He had never liked taking a tiffin box to the office. Digging out cold, tasteless food from a narrow box, to the accompaniment of hackneyed exchanges with the same colleagues. Ugh, it sucked! But whenever he approached his house, the dispirited mood he often carried would dispel, and a sense of pride and worth would ease his mind. It was a single-storey house, with a tiled roof that swooped to a low-beamed awning all along the front of the house. Distempered in ash and cream, the house looked pretty, a little like a toy house blown to life-size, but a solid house.

On the other side of the lane that ran ramrod in front, there was a dense wilderness of random tall trees and thickets. Thick and thin foliage sequenced haphazardly, patched tatters through which wisps of trudging clouds and bits of blue sky could be seen.  Numberless leaves hung, both green and sere, along with flowers in hues of yellow, red and blue and their shades. Some were bursting in bloom, flaunting colours in the sun, while others brightened the shade in dim glory.

Between the road and the trees were shallow pools of water, more puddles actually, at regular intervals. These were probably the result of the municipality intending to lay a drain, but had abandoned the effort after some desultory preliminary work. The puddles were always full of muddy water. Tadpoles darted blackly as little boys tried to cup them in their hands. Grey-green and thin hollow reeds stuck out, with large grey serrated leaves and small purple flowers.  These blobs of water were a nuisance because they bred mosquitoes that plagued the neighbourhood.

Roy turned his eyes away from the unruly wildness towards his house. Here was order, that soothed the eyes. A large expanse of lawn had been laid out in a carpet of grass, evenly cut and maintained zealously by Roy’s wife, a committed and meticulous gardener. Shrubs and small plants had settled comfortably in orderly beds and pots all around. In season, flowers and leaves of many species would border each other, strung out in rows of neighbourly amity and sweetness. Roy loved the garden as much as seeing the look of pride and pleasure on his wife’s face.

He sighed. How he wished such emotions in his wife extended beyond these beauties of nature! Not so much for him, but for the boy. He sighed again, more deeply. Yo-yo was his ten-year-old boy, and an explosive amalgam of pugnacity and violent aggression. Not a day passed but some fracas developed around the boy. Almost all the children in the neighbourhood bore weals or bruises as a result of rough encounters with their son. His schoolmates were not so lucky, and days were few when no teacher or parent complained to Roy or his wife about their rowdy and fist-happy son.   

No one bothered to find out who started the fights or what the provocation. The boy’s physical robustness, his sneering cockiness and the ferocity of his reactions ruled out any question of retaliatory responses that had flared justifiably due to provocation. Yo-yo always started it, must have started it, being the kind of boy he was. He was ever the prime mover in anything that led to skirmishes, fights and consequent injuries and damages. No one wiped the blood off his nose or ministered to his cuts and bruises. Nobody ever put an arm around his shoulders or uttered a word or sound of commiseration. He never had counsel, nor was it presumed he had any defence. His guilt was always fait accompli, his plea of innocence a farcical protest that fooled nobody.

It occurred to nobody that after some time, Yo-yo had stopped protesting his innocence and took all punishments and chastisements without any fuss. Nobody speculated why the boy no longer remonstrated against anything or anyone. None wondered why so many things blameworthy found their way to add to the boy’s burden of culpability. The unscrupulous exploited one they found to be a perfect scapegoat, a black cornucopia that could store all the blame poured into it. And he gathered all of it without demur, like one who, once wet in the rain, did not seek shelter and walked heedless into the downpour. And all the anger raged around him, unloading vituperation and malediction in ample measure, and revelling in the abject submission of the target.

The worst fights were played out at home. The one-sided fights with his mother, in which Yo-yo was always destined to be at the receiving end. But the cuffs and the slaps were not the most hurtful blows. Nor the violent pushes or the shoulder wrenches that sent the boy reeling back. But that vindictive rage that wanted to hurt, humiliate and punish. An anger that reeked of frustration, and a mad desire to break the spirit by assault, denial of food and incarceration in the dark basement. It was frightening how harshness had crushed all maternal instincts, and contempt had replaced a mother’s pride.

Roy shook his head from side to side in anguish. How had such things gone so horribly wrong?  His own passiveness had grown so blameworthy that moments of self-revulsion ate into his sense of self-worth. A feeling of maudlin remorse hit him now and then, and left him miserable and despairing. He had no idea what had made his wife so wicked against her son, and why every vestige of gentleness and understanding deserted her when she dealt with Yo-yo. At times, she dealt with him so emotionlessly, he felt a dread in him rising as if to choke or make him fall into a dead faint. It was then he felt a chill sensation that, in those moments, Roma stepped out of herself and became someone else. The woman whom he loved and shared his life in every intimate way possible lived a different life inside her. 

He knew his own nature and conduct had a hand in making this person. His weak remonstrance and silent refusal to side with his wife when she lammed into Yo-yo in both mind and body pleased neither mother nor son. His averted eyes, as Yo-yo walked away with a set face and stony silence to carry out his punishment, infuriated Roma to such contemptuous stares his shoulders seethed with the sting of humiliation. But when the boy walked away without a glance at him, he felt desperately inadequate. How terrible it was to fail in human relations by doing nothing and letting things take their deadly course. Sadly, he knew that he would continue doing just that for the rest of his life. There was a perversity in him that mountains would not shake. He was doomed.

Roy shook his head violently, some sudden instinct making him do so more fiercely, as if wrenching his head would rid him of the keen, restless despair that gripped him whenever he thought of the mother-son feud. He shifted the case to his other hand as he approached the wrought iron gate in the picket fence. The fence had wooden pales running around all sides of the garden. He slipped the iron loop over the gate post and went down the small path of beaten earth that led to the steps to the doorway.

It was then he noticed the wind, a little breeze really. But it blew with such intensity that it caught his eyes. It seemed to whirl around the lawn, raising a lot of leaves, twigs and dust that had been lying in slumber. All of these were being severely buffeted, and then he saw a peculiar thing in the grass. Green blades were swaying oddly, some bending one way and some the other. As if the small whirlwind (surely it was that!) was blowing in gusts in different directions within itself. Small bushes and saplings cowered, as if from something repelling that raged around them. What was even more odd was that the wind was drawing back from the fencing as if rebounding off it! Not that Roy could see anything tangible, but his mind and body sensed the doings of the breeze in such a way that his eyes could conjure its machinations in reality. 

Now, a little whirl of air hit him about the ankles, and Roy reared back, startled! Hot air had raked him across his shins, making him cry out at the stinging pain.  Surprised anger was roused in him, and he glared with rage at the strange and unprovoked assault. He drew his trousers up to see, but there was nothing. The breeze had left him, but he felt its small fierceness approaching the door. A panic seized him, and he ran up the steps to the wide, sturdy door he had had specially built, the locality being quite vacant at that time. He sensed the wind pressing against the door as he rang the bell. Normally, he would hear faint sounds of the approaching footsteps of his wife. On days she was annoyed at something or someone, she would answer only on his second, or even occasionally, his third ring. He pressed the bell button for the fourth time, and as he did so, he felt the air around him gather into a small tightness.

The door opened suddenly with a crash, and Roy lost his balance and went stumbling inside. ‘What the ……….Ooof!’ Roy heard his wife cry out in agony. He was pushed roughly against her, and both went sprawling on the rug just inside the doorway. Something whooshed over them, shoving at them, flattening them and stiffening them like corpses on the floor. In seconds, it was gone, and the hallway resumed its ordinary silence. ‘What made you push the door open so hard?’ raged Roma, sitting up stiffly with a hand to her bleeding nose.  ‘Look what you’ve done!’ There was a sharp cut on the bridge of her nose, doubtless caused by the edge of the door, from which blood was welling. But Roy had no thought for the wound.

‘Did you see it?’ he exclaimed, still dazed by what had just happened, ‘I mean, did you feel that?’ His wife glared at him, ‘What I saw was you pushing that door open so hard you have hurt me very badly on my nose. Are you mad? What possessed you to shove so hard when I was opening the door anyway?’ She dabbed her nose with the edge of her dress she wore, and stared unbelievingly at the red smudges that looked nasty against the white of the cloth. In the heat of her anger, Roy forgot his bewilderment.  ‘I didn’t push open the door. It was that stupid wind trying to get in. Didn’t you see it? Didn’t you feel it? It went so hard over us!’

‘What are you talking about? You just fell over me and knocked the breath out of me, and almost suffocated me. And you are blaming it on a wind! You were clumsy and rash, that’s all. Now I cannot go out for days, thanks to this horrible scar on my face! I am going to clean up. You heat and eat your lunch by yourself!’ Roy felt the rude dismissal and looked disconsolately at his retreating wife. The nose did look a mess, and was bound to take some time to heal. He felt like doing something to make amends. ‘Shall I put some antiseptic and clean it up? I have a band-aid with me, that you can put for the time being.’ Roma looked back with rancour in her eyes. ‘Forget it. You will only make it worse, and it’s already a mess! You go and get your food and get back to your office.’ Roy sensed her anger, as yet green.  But hurt and anger rankled in him, too, as he walked into the dining hall. It was not his fault that he had yelled at his wife. It was that damned breeze that had knocked back the door so hard! That wind! Where did it go? It had certainly entered his house, as if it were eager to come in! Eager? No. It had been desperate to get in. For what? And where was it now?

The house was still, almost unnaturally so. The windows of the dining room at the back of the house were open, and the half-drawn curtains motionless. The door that opened to the stairs down to the basement was ajar.  He looked down, but the darkness that deepened along the steps looked empty of any secrets. This door was to the right of the hallway that led to the front door, and the hallway itself opened into the spacious living room cum dining hall. There was a rear door opening to a small back garden. Roy peered out of the windows. Nothing stirred. Washcloths, towels, underclothes, dish rags hung slackly on a nylon clothes-line strung across one corner of the garden on two bamboo posts.

The back garden receded to a general wildness, indeterminate in its limits. Immediately beyond the garden lay the usual detritus of broken cane chairs, soda bottles, tin cans, and all kinds of plastic, wire, rubber and wooden things and pieces. All lay in scattered disarray and looked as if they had lain there unmoved for ages. Roy hurried back to the front door and opened it with some trepidation. Everything was just as it always was, and the garden was still and quiet. The sky was vastly unclouded, and everything beyond the street looked hot and sunny. Yet there was unquiet in Roy’s mind that invested itself in whatever he looked at. The troublesome wind seemed to have gone, but it lingered in his mind. He still felt that bruising nudge, the force of its aggression. Now it had become unreal, as if his imagination had conjured a mischievous figment to invade his mind and rock his world a little. Had he hallucinated? But he had felt that momentary grazing agony in his leg, and that was certainly real! Yet there was no mark on him, nor any aftermath itch or ache. It was like an angry outburst, as if the wind was letting off steam, being bugged real bad by something. Or someone?

As his eyes roved, he suddenly spotted Yo-yo sitting under the big neem tree on the adjacent vacant lot. The boy sat with legs crossed and eyes downcast. Roy ran to the fence, kicking mud from newly dug furrows. ‘What are you doing there?’ he shouted at his son. Yo-yo didn’t raise his eyes and said, ‘Mama has told me to stay out of the house and compound.’ Roy was aghast. This had never happened before. ‘How long have you been sitting there?’ The boy looked up stolid and listless. ‘Since I came back from school.’ Roy knew his son’s school must have given over more than two hours ago, since it was a Saturday. So Yo-yo had been sitting there that long in the hot sun! He saw fresh bruises on his son’s arms and face, which made him turn away in angry despair.  ‘Come on inside, right away,’ he said quietly. As the boy made his way towards the gate, Roy noticed how woodenly his son walked.  A pain tightened his chest and clogged his throat, and he made as if to clasp his son tightly as he entered the gate. But the boy shrank away and walked quickly up the steps into the house. By the time Roy got inside, the boy had disappeared into his room, which stood across their bedroom.

The house was still as before, but he heard a faint buzzing sound like what a swarm of bees would make. Something was disturbing about the sound, and Roy stood still trying to figure out where it was coming from. But as soon as he hurried down the hallway, the sound ceased abruptly as if he had shut a door on it. He headed towards his son’s room, but barely had he taken a few steps, when he remembered he hadn’t had his lunch yet. He looked at his watch and found that unless he hurried, he would be late getting back to work. He found a platter of rice and a lidded bowl on the kitchen counter. He slid the bowl cover over gingerly and grimaced. It was a messy mash of pumpkin curry, a clear sign that he was out of favour for the day. He knew it had something to do with Yo-yo’s exile. How bad had the encounter between mother and son been?  The question started preying on his mind, and he felt restless.

Roy took some of the pumpkin mush and rice on a plate and shoved it into the micro-oven. The dull hum of the oven and the plate turning slowly inside made him impatient as he waited for the timer to sound. He squeezed a dash of pickle on top of the curry, dug a fork into it and carried the plate to the dining table. After swallowing a few spoonfuls, he consigned the rest of the soggy mishmash to the garbage can. That’s when he remembered that Yo-yo was out in that lot since morning, and most likely hadn’t had anything to eat. He opened the fridge door and took out a bar of chocolate from a side shelf. He extracted an apple and a banana from a fruit basket and headed towards his son’s room. Just as he stopped in front of the door, he heard the sound again. This time it was a kind of groaning hum, with a trailing touch of sibilance. The noise was at once faint and yet stridently intrusive. As if occurring right there, and yet sounding as though it was coming from a distance. What was disconcerting was that it seemed to be raging, straining against something. Or looking for someone or something to feed its rage? He felt the absurdity of his thoughts, but could not shrug off his unease.

For a moment, Roy stood still with head cocked to one side. The sound was now breaking up, getting distorted, then suddenly flaring up in whining fury. Then Roy went cold, as for the first time the sound seemed to locate itself. His eyes marched to the doorway of their bedroom, fright slowly glazing them. His feet followed his eyes, and he paused at the door. The noise was muted, teasing. Unseen, but beckoning. He opened the door, and went deaf immediately. He could hear nothing, just like when all sounds disappear when the aircraft reaches a certain height. His wife stood near the dressing table at the far end, head turned inquiringly. But Roy had no eyes for his wife. His ears were experiencing complete silence. To cap his confusion, everything inside the bedroom was still and in perfect order. Nothing creased, nothing wrinkled, nothing broken or in disorder. Slowly, sounds started to return to his ears.          

‘How come you haven’t gone back to the office as yet?’ Roma’s voice sounded briskly annoyed. She had been doing some make-up. Doubtless, she had called friends over for the afternoon. Roy was now kindled, and sharp words came surging into his mind. Had she not thrown out a starving boy into the sun? Her own son?  Hadn’t she left him a soggy and tasteless lunch for the third day in a row? Hadn’t she heard the wind that was making seething sounds in their house, and been responsible for their front door disaster? His mind fixed upon the boy, and in more gumption than anger, he rebuked, ‘For God’s sake, why did you send him outdoors in the sun? The boy hasn’t had anything to eat since morning. Do something about it!’  All that he said proved deadly, as his wife reared up like a snake and came flashing at him. She snatched at the plate he was still holding for Yo-yo, and the contents slid to the floor.

