The Dead Mother
- Part 1 -

By Dr. Konsam Suken Singh *

10th January, 10 AM,...(At present)

Tom – " Mom..I am late for work,..have your lunch in time.."

Mom – " Ok,.sure..but have you taken your tiffin !!"

Ton – " Yes, I have taken it...remember to take your medicines on time,..and yes..please do take a bit more care today when you walk into the bathroom and all to make sure that you don’t get slipped and fall down in the bathroom...I had a very unusual (bad) dream last night!"

Mom – " Don’t worry son,..its all up to HIM (Eeshwor),..just take it as a dream!"

Tom – " Ok,..bye..I am getting late !"

Mom – " Ok bye,..son !"

This is the daily trend at 10 AM at Ton’s home. Being all alone at home, only with his old mother who is 75 years old now, he use to do all the household chores...starting from making tea and breakfast to cooking meals, cleaning utensils, warming water by emersion rod heater for mother’s bath etc. In the night also, the same routine. Being the only son, his old mother has been pressurizing him to get married since a long time so that he needs not be lonely and also that they will have someone of their own to look after the home better, but luck has not been favouring him in some or other way all the time; may be his "dog’s day" has not arrived yet.

Worst of all, he can’t even get a good house maid to look after the home which he has been looking for since quite a long time and so Ton has been having a hard time balancing his professional life and house hold chores simultaneously. But what to do,.. he has to accept his fate (at least for the time being) and get adjusted to the situation. In fact, now it has become a kind of challenge for Ton to balance his profession and household chores as he doesn’t want his old mother to do even the smallest of the smallest household chores also because he feels very bad to see his old mother working.

On this matter, there use to be quarrels quite often between Ton and his mom because his mom thinks that Ton must be very much tired and exhausted maintaining the balance between his professional life and the household chores which he is supposed not to do so had he gotten a house helper or had he gotten married by now. So, she (the mother), though weak and old now, tries her best to do either this or that in the hope that her small gestures would at least be a small help to Ton, which usually lands up in chaos and hassles most of the time. For instance,... just few days back a similar incident of this sort happened.



Authors' Note:
" We often come across and read about many 'science fictions' which blends science with human beings and thereby reproducing an imaginable possibility to the human lives. This short story is not a science fiction in its real sense but a sort of something in that line - a 'spiritual fiction', which connects the Spirits of our Souls and our human lives. It is just an imaginary theme from the thoughts of the writer, nothing more than that."

To be continued...