did not get out of her bed. She chose to remain under the razai. Was something wrong? She lifted her limbs in the air and swerved her hips to turn on her sides. All seemed to be in fit and fine condition.

As the sun slowly broke into her bedroom, her thoughts became brighter. She began to see this situation as no ordinary weekend laziness. Goldy Kaur knew, with certainty, she had to stay in bed for life. 

She telephoned Mumma Kaur to declare her major decision. To no one’s surprise, she was informed that this is the fate of young women who postpone marriage indefinitely. The next number she rang was of Faizi Life Services. They were instructed to break the door to enter. As she lay in bed, they worked quickly and thoroughly. Various tubes, mechanical arms, levers and buttons were affixed to Goldy’s body and her bed.  A hydraulic machine replaced her bed stand and two broad straps were slid under her back. Team Faizi handed her a laminated paper, from which she was to read twice, slowly and in perfect diction: 

“The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap,

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge 

Through living roots awaken in my head. 

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.” 

On the screen of the Faizi Ergo Cylinder Computer, the blue waves excitedly sucked in each syllable and modulation as Goldy read out the words. 

Team Faizi proudly informed that she could now do everything with her voice. So when she said lift, the magnet on the ceiling came alive and willed the straps towards it. When she said up, she was lifted up and when she said wash, she was sponged clean and when she said dry, she was wiped dry. When she said down, she was gently put back down on her bed. When she said open, the front door would open and when she said shut, the same. It was a kind of telekinesis. 

For sustenance, a pipe would dispense concentrated nutri-squares and dissolvable capsules of water, while other tubes helped with excretion and safe disposal. The Faizi Ergo Cylinder Computer was already in touch with her favourite cloud kitchens and other utility service providers. There is no solution to life’s problems, Goldy thought as Team Faizi departed and she at last had privacy to pee. There really is no solution. There is only belief. A faith that the problems will somehow be resolved. And so, all necessary functions of living were fulfilled by Goldy just simply willing it with her voice. 

She informed her boss that something terrible had happened. She had become immobile. The doctors were not sure what it was. And since she couldn’t move, she offered two reasonable solutions: (1) the office pay for her transport, including a van and people who will put her on a stretcher to deliver her from home to office and back, or (2) she work from her bed. As the boss struggled with this new reality, Goldy added that they would have to augment her employee health insurance. 

Well, this is absolutely tragic, Goldy. I can’t possibly do without you. The Becto clients love you. Tell you what, you can work from where you are. I’ll speak to the department about increasing your coverage, but you also know how hard it is to get a penny out of them. You’ll be available for all meetings and Becto calls, won’t you? Thank you, Goldy, thank you, uhm, get well soonest. 

Goldy Kaur stood up on the bed and stretched. Right arm akimbo, she dipped across her left to tense her lats. When she bent to touch her toes, a slow smile played on her lips. Her life had changed so much, and it was not even Saturday afternoon. 

She sent a text message to “Bobby Boy”, as he was saved on her mobile phone, cancelling their dinner date for that evening. When Bobby expressed disappointment, Goldy informed him of her decision to stay in bed forever. 

Bobby rushed to her home with ‘Why?’ scrawled all over his face. The weight of that ‘Why?’ furrowed his brows and pursed his mouth into a thin line. His tall, thin frame made him look like a floor lamp. To Goldy, the sun hat he wore could very well have been a lampshade. 

What happened? / Nothing. 

What about work? / It’s taken care of. 

What about your mother? / It’s up to her. 

Do you need to see a doctor? / No. 

Will you be like this forever? / Nothing is forever. 

Do you want to leave me? / If you want to leave. 

I don’t understand what’s happening. / I think I understand a little. 

What about me? / What about you? 

Is this how it’s going to be? / It is how it is now.  

How will you change your bedsheet? / I hadn’t thought about that. 

Did I do something? / You have only been good. 

How will you eat, cook, clean? / Just look at that computer. 

Please tell me why. / You can see for yourself. 

What should I do? / It’s up to you.

 I don’t understand. / I don’t know what else to say.

Should I accept this as it is? / Will you accept me as I am? 

Yes. / Yes. 

Bobby placed the new bed sheet, carefully maneuvering around Goldy lying in bed. Four strong pulls and stiff tucks into the corners, the bed was made. He tossed the soiled bed sheet for wash and vacuum-cleaned the entire house. From the balcony, he brought out a folding cot, placed it beside Goldy’s bed and lay in it. They both turned to face each other and spoke not a word. Bobby looked away first and stared at the ceiling. He resisted accepting that he would have to take it as it comes. 

Bobby left, but returned later wearing respectable clothes. There was no reason, he thought, why the dinner date could not take place in Goldy’s bedroom. At the door, he held a bouquet of yellow, white and blue flowers in the crook of his arm. 

The door parted at Goldy’s command. At the sight of her naked, Bobby fumbled the bouquet. She stood tall on her bed and asked him to dress her. Get my bandeau gown please. He fetched it from the closet and placed it on her bed, unsure of what to do next. 

She pointed to the bouquet, which Bobby retrieved. Goldy held it as if it were a baby koala. She smelled the flowers and rubbed her cheeks in the bloom. She pulled a blue flower and fastened it at the centre of her dark coif of hair. For Bobby, the flower dangled on her forehead like a baleful third eye. Goldy’s feet moved, drawing a square across the bed. She cradled the bouquet with tenderness and danced slowly and slowly and slowly into a waltz without music. And then to a startled and dumbstruck Bobby, she offered the bouquet in the most humble and surrendering gesture. She grabbed his hands as he reached for it and pulled him up to the bed. Dance, my Bobby, dance.

He held the bouquet like it was an unwanted child. He looked into Goldy’s eyes. He could not recognise her, this frightful Goldy. There is no need to be afraid. Dance, Bobby, dance. And she slipped her fingers through his and held the small of his back and the bouquet of yellow, white and blue crushed between her bare breasts and his linen chest. She hummed in his ears a sweet tune and waltzed with him across the universe of her bed. There is no one here but me, Bobby. Dance with me. 

He could not recognise this Goldy, but he wanted to try. So he led her in a dance. They waltzed across one edge of the bed, then to another, and at the centre, they swirled. There was no music but for Goldy’s low hums, the hot exhale from her nostril on his chin. 

Bobby was sweating, he was flushed and aroused. Goldy quickened the humming. The room started to spin, the bed only still point. The music from her throat peeled into circles that grew bigger and bigger until they crashed onto the walls of the room. The floor seemed to tilt, the walls on the verge of collapsing. When Goldy kissed Bobby on the lips, the humming from her throat choked him. His eyes opened wide and sunk deep, trying suck even the atmosphere into the sockets. Now Bobby knew that unknowable dark thing within him. I see it. 

Goldy, I see it but I do not wish to know it. Will you dress me, Bobby, please? I cannot help you. My bandeau gown, please. Not a single item was amiss or out of place in the room. But Bobby came to his senses as if in the chaos of a disaster zone. He tore away from her and fell to the floor. 

What happened? We danced, Bobby. I am sorry, Goldy, and your bed is unmade now. I will change the bedsheets again. 

The blue flower on her forehead, Goldy pulled it out slowly. Standing on the dishevelled bed, she splayed her legs just a little. Part of the stem disappeared while the rose-curls of her black pubic hair cast the blue flower into relief. She turned and stood in profile. The blue flower dangled on its half-stem and bowed. She cupped her breasts firmly and pushed her shoulders back. If I do this, Bobby, will I still be me? 

You look like a young boy. Slender and marvelous, no longer a child but not yet a man. An in-between, you stand before the unknowingness of your own heart. To the boy, I say: you must break your heart or it will break you, either one will happen, sometimes both simultaneously and it will keep happening. 

The breaking will unleash into your world light and darkly things. You have no sway over these forces. They will crash into you. There will be a dust storm swirling in your skull, uprooting all that you hold dear. You will wrestle with the light and dark for as long as there is breath in your lungs. It is you against your fellow men, it is you against the world. It is you against yourself. 

I confess now. I cannot accept you as you are, Goldy. I cannot love you because I am scared of you. I cannot say that I love you because I don’t know what I love, or why I love or what love is. You are a darkly dreaming thing. I want to leave now. 

Dress me, Bobby. My bandeau gown. No one else will dress me. I am naked. 

Open the door, Goldy. / Open. / Please open the door. / Open. Goldy, open the door! I want to leave! / Open. / Goldy. . . 

The blue waves on the Faizi Ergo Cylinder Computer made confused crests and troughs on the screen before delivering the message: “Voice not recognised”. 

The young boy delighted in the smell of her unmade bed. It reminded him of being snug in the pearly flesh of an oyster. The first ever full moon of the universe would appear that night. He would not miss it for the world. But he missed his aunt, who was darkly dreaming somewhere. 

Her bed levitated to the roof. It was daytime still and the sun was a hot yolk scorching the sky. The young boy’s mother had told him the sun must burn the sky to prepare the path for the ascent of the cool full moon. 

Crouching out of sight, underneath her bed, the vulture made a great shudder. It beat its large wings and shook the air. The young boy tumbled out of her bed. Your aunt seeks you. Find her. The vulture regurgitated a matchbox the size of the young boy. To give you more would be to make you less. 

Into the matchbox entered the young boy and found his whole world shaking. As the box slid out, he saw the face of his mother. She pulled a matchstick and struck it. The incense caught fire then burned in an even glow. He saw the garlanded photograph of his aunt, and heard the mumbling prayers of his mother. 

Inside the matchbox the young boy found his whole world shaking. As the box slid out, he saw the face of his father. He pulled a matchstick and struck it. The kindling caught fire then lit into a torch. He saw the pyre of his aunt crackle and swallow the fire, and heard the piercing wail of the mourners. 

Inside the matchbox the young boy found his whole world shaking. As the box slid out, he saw the face of his aunt. She pulled a matchstick and struck it. The air hissed and sizzled like a mirage and then burst into a big blue fire. He saw the kitchen catch fire, and heard not a shriek from her aunt licked by flames. 