‘Your son is not a boy. Your son is not a child. He’s a bane! We should never have had him. And you want to feed a thing like that?’ She took a tray from the side table and began to gather the fallen things with stiff motions. Roy made as if to help, but she pushed him away mutinously. Roy felt cold and sick as he watched her clean up, mechanically wiping off remnants of chocolate from the floor with a hand towel. She had never used such words before, and what made him panic was the way she said it. Not in rage, but in a kind of conviction that big mistakes had been made, and had to be corrected. He swallowed and asked fearfully ‘What did he do?  What can he have done to make you so mad?’ Roma looked at him with such contempt and loathing that he drew back aghast. What had Yo-yo done to rile her so much against him?

Suddenly, her face changed to a new concentration, and she cocked her head to one side. ‘Shhh…….Can you hear it?’  Roy was momentarily disconcerted, and even as he began to comprehend his wife’s words, she cupped a hand to her ear and said, ‘Can’t you hear a buzzing noise. Where is it coming from?’’ She ran to the bedroom window, pulling aside the curtains and peering outside. Roy followed nonplussed, but relieved that she had forgotten Yo-yo for the moment. Then he froze. Of course it was the wind! The same one he had been hearing all along since he had come back from the office. But why couldn’t he hear it, too? Whatever it was, this breeze was certainly capricious in more ways than one. He became abruptly aware that his wife had run out of the room, and he could hear her moving noisily about the dining hall. Roy returned to the dining room and found his wife straining her ears against the window. But he had already looked outside the window and found no sign of that wayward gust. Suddenly, he heard the wind, as if his ears had just recovered their use after a complete shutdown. It sounded plaintive now, yet dissembling. He felt it was luring to snare, and then it would show its true colours. Maybe that livid streak, which had been so evident when he had entered through the gate. Why was he thinking of the wind as a visual thing? Now it seemed to be coming from his son’s room, and he ran towards it in growing fear. His wife followed close behind, and they both crashed into the room with both wings of the door banging like firecrackers.

There was no one in the room, and nothing moved. But outside the window that overlooked a vacant lot, something whirred angrily. As they stood at the window, two bursts of fierce air came funnelling, tunnelling at them in two huge eyes of blasting ire. It swept past them and out of the room, and they heard it batter against walls, tables, chairs, and ravish the curtains. They stood in stunned silence, not daring to go out of the door. Yo-yo appeared at the doorway, looking bemused. ‘What are you doing in my room?’ They looked blankly at him, as if he shouldn’t have been there. They could not even ask where he had been. In their first blinks of understanding, it dawned on them that the wind had subsided utterly. The wind was surely playing truant, hiding somewhere in pent quietness. Where was it hiding? What did it want? Questions came and went in Roy’s heated mind. Roma settled to a stony look at her son.

‘Did you see it? I mean, hear it?’ Roy waited painfully for an answer. The boy looked bewildered, his face losing its usual impassivity. ‘I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear anything. Don’t know what you are talking about.’ Yo-yo seemed quite indifferent to the agitation he saw in his parents. He walked into his room as they walked out of it, and closed the door. Roy headed straight to the fridge for a glass of cold water. He felt overwhelmed by the recent events in his house, and wasn’t quite ready to think them out to some conclusions. He saw his wife disappear into their bedroom and close the door. She had heard what Yo-Yo had said, that he had seen nothing. Doubtless, she must have figured by now some explanation for what they had seen that ironed out all its strangeness. He sighed and downed the water in great gulps, bumping the glass on the table. Hard on that came the dismay that he had become very late for the office. He forgot the wind, forgot his wife’s bloody nose and his son’s hunger. He hurried out of the front door, throwing furtive glances sideways. No wind. Everything was hot and still but seemed kind of waiting, and that was a little upsetting. But he had no time for that as he hurried back to his office, nothing on his mind now but the fear of his boss finding out that he was late.   

Roy entered his office with hurrying feet, his eyes immediately seeking out the chamber he shared with his friend and colleague. Sorry. Sorry was so named because he was always apologetic, with a sheepish smile on his face. His friends and acquaintances made fun of this behind his back, and many retained images of him as only that which defined his identity. A few saw beyond, to a wise and sensitive man whose goodness flared out of him like a beacon. Roy was one of them, and looked upon Sorry not just as a friend but as a mentor. His friend looked up when he entered the room. ‘I told Dour (their name for the Boss) you had gone to the Accounts office for some query on a bill. Concoct something on that now. He’s thorny and wants to pierce right now. Proboscis lividity. He’s like an angry wind.’ Roy started. Yes, that’s what it was, the thing that had come to his house! An angry wind. But why did it come unbidden to him that it now lived in his house? Winds don’t live inside homes. They are outside things, and spend themselves out there. They are born of climatic conditions, not out of senseless fury.

‘Sorry, you said the Boss was like an angry wind. Why did you say that?’ Roy was not really asking Sorry a question, he was mulling over it himself. He looked up to see his friend looking questioningly at him. ‘What’s up, Roy? Anything bugging you?  Something happened at home? It’s Yo-yo, isn’t it? Want to tell me about it? ’Roy replied, ‘Those are a lot of questions, Sorry.’ But he needed to unburden himself badly. The wind had rattled him. And what Roma had said about Yo-yo had made him think more and more restlessly about what was happening to his family. He decided to talk about the wind.

‘This afternoon, when I was going home, I was attacked by a wind, an angry wind if you like. Don’t look so sceptical! This thing, whatever it was, bruised me and yet left me unmarked. It knocked my front door open, and the door hit Roma and left her with a bloody nose. It simply barged in. At first, I thought it went out by the dining room window. But I now think I am wrong.’   Sorry looked upon his friend with concern and laid a hand on his shoulder. Roy looked gratefully at him. Sorry always understood and believed unconditionally.

‘The wind hasn’t gone, Sorry. I feel it is playing hide and seek with us, preying on us. It wants something, and I know it intends to mess around with us till we give it up.’ Roy looked stricken with gloomy foreboding. Sorry, realised he had to ask questions. ‘Who else saw this wind? I mean, heard it? Or was it just you?’ Roy perked up a little, which was what Sorry wanted. ‘Roma heard it too, and we both saw it, really saw it! But I can’t describe what kind of seeing that was, but two tubes of fiery wind barreled down on us as we looked out of Yo-yo’s window. But I’m sure Roma will now make little of it and dismiss it as some freak stuff that never really happened. You don’t think I imagined it too, do you?’ Roy looked as if he wished with all his might that it was that. ‘Did Yo-yo see it?’ The question disconcerted Roy for some reason. He looked at Sorry and replied. ‘He didn’t. That’s what he said, though he was right there. That’s what is nagging me. He was there. We saw him outside the door after it happened, and the wind was making a real racket outside his room. How could he not have seen it, or at least heard it? We both saw it, heard it. ’    

Sorry went out of the room and returned with a glass of water. ‘Drink it all.’ Roy drank obediently and stiffened his shoulders. Sorry liked that, and was ready with his next question. ‘Why do you feel the wind is still there in your house? It could have been a chance combination of some freakish natural things that got you in a flutter and jacked up your imagination. And now everything is back to boring normal.’ Roy looked mutinously at his friend, certain and doubtful at the same time. ‘The wind is there, Sorry. Could have left for a little while, but I have a gut feeling it’s going to come back. Nature doesn’t fool around so consistently. It’s playing for something real.’

‘Why did the boy not see it? Or is he lying? Perhaps he is keeping the nasty wind’s secret.’ Roy was startled. How could Sorry say that! He was suggesting the child was complicit. Did Sorry also feel the turbulent air was bad, and shot with malice?  He looked up to see Sorry looming over him with unseeing eyes. ‘Winds can be harnessed to work for man. No need to give any example. We also compress air that really heats it up, and use its fierce energy for our purposes. The wind can be anybody’s slave if you can master it, manage it.’ He looked remotely at Roy. ‘But if it has been infected by malevolence, it can cut loose and look for mischief.’

Something was frightening about Sorry now, which struck Roy as something frightened in Sorry himself. ‘Are you suggesting that my boy is trying to control some infernal breeze to make it do something he wants? And he is able to summon or dismiss it when he wants?’ Roy looked tensely, uncertainly at his best friend’s face. He had not seen this sombre and portentous side before.

‘I am not suggesting or implying that your boy is mixed up in this. Why do you make things so personal? It hasn’t got that far yet. We need to see and understand what’s happening objectively. But we seem to be doing quite the opposite. It is this wind that is trying to put fear into you. Wants to control you, perhaps, and get you to do something. Or maybe it is mimicking you!’ Roy looked at his friend in alarm. Was his friend trying to make fun of him? But Sorry looked so serious that he felt a sense of looming crisis. ‘What makes you say that?’ he asked in panic. ‘Are you trying to frighten me? What you are saying sounds pretty wild to me!’ But Sorry had become remote now, following a thought process that had divested itself from Roy’s present distress. ‘Nature has an art that she plies among her creations. She also has an agenda that is conceived, nurtured and executed through the machinations of its brood. She assumes control, manipulates in ways that are beyond the understanding of her most insensitive creature-Man. And she executes, in ways unknown to Man, the consequences of his acts. She administers poetic justice, Roy,’ Sorry sighed. His thoughts always formed a chain and led to sombre territories that mocked human understanding.

‘You know something, Roy. We have always been imitating nature in our art and culture. Probably the most prolific source of idioms and phrases is nature. Perhaps our dreams, too, are renditions of nature, in both their serene and terrible manifestations. They are nebulous and strange forms that our hopes, desires and fears have created beyond our consciousness. Maybe nature too imitates man in his moods, his dispositions, even his conduct. After all, he is her grand creation and is held worthy of emulation. Maybe nature cracks the whip when man goes too far in depravity and depredation. We are already seeing that happen.’ Roy looked hazily at his friend, who had gone off in his wandering cogitations.  He was also irked by his reflections.

‘Cheer up, Roy. You know me and my useless mind. Sometimes I can’t rein it in. Tell you what. I’ll come down tomorrow early to your house, and we will look out for that frolicking air together. See if we can persuade it to peddle its pranks elsewhere.’ Roy relaxed a little, but he was still uneasy over Sorry’s rambling remarks. Then suddenly the whole thing felt completely unreal! Roma certainly didn’t think much of it, and she, too, had seen that thing coming at them in Yo-Yo’s room. It undoubtedly had a fiery, orange blistering heat concentrated in what had seemed streams of flame that had shot by them. But there had been nothing substantial there, nothing his eyes and mind had gotten hold of and retained as images that could be relied upon in remembrance. Nothing the senses had even imperfectly captured, except a recurrent vivid feeling about it. And Yo-yo had not seen it at all! Had he hallucinated, inexplicably conjured a small sirocco and played it in his mind to rustle up an inflamed imagination?

That was the rub! He hadn’t had booze, hadn’t snorted, hadn’t overworked, and wasn’t having deliriums. No current distress was preying intensely on his mind, and his glasses weren’t playing any tricks. And he certainly wasn’t mentally unstable. So the wind was there! It had bruised him, buzzed him, played light and sound tricks with him, and he had indeed glimpsed its blistering face! If Roma wanted to believe there was nothing to it, let her. But why hadn’t Yo-yo seen it? Sorry had a point there, no matter how unfeelingly insinuating he had been. He had to ask his son once again where he had been at that time.

Sorry kept away from him for the rest of the day. The wind thing had created a little coolness that could only be dispelled on the morrow. At one point, Roy had been seized by a dreadful thought. Suppose that mini typhoon had come back when he wasn’t there? He almost got up to hurry home, but Dour came looking for him, and that was that.

As he was wrapping up work, he felt Sorry stop by his table. He looked up to find his friend looking at him. ‘I have something to tell you. Didn’t tell you earlier. Didn’t want to upset you, because you were already bad with this wind business. Heard of it in the canteen while you were away at lunch. The Principal’s son is in the hospital with a broken arm and multiple bruises. Looks like he had a fight with your son at school. And, of course, everybody thinks Yo-yo is at fault. The Principal’s wife phoned your wife, and I heard things got pretty hot between them. The Principal is a calm man, but I heard he came here to meet you. Went back when he found you weren’t here. No, don’t go to the hospital now. The boy’s better now, but things will be raw. We will go together tomorrow morning, and to their house as well. Go back and get a good night’s sleep, and we will field all questions tomorrow.’ 

So that was what had put Yo-yo in Roma’s fury cage! Roy felt things were coming to a head between his wife and son. He felt such dread that his shoulders slumped, and a tight pain now sat on his forehead. His little family was breaking apart, and all three members were remorselessly making that happen. By simply doing their own thing and letting everything else go.

He left office, but did not go straight home. There was a confectionery near his office, and he made his way there. He bought a brownie and a burger with lots of cheese for his son. He hesitated, then bought a roll for his wife. The kind she liked.  He didn’t get anything for himself. He decided he would not eat tonight even if his wife had made him something nice, which, given the circumstances, was unlikely. He did not feel in any hurry to reach home. If the waggish wind was being mischievous at home, let it do its worst.  But his carefree outlook did not last long. As soon as he approached the gate, he looked nervously at his surroundings. It was already dark, and if that malicious hot air could unsettle him so badly in the day, what could it not do in the night!  Nothing was unsettling, however. Nothing sinister did he hear or see, as he stood at the door and rang the bell.     

Roma opened the door on the second ring, and hardly had he entered, she was already disappearing down the hallway- a clear sign of a bad mood and no inclination to talk to him at all. Roy went into the dining room and put his wife’s roll on a fridge shelf so she would see it when she opened the fridge. He heated the burger in the microwave and added the muffin to the plate. As he ferretted in the fridge for a cold drink bottle, he heard a noise. A sort of whining, whimpering sound that seemed to come from the hallway. There was nothing of a temper in that sound; instead, there was a note of fear and hopelessness. It trailed away to a gurgling sigh that unnerved him no end. He was dreadfully sure now that there was something unearthly in his house, and for all its present plaintiveness, it was up to no good.

Roy went stealthily towards the passage and stopped at the door leading to the basement. Was it in the basement? The basement door was closed. Roy quietly turned the knob, but the door was locked. Why had Roma locked the basement door? Maybe she had taken some precautions, considering what had happened earlier. But the sound had appeared to come from the basement. So was that peevish, blustery wind skulking there? Was it whining because it was trapped inside, in which case it was good. Suddenly, he felt a gladness and pride that his wife had been resourceful enough to close the door. The rascally burst of air was imprisoned good and proper, if it was there. Good, he had bought that roll for his wife. It could now be more than a reconciliatory offering-a celebratory one.

