The treasures of SANUALI

Light as Feather, Floating as Cloud

A couple of hours later, Swamy was done collecting all the beer bottles in the centre of the hall along with some other trash while her books resumed the tidiness with which it was kept before. She just had to put the bottles in a cardboard box and throw them somewhere in the storeroom, following which her job would be over. Afterwards, it would be Wicca’s concern. 

Similar to many other things, Swamy was restricted to be spotted near the storeroom. Why? She did not know. 

The ear-defending roars of thunders started echoing outside the windows. The sun-rays of the morning sun were overshadowed by grey clouds looming over Konadu like a sturdy castle. They travelled towards the west, floating but never pouring. There was something peculiar about them. Many in the Konadu had not observed it. The arbitrariness.

 However, one cloud did catch my attention. It looked like a floating chariot—shimmering golden in the middle among various grey and black clouds following the flow of wind. A source of rays was hidden somewhere within and it appeared as if it was carrying its sun. Never in a once, it parted away from the companion clouds it was travelling with. 

 Swamy could have caught a glimpse if she was to cross an open window. Unfortunately, she did not. By the time she entered the storeroom, the arbitrary cloud reached just above her house and its companion had started pouring over the surface. 

It occurred in perfect chronology. The first one started weeping, followed by the second and the third—with a blink of an eye, all the clouds, whether accoupling the arbitrary one or not, had started drenching the surface. It was heavily raining.  

‘So much to get motivated.’ Swamy snickered. The clock rang at lunchtime—alerting her of the time she had wasted on cleaning. Her heart was pounding harder than ever and she felt short on breath. 

‘Rustom…Asshole, dickhead, scoundrel, jerk, son of a b***h. May you root in hell. I wish the lightening fall upon you. Burn you to ashes!’ She cursed aloud as she dragged the heavy cardboard box to a corner where a huge wooden trunk was placed. 

‘I would have completed half of my assignment. So much waste of time! Only God knows, how am I going to clear the semester?’ Swamy muttered as she left the box and explored the storeroom. She was searching for a switch to turn the lights on, but the task was difficult than predicted. Her eyes were combatted with darkness as she raked it all over the walls and ceiling, regretting forgetting her cell phone downstairs. She squinted harder until a tiny switch—retro, round and unseen caught her sight. It was peeking at her from a tiny loop near the rustic doorframe. 

Swamy carefully stumbled her way to it and clicked it on. A small bulb flickered on, hardly creating any difference. She, however, could make out the shadows of all the antics that had been thrown in the storeroom. Unused chairs, tables, Rustom’s old bicycle, pots and the list went on.  

Swamy eyed every article with lodestone curiosity. She felt something obstreperous in the storeroom, minatory. Shrugging off the feeling, she focused back on the task and started dragging the box inside.  

Hisssssssssