This is the ninth in a series of ten microstories. These stories — vignettes, to be accurate — are set from dawn to midnight in an Indian metro. They follow different people in different settings over the course of a single ordinary day. Two of these stories have been published / accepted for publication in literary magazines. I’ll be publishing one piece per day over the next ten days.
***
At night he comes home, after a long day’s work. Dissatisfied. His wife always asks him, “What did you do today?”
“You wouldn’t understand. Is dinner ready?”
He doesn’t tell her, because he doesn’t understand what he did today.
Something. Whatever the told him. Whatever was slapped down on his desk before him. Whatever he’s been doing these last twenty years.
Tossing in bed, he wonders why, after a long day’s work, he still can’t sleep. He knows his wife lies awake beside him: awakened by his tossing. She won’t complain. That irritates him. He wishes she would: then he could shout at her. At her he could shout. That might make him feel better. Why does she never give him the chance?
Tossing in bed, he tries to remember what he wanted to be when he was a child.
Amita Basu 