He felt a terrible urge to look into the basement, to confront that nuisance. Again, he was struck by the absurdity of it all! Had he deluded himself to such an extent that he had actually conceptualised and materialised a spirit?  And given it the form of a capricious wind that had turned malicious, and was harassing him in his own house? He began to feel foolish, but not for long. The wind came strongly back into his mind, and this time, he sensed something was stirring deeply inside his house, getting ready to do something unspeakable. What was happening to him, or why was he happening to his family in such a weird way?

He shook his head violently and rubbed his hands vigorously together. Sorry would come in the morning anyway. They would both open the basement door and deal with whatever was confined there, if anything at all. Abruptly, he felt tired and wanted to go to bed. He had had enough of this supernatural business for the day. He picked up the plate from the table and headed towards Yo-yo’s room. He was about to nudge the door open when he sensed someone at his back. He whirled around to find his wife’s set face glowering at him. She snatched the plate from him and pulled him away from the door.  ‘What are you doing?’ he whispered in the dark. Roma snapped a switch on. He blinked in the sudden blaze of light, then drew back sharply, seeing his wife’s blanched face. She pulled, half-dragged him to their room and slammed the door shut.

‘If you feed that boy tonight, I will leave you for good. Do you know what he did to Ronny today? He nearly killed him! That boy may not live.’ Roy felt cold fright surge into him, weakening his legs. He sat down with a bump on the bed. His words trembled, ‘But Sorry told me… he was doing fine. Just….a broken arm and…..bruises.’ She looked back defiantly, eyes flaming to an unnatural glow. ‘So I am lying, and that…that creature is telling the truth. Is it?’ Roy was aghast, sickened by the venom in her face. ‘I went to the hospital, Roy. He was in the ICU, and his Mom looked at me and drew away as if I were a serpent. As if….as if I was the one who had hit her boy, and left him for dead. Like mother, like son. And he had the nerve to tell me he didn’t do it. That it was the work of a bunch of boys who had been laying for that boy who snitched all the time. The Principal’s mole in his own family! And with all those bruises on his knuckles, he expected me to believe him! He is at it all the time, and will not stop till we are face down and spat upon.’

Roy fetched water for his wife mechanically. His mind had numbed in despair. She swallowed in between gasps, refusing to shut down her turmoil. And in a paroxysm of that fusion of rage and anguish, she threw her child out of her. ‘The school is going to expel that boy, I know. He can’t be with us any more. He is already a menace to folks around here, no matter how few they are in this God forsaken neighbourhood.’ Roy’s heart started to thud as he looked at his desperate wife. He struggled to get out words. ‘What do you mean? He has to stay, and will stay with us as long as he wants to. Besides, he hasn’t done anything as bad as you are making out. So why should we even talk of sending him away? You must not talk this way. You cannot, you must not!’ He felt overwhelmed and sat down with fevered, incoherent thoughts tussling in his mind. But Roma had made up her mind darkly. Though Roy did not know it, she had done so some hours ago. Now she stared at him with inveterate purpose.

‘He can’t go to a boarding school because no school will have him for long. None of my kin, or yours, will take him in. They all have heard about what he is, and what he can be.’ Roma kept shaking her head from side to side, shedding options like cards discarded in a poker hand. Her clenched hands and stiffened neck signalled a suppressed fury, deadly because of its containment. Roy shivered and waited for a blow that would wound him beyond repair.

‘He must go from here and live elsewhere. Sheila once mentioned a correctional home in Green City, not far from here. They keep people well, and it’s a good rehab centre.’ Roy retracted in shock and seized Roma by both her shoulders. She wrenched away and looked stonily at the wall. He struggled to speak. ‘What are you saying? Correctional homes are for juvenile delinquents, for criminals. Rehabs are for junkies. They help and counsel mentally upset people who are victims of this wicked world. Our son doesn’t need rehab. He is a troubled boy who needs love and affection. He needs guidance, counselling and care at home that you and I need to give.’ Roma turned on him violently. ‘Then you give him love and affection! You teach how to stop being an animal. You do it yourself, you saint! I am going from here tomorrow, and don’t intend to come back. Now you go and feed that monster.’

She flung the plate that Roy had carried, sending it clattering to the floor. Both the burger and the brownie went flying under the bed. A choking sound erupted from Roma that hurt Roy so cruelly, he pulled her to him and held her hard as she heaved retching sobs. Things had taken a terrible turn, and his mind was struggling futilely to cope with the distress they were causing. In this wretchedness, he held on wordlessly to his wife. And in that witless limbo of unrelieved gloom, there was no room for the child. Just the inevitable takeover of stupor and then slumber, as husband and wife drifted to sleep in each other’s arms. And the wind, too, was left alone to do its own thing, a corrupted zephyr already blowing sulphur, wafting destruction to a beleaguered family.

Roy broke out of his sleep, cutting off his bête noir dream about a math exam in which he remembered nothing of what he had studied. And his cab was stuck in traffic two miles away from the exam venue, with an hour left for the exam to get over. The awakening always left him sighing in relief. But today, the dulcet sound of his doorbell had snapped the dream, only to bring back the doleful memories of the previous night. The bell rang again, and this time it quickened his movement off the bed. As he reached the front door, he knew even before opening it would be Sorry. But it was not. It was Roma standing at the door with a pale and stunned face. One look outside explained all. The garden was in shreds. Trampled, torn and uprooted, lay Roma’s treasures. Stems, leaves, flowers, buds and grass all twisted, squeezed, crushed, stripped and stamped lay cruelly scattered everywhere. The gate had been dislodged, and many palings splintered. Pots, planters, and tubs, all cracked and shattered, lay all around to complete a stark picture of destruction and waste. He had never seen a more harrowing image of ruination. Roma was looking dazedly at her hands, tearing to strands a few yellow-green buds she held.

‘This is all because of that boy. He has done this to spite me because I did not believe his horrible lies. He has destroyed my only patch of happiness, and before he leaves, he shall pay for it.’ Roy struggled for words of consolation. It struck him wildly that this was the work of that ill-tempered wind, and he turned eagerly to his wife to deflect the blame. But he stopped as his eyes once again saw the destruction. This was not the work of a wind. The brutality and hatefulness of it could only point to human hands. He tried to put a hand around his wife’s shoulders, but she shrugged him off roughly and went into the house. Roy sat down on the doorstep with bowed head. He looked up to see Sorry looking at him soberly.

‘This was revenge fury, Roy.’ He looked somberly at the devastation. ‘The Head’s son lost his arm. It was smashed so badly that they couldn’t save it. Some parents held a meeting last night, and anger spread like wildfire. They blame you and Roma for letting Yo-yo loose. This vandalism is just punishment, Roy. They came here in the night and had their way. They would have torched it too. Those civilised savages, the worst creations of God. Only that your friends prevailed. But they were there too.’ 

‘Were you there too? Sorry?’ Roy stared at his friend. Sorry looked quietly at his friend. ‘Yes, I was there too, Roy. Tried to stop them, but they were down to their depths, Roy. Nothing would have stopped them. This was not just about a boy. This was some exultant, delirious reaching out for the wickedness embedded in us. We are bad farts, Roy, in the eyes of whoever it is up there. And he sees us now at the bottom of the ladder.’  He turned away, but looked back in a while.

‘One odd thing, Roy. In last night’s meeting, some guys tried to say it was not your boy who had done it. There are a bunch of mean boys in that school, and they do bad things that would make your skin crawl. They were saying it is this gang that beat up the Head’s child, and have done many other bad things as well. And they put it all on your boy. But nobody would listen. The quarry had been scented, Roy. The hunt ignites and blinds. I want to talk to your son.’