Inside the matchbox the young boy found his whole world shaking. As the box slid out, he saw the eye of the vulture. It pulled a matchstick and struck it. The flaming match-head calmed into a circular red of the cheroot in the vulture’s beak. 

Look now, the moon has come, it is blue. The first full moon of the universe is blue. The vulture blew a ring of smoke that lifted the young boy from the matchbox into the cool of the night and the familiarity of her unmade bed. In the first full moon of the universe, the young boy saw her aunt in the night sky. 

She floated on her back as if she lay in bed, horizontal to the world and parallel to the forces of light below her and the forces of darkly things above. Each jostled to claim her. The young boy wept with fear and buried his face in the breast of the vulture. 

You cannot help her, boy. You can only help yourself. She is my sustenance. The great wings of the great scavenger beat again and it flew into the night sky and in its talons it brought back the body of the woman, the aunt of the young boy and with measured, darting motion of its clubbed beak, it chose to begin with the eyes. The blood and viscera of his aunt painted the bald head of the great bird and a ball of anger welled up in the young boy. He shrieked and beat the breast of the vulture. Now that is not proper table manners, young boy. He kicked its talons, he bludgeoned its beak, he punched its back and sunk his teeth into its neck but the great bird moved through the corpse with a ferocious focus. And when the great bird was finished, the young boy’s anger was already spent. His face became dumb and vacant. Your anger and struggle is with the living. That is your nature. As this is my nature. You know nothing and understand nothing. Look there, to the night sky, she is still there. Look at me and remember, I will feast on you too. Your only constant is that: the light below her and the dark above her and she in between. There is nothing to be fearful of. The only reality is the body, these bones. You must take care of your body for me. You must try to transcend. The light and dark, I leave to you. 

The young boy lunged at the great bird but could not land a blow for he was now in its talons, soaring across the night sky of the first full moon of the universe and now plummeting from the heavens, farther and farther away from the aunt fixed horizontally between light and dark and the earth became smaller and smaller as he thudded onto the yard of the gardener. 

Mend his heart, was the cry from the great bird. 

The gardener threw the unconscious young boy on her table. Her hand reached deep into the night sky and shattered the first full moon of the universe into a crescent. She grabbed the lower end of the crescent moon. The sickle moon. Through sheer force she plucked the sickle moon from the night sky. Like the arc of a falling star, the sickle moon traveled through the sky and hit the earth hard. On the torso of the young boy, with the sickle moon, she made furrows, deep, violent and straight. With her hand and the point of the sickle, the gardener made the gaps wider to glimpse into the heart. 

Yet again, her hand reached into the dark and puddled the night sky to dislodge the constellations. She grabbed a fistful of stars and sprinkled them onto the furrows of the young boy’s open chest. Her hand now glided over the field of tall grass and gathered the dew and she clapped her hands over the boy’s naked heart to water it. She scraped her thumb over the mountains to gather the minerals, which she applied along the furrows and with a long strand of her hair, sutured the chest of the young boy. The gardener flung the young boy towards the dark ocean behind her greenhouse. 

Half way between the floor and the ceiling, Goldy Kaur hovered. She felt the streak of crusted salt at the corners of her eyes. Her bed below was damp with all her weeping. 

Down. 

Faizi Ergo Cylinder Computer lowered her responsibly and gently laid her on the bed. She traced the moistness of the bedsheet with her open palms till she reached her unworn bandeau gown. 

She bunched the fabric of the gown. She had reached the end of the universe that was her bed. She had to decide if there was hope for her yet. A brutal and unwavering sadness hit her as she saw Bobby crouched near the balcony window. 

Can you give me some water? It only recognises your voice. Water. 

Bobby moved to the edge of her bed to collect the water capsules. He crushed them in his mouth and swallowed them. 

Let me put fresh linens. 

Hearing no response from Goldy, Bobby retreated to the corner of the balcony window. 

When I wanted to leave, your voice was different.

The glass of the balcony window shattered. Bobby recoiled in shock, but Goldy without looking followed the sounds. The crashing of the glass, the descending thud of the Cosco ball, losing height and sound as it bounced and bounced and then rolled and came to rest against the leg of her bed. The clamour of children began. The tiny voices of boys shouting “Sorry”, “Ball de do”, “Usko bhej”, and “Tu out hai”, which then scattered and finally fell quiet when Bobby went out to the balcony to tell them off. 

Goldy got up slowly. She stood on the bed and detached the pipes and slipped into her bandeau gown. At the edge of the bed, she stared at the floor for a while. One step, then two and her feet were on the floor. She left the bed and leapt back into her life. With one hand, she picked up the Cosco ball, with the other, she picked up the bouquet. 

Careful of the glass shards, she stepped onto the balcony and tossed the ball to the children, who cheered as the ball dropped to their playground. Goldy handed Bobby the bouquet. They are lovely. Let’s put them in the vase. As he went to do so, she watched the children play and noticed their squabbles and fights and laughter. An unsure Bobby returned to join her. 

You must be hungry, let’s eat.