He made as if to go inside, but Roy restrained him and said eagerly. ‘Sorry, have you forgotten why you came here? I have something to tell you. The wind is inside the house. It is trapped in my basement. And I know it wants out desperately.’ Sorry stared in surprise and sudden dismay. ‘How on earth did you do that? You should not have done that, Roy. We are dealing with things we don’t understand. You may have driven it to violent harm against you and your family. You have just seen what rage can do, and this air you have snared could be feeding on fury now. How did you manage to do it, Roy?’

‘I didn’t do it. It was Roma. She might have got scared after yesterday’s happenings, and bolted and locked the basement door. She wouldn’t know that infernal thing was down there, and probably caught it unawares.’ Sorry looked grim, and Roy hastened to add, ‘I wanted to open the door because I thought I heard it crying.’ He threw up his hands. ‘I was scared silly. How can a wind whine or whimper? But that’s what I heard. What is happening, Sorry? Why are all these bad things happening to us? I can’t even figure out what is happening?’ Sorry shrugged his shoulders and then squared them. ‘Time to find out, Roy. We must open the door, see what we have in there.’

‘Sorry, I don’t want to get you into this. It’s too risky, and it has to do with my family only. There’s something dark down there, Sorry. I get the feeling it is behind this garden thing, too. It is driving people to a rage. You are my best friend, and I don’t want you pushed into danger.’ Sorry looked at him with still eyes and took his hand. ‘This is not just about friendship, Roy. This is us figuring out what we are. We do that together, and no favours asked. Time to find out what’s in that basement.’  They went in, but in their charged minds, they forgot to close the front door, leaving it ajar. They stopped in front of the basement door. Roy tried the door handle nervously and confirmed it was locked. Sorry put an ear to the keyhole, and it was then that he heard that choking sigh. There was such horror and terror fused into that sound, it sent Sorry recoiling. 

‘Go and get the key from your wife. Tell her to pick up Yo-yo from his room, and get out of this house.’ Roy had never seen his friend so grim. He, too, had heard that heart-rending cry and shivered in foreboding. Why was that thing keening in such a terrified manner? Suddenly, he realised that he had started thinking of it as a thing, and that made him tremble.  He stumbled towards his bedroom, hoping Roma had not heard that cry. Even in his anxiety to get the key, he hesitated at the door. The look he had seen on her as she stormed away from the front door had been one of pent-up rage threatening to burst out in some unimaginable act of violence.  It was not the time to ask for a key and talk about a captive wind. But it had to be done, and she had to be made to realise that there was something dangerous here which had to be confronted, figured out quickly and dealt with.  He pushed open the door to find her sitting on the rocking chair they had bought at a sale recently. She was staring at the ceiling, and her right leg twitched as she rocked herself. A sure sign she was still in a high state of agitation and would not listen to reason. Roy himself was strung with jangled nerves. So much distress and tension all coming together, and all at once, was not fair. 

What do you want?’ she was looking at him with unfriendly eyes. He was also a contributor to her present shock and suffering. He launched into his task. ‘You have locked the basement, and I want the key, Roma. I want you to take Yo-yo and get out of the house immediately. It is that wind! There is a thing in the basement that can be dangerous, and Sorry, and I think we should take precautions.’

Roma looked at him as if he were out of his mind. ‘Is Sorry here? What is he doing here so early in the morning? And what are you talking about? What wind? I haven’t locked up any wind. There’s no wind but something your stupidity has conjured, and you have roped in that stupid Sorry. Doesn’t he have a home? I want you two to just get out of the house. Just leave me alone. I want some peace here.’    

Roy looked at her in puzzlement and chagrin. If Roma hadn’t locked the wind inside his basement, who had? There was only one other person who could have done so. Yo-yo. So this was his boy’s handiwork! Had his son found out the wind lurking in the basement? Or had he put the wind there to hide! It dawned on Roy that the wind’s hiding place had always been the basement. Every time it had manifested itself in some indeterminate form, it had vanished into thin air. Played its tricks, then went into hiding, giving an impression that it had left. And Yo-yo had known about the wind all along! Sorry’s suspicion was vindicated. He checked himself, bounced back into the real world in a surge of reality. What wind, what paranormal activity? Was he not chasing a mirage and clothing it in a reality that never was?  But here was reality endorsing his experiences with the wind. It was there all right, and only a confrontation with it could exorcise the devils in his mind.  He was done with writhing in vague and intangible fears. He felt Yo-yo was in danger, and that capricious wind was not just playing mischievous games.  It had sought his son out. He remembered Sorry’s words at the office. The wind was here because of Yo-yo, and somehow, he controlled it. He was just a boy, and he would think of using it to get back at those who had hurt him and warped his nature. Or was the wind in the driver’s seat, and using the boy for some nefarious purpose hitherto unknown? Possessing the boy? To what end, and why had they been targeted? Again, he felt the absurdity of his thinking and wondered how he was being relentlessly drawn into such dreadful thoughts. Suddenly, he was fed up with the back and forth in his mental turmoil. It was leading only to unanswerable questions. He had to get the key, and he was sure Yo-yo had it.

He ran out of their room and hurried into Yo-yo’s. But his son was not there. Had he left for school? But today was a holiday. Where had he gone so early in the morning? Roy remembered his boy had not eaten the previous day, and he felt a sullen anger against his wife. How was he to get the key to the basement? He returned unhappily to their room to find Roma standing at the door.

Have you seen Yo-yo this morning? He isn’t there in his room, and he hasn’t eaten since yesterday.’ Roy looked stupidly at the key in Roma’s hand, and his eyes sought Roma’s uneasily. She said, ‘Here’s your key. You can let the boy out now, if you like. Just keep him out of my sight.’  The key fell from Roy’s nerveless hands. Dread raced into him, and he began to choke with fear. He could only look at his wife. Had she said what she had just said? Then a red blur flooded his mind and blotted out everything else. He drew back a hand and slapped Roma with all his might. She went reeling back, sprawling in a heap at his feet. He was gone with the keys before her mind started to feel what her body had just felt. 

  Roy, now an automaton, ran to the basement, keys digging into a fisted hand. It came to him now with complete certainty that the wind was real, an evil entity bent on causing harm. And his boy was now inside with that thing! A thing that had now assumed a terrifying shapelessness in his mind. His legs were almost buckling under him when he reached the basement door. He stood jerking and twitching before Sorry, and held out his shaking hand. Sorry took one look at his friend’s face, and set about prying the hand open. ‘It wasn’t Roma, was it? It was Yo-yo?’ Roy shook his head mutely and pointed at the doorknob. Sorry fitted the key into the keyhole with a brisk motion. As the key turned, Sorry found his friend had sat down on the floor with a thud. Roy was making a whistling sound through clenched teeth and turning his head from side to side. Sorry twisted the knob and pushed to open the door. But hardly had he pushed it open halfway, the door whipped back and slammed shut. Sorry recoiled. ‘What was that?’ he cried.

Yo-yo is in there. And so is the wind.’ Roy looked so stricken, Sorry quickly put his arm around and raised his friend to his feet. ‘It’s the wind. It will not let us in. It has got my son, Sorry, and I am to blame for that. What are we going to do?’   He looked piteously at his friend. Sorry looked back at him, and in his face was a look of determination. He was a tall, bulky man with powerful shoulders, but he had never used them in aggression against any man. Today, he was prepared to use his strength to the hilt for his friend. Roy tugged at the sleeve of his friend. He had now regained some measure of control over himself. ‘This is not your battle, Sorry. I don’t know what lies beyond that door, and what is that thing holding my son? I know it in my bones that it is capable of great harm. It will not give my son up without a price. I don’t want any harm coming to you.’ Sorry, put an arm around him. ‘I knew you would come round to saying that, so I have got my speech ready. You and your family are mine too, and no infernal wind is going to take anything away from us if I can help it. We have faced so many things together in our lives. Let’s take this one too together. There’s nothing we can’t do when we do that.’ There were no words after that.

Sorry turned the knob again, applying his shoulder to the door at the same time. He pushed hard, and it gave a little. But whoever or whatever it was inside pushed harder, and the door closed again.  Sorry put his back against the door and faced Roy. ‘We must break down the door. It can’t stop us from doing that, and then we deal with it. There was something cruel in Sorry’s face, and a longing to face a faceless adversary. Roy saw that look, and his own face tightened in resolve.  If the wind had done anything to Yo-yo, it would have to pay. No matter what the consequences. It did not occur to him how he would confront what could be an insubstantial enemy holding his boy. In his mind, reality had not caught up with myth. But the sheer strength of enterprise he saw in his friend heartened him.

Sorry contemplated the door. It didn’t look unassailable. The give he had felt gave him hope that the opposer was vulnerable and could not stop their ingress. He paused and mulled over his options. Now his misgivings got some hearing, and of the thoughts that passed through his mind, this one needed attention. ‘Roy, this is the first time I am encountering something beyond my reason or intuitive understanding. I am afraid, but not deterred. Our safety is likely to be compromised, and so if either of us is hurt, leading to incapacities, the other takes up the slack in all matters of life.’ Roy nodded gravely, and Sorry knew that he knew his friend. They both drew away from the door and moved back hard, putting the full force of their shoulders on the door. They heard a creak as something gave way, but the door held firm. They drew back again and rushed at the door. Something splintered, and now they knew the door was only held back by some weakening force on the other side.

They rushed the door a third time, and this time the door gave way with a crash as it fell backwards on the steps below. Sorry and Roy stumbled forward and fell heavily on the door, stunned by the impact. When they had gathered their wits about them, they looked down at the bottom of the staircase and reared back in shock!  They stared in horror. The light was on, and at the foot of the stairs sat Yo-yo, knees drawn, hugging them. His head was high, craning and slanted towards the top of the staircase.  Mouth open and eyes staring. And his face was white as chalk. Something that could only be described as different from invisible air was holding him hard. It was at once indeterminate and had outlines that pulsed alternately in distortion and clarity. It was stirring continuously and rustling in rhythms. In the pale rays of the light on the wall, faint dust swayed and hovered uncertainly.

Then Yo-yo screamed with a sound and name that blew their ears away. ‘Mummyeeeee!’ he cried, a shriek that exploded in the close confines of the basement. The word went rushing everywhere.  It flashed up the staircase, then it was out into the house, going unerringly to the master bedroom. It rang deafeningly in the ears of Roy and Sorry, and they drew back, covering their ears. Their minds had frozen. Both sight and hearing had been overwhelmed by the vision and the shriek.

Roma heard the crash of the basement door, jarred out of its moorings. She was astounded, and anger rose like a tide in her. They had the key, didn’t they? She cocked her head to listen further, and then she heard the wailing sound that resolved itself into her son’s cry, ‘Mummyeee!’ That cry went like an arrow into her heart, sending shock waves into her mind.  She ran like a cheetah to the basement door. ‘Yo-yo!’ her cry came tearing out of her throat, and sped past her husband and his friend to her boy’s pale, tear-stained face below.

The wind heard the mother’s wail and gathered the boy into its arms of dense air. There was a rush of air so strong, it blew like a blow against Sorry and Roy, driving the hair off their foreheads. A scalding heat grazed their arms and legs and left them wincing. They heard a hiss as the wind fled up the stairs into the hallway. Whoosh! It was out the front door before their thoughts could settle into any coherence.

Roma was the first to recover, and with a hoarse cry, she ran for the front door and burst out of it into the open. Sorry and Roy raised themselves painfully from where they had fallen. They clambered up the stairs and ran to the front door. But as they reached it, a fierce stream of air came charging in and slammed them across the chests, throwing them back into the hallway. They got up with unsteady feet and staggered to the door with outstretched hands and open palms. They pushed so hard against it that the wind let go, and they went sprawling into the open. Then suddenly everything fell silent, and the wind shrank to just a puff of air wafting out of the door. They sat up to see Roma halfway down the path, and she was staring open-mouthed at something that was facing her in unseen might.   

‘Mummyee! Make it let me go!’ Yo-yo’s agonised voice was desperately reaching out. Then they saw him and trembled in sheer fright. Right in the middle of the lawn stood Yo-yo, with his hair on end and his shoulders squared. His arms were pushed back with his hands behind him as if they were tied at his back. Something towered over him, full of throbbing air, and unmistakably having the hapless boy in its grasp. There was something tightly coiled about it that was straining to burst free. As if the captor was the one who sought release. The vandalised garden stood mute witness, desolate and still. For tense moments, all three stood motionless, each one of them seeking desperately in the mind for some magical and instant solution. The awful vision in front of them had all the signs of an imminent ending in some tragic occurrence.

Then, Roma took a step forward towards that intangible being that held her son in its unseen arms. The child felt an invisible grip tighten around him and opened his mouth piteously. ‘Mother, take me away from it and I….. I will go away as you want. Never trouble you again.’ Roma took another step towards him, and the wicked air squeezed further. Yo-yo gasped, his tortured face cried out again.  ‘Mummy, I will do whatever you want. You never want to see my face again, and I promise I will go away. But don’t let this thing hold me any tighter. I cannot breathe!’

Roma’s face was set in stony hardness, and she took more steps ahead. She was now face-to-face with the towering phenomenon. She had unconsciously assumed the position of a crouching adversary, seeking to gauge the enemy’s strength. Her glaring eyes went darting all over for a drawback in that nebulous frame that flared and waned unrecognisably before her. Her face took on an implacability, inexorable and merciless. Now she advanced in measured step, and a blinding anger rocked her frame. Sightless fighter confronted an intangible menace, as she closed her eyes to see her enemy better. ‘Let go of my son, you rotten bag of wind!’ The contempt in her voice seemed to shake the wind, but Yo-yo’s shoulders hunched as he felt its buffeting ire.

On the outskirts of what had become an arena, stood Roy and Sorry. It occurred simultaneously to them that this had become a battle of titans, and they were mere mortals, spectators to a strife that had subtly grown from the particular to the universal. The pulsing coil of the hitherto unseen force, now turned incandescent, into a brilliant fusion of burning airs. In that glow, Roma looked like an apotheosis of the warrior, preparing to come to grips with some tremendous inevitability. As her spirit clenched inside to protect her own, her love now blazed in effulgence. Now the two fires came together, and in that ineffable brightness, Yo-yo’s face lit up with love and pride in his mother’s dauntless bravery. Then all blaze and incandescence faded, and the morning turned fatefully dark. 

Roma went for her child with arms outstretched, but the wind threw gusts that rammed her body, and she was checked relentlessly as she fought to advance. Her hair was streaming behind, and her dress flapped violently like a sail in a storm. Every now and then, her body arched as the wind drove into her, and tried to knock her down as she fought her way forward.

But in the turmoil and ferocity that raged in that straining body of air, now and then a small, gentle breeze created lulls in which the air quietened and welled softly. Then Yo-yo seemed to be cuddled in a lazy bank of air. It was in one of those moments that Roma wrested her child from the wind and strained him to her chest. She turned and ran towards the house, and the two watchers leapt in elation. But the wind had regained its tempestuous fury and rushed after her. It raised itself in talons of draft and grasped the child again as Roma lunged to get indoors. Roma’s hands had fastened like iron bands around her son. No matter what the consequence, she would not give up her son to the abomination that had laid unseen hands on him again.

But she hadn’t reckoned for the maniacal strength that lay at the heart of the wind. She felt her son being pulled away by a force that had grown sinews of air, tugging with enormous strength. Her veins stood out, and her knuckles whitened as she battled with all she had ever had and would lose if she had to. But the wind pulled hard, prying her hands and fingers apart. And her bruised and battered hands yielded their precious possession at last. It drew away with the boy in its clutches, and this time, Roma sensed with rising panic that it was intending to take away her son for good. What could she do? Yet she somehow knew, as if what was fated had already determined that only she could save her son, and had the means to outwit this terrible foe lay only in her hands. 

‘Stop!’ she cried at whatever it was that was bearing away her son. But it continued on its way. She could only see a retreating Yo-yo’s, with limp arms, beckoning weakly in despair. The sight of his helplessness and her own brought Roma’s rage to the boil. She tore into the wind with such outraged passion, the invisible presence seemed to pause. Yo-yo’s listless body appeared to dangle aloft in a last breath that could be exhaled the next moment. Roma’s eyes turned red as her wrath became at one with her, and her mouth opened in a stream of execrations. All her frustrations, disappointments and humiliations that had embittered her life were spewed out, and the incorporeal wind heard and stopped. Roma felt the sting in its rasping touch, and even Roy and Sorry felt the warmth of its roused anger as it blew hotly against them.

As Roma vented her rage on that bodiless being, she willed with all her might that her obscure antagonist would give some indication of its nature and intentions.  Somehow, she felt that the wind was not done yet. Her outburst spent, she stared into the seeming void that held her son. ‘What do you want?’ she whispered. ‘What do you want of us? Let my son go, and we will give you what you desire.’ The air in which her son floated turned violent and began to swirl around Yo-yo faster and faster. As Roma gazed into the centre of the whirling wind, she made out a face, a human face she could only see indistinctly by not looking straight at it. And in that spinning storm, she heard a voice dissonant in a mix of swish and sibilance. A combination of sounds was emerging that resolved itself into half-heard words. ‘He is mine, or say the magic words!’ 

Roma heard but did not comprehend. Did she hear it right? Magic words? Was this a fairy tale like Rumpelstiltskin! Roy and Sorry came up to her, but they had seen no face nor heard any words. This was proof that this was her battle, and unless she came up with the right answer, she would never see Yo-yo again. She told them what she had seen and heard, and they were bewildered. But in the telling and the hearing, they all had their eyes off Yo-yo. When suddenly they heard his unearthly scream, they were stupefied to find him borne aloft in the wind, hovering high above the ruined garden.

Both men ran to the middle of the garden, stumbling over the debris and refuse that lay scattered. As they looked up, the wind came down and swatted them so hard their knees buckled, and they sat down heavily, dazed by the blows. Roma saw them knocked down by the wind and was again aware that this battle was between her and the formless entity that held her son. But she was close to a breakdown, and could hardly think straight. The wind came close to her, bearing Yo-yo in a manner that looked as if he were hanging by a thread. The boy was completely still and seemed already dead, except that his eyes were black holes staring in horror. The mother knew she had very little time left to do what the wind had said, and was now saying again. ‘Say those words!’  This time, the words emerged clearly and came like thunder to her ears. And as she looked with glazed eyes into the tight air, she saw the words form and break again and again, then dispel in dark smoke. ‘Say the words!’ The letters wheeled like birds of prey and came together to mock her. ‘Say the words!’

Now the sky was swarming with clouds thick as dough, that hid the sun completely. The birds had stopped chirping, frightened by the strange darkness that had greyed the morning. Something portentous came and sat down beside all Nature’s fecundity, subduing all life in ominous fears. Held hard and slipping into an abyss in the wind’s embrace, Yo-yo knew he was doomed and made one last cry, ‘Mummy, he is taking me away forever! I will never see you again. Tell me once you love me!’ The final cry of despair and hopelessness sorely wrung his mother’s heart. But as she looked up with arms outstretched towards her son, she saw the tall trees beckoning towards her. They were all gathered together, towering over her son, but their branches wafted in a gentle breeze. She felt them come to her and heard the wisdom of their age-old stillness.

A great peace came over her, and she sank to her knees. All her wrath, her fears, her grief and desolation fell away. She knew the magic words that would make the mighty wind yield her son. How could she have puzzled over them! They were staring their secret in her face, and the trees had been hinting all along. Her charged mind had not been listening. No, she had not wanted to listen, thinking she could bully the wind into submission.  Her tears fell like rain, and she knew she had erred. She was up against something so vast and angered, it would take away the boy she had never loved.

But she couldn’t let him go like this. He was her blood, the only child she would ever have. He had needed her grievously, and his desperate cry was seared into her soul. How had things come to such a pass? Now only her wretched self could resolve this tangle. And she knew it had to end like this. She looked for Roy. She had to tell him it would be all right. He had to understand that what she would now do would end the crisis, and the wind would never again harm Yo-yo once she got him out of its clutches. Why was Roy standing so far away? And Sorry too, looked so small though he was such a big man!

She sensed the wind was waiting impatiently. It stirred restlessly, and Yo-yo slackened further, now looking like a rag doll. Had she left it too late for him? The magic words, they halted at the tip of her tongue as they waited for her cue. At last, she closed all her thoughts in her mind, like closing a packed suitcase. She closed her eyes and looked upon the wind that sat inside her mind. She spoke the magic words, ‘All anger spent.’

The wind sighed and came down low before her. She felt it, setting down her son gently in front of her. Yo-yo ran towards her in sheer disbelief that he was free. His arms went round his mother’s waist, and his wet face lay tight against her bosom. But her hands remained by her side, and her arms stiffened as the wind took her fiercely, breaking the boy’s hold and flinging him to the ground. But the boy held on to his mother’s hand and would not be shaken off. Roma looked down at her child in rising fear. What had she done? She tried desperately to shake off the invisible bonds that held her fast, but the wind clasped her firmly and shook her so hard her fingers slipped away from his.

Now, violent gusts of air buffeted her, but she fought back furiously, raining blows on tough ripples of air. Then she saw her son get up and run away from her into the arms of Roy, who looked up at her. Towering above them stood Sorry, like a pillar under whose shadow her family had taken shelter. She ceased beating impotently at the wind and lay back on its unseen lap.  The wind calmed down and cradled her in gentle arms. It rose like some ungainly starship, and hovered for a few moments above the man with his boy wrapped to his chest, and friend at his shoulder. She gazed at them tenderly, but they did not look up. ‘They will be alright,’ she said to the tears that welled in her eyes. ‘All anger spent.’  The wind, now shrunk to a bank of cushioned breeze, echoed her, ‘All anger spent.’

It raised her aloft and took her among the trees that swayed and caressed her lightly. Higher they went, and the earth slid from her and fell away into oblivion. Velvet waves of air lifted her still higher and gave her up to the heavy rolling winds that blew above. They took her into their swirling arms, and in the growing darkness of their cold embrace, she saw distant glimmers of lightning and muted thunder fading into the distance. She said again to herself, ‘All anger spent.’ She closed her eyes.

And the little breeze went down again and tousled the heads of the tall trees. It drifted down among the crushed flowers and trampled grass of that despoiled garden. It breathed softly among the bruised blades of grass and murmured faintly, ‘All anger spent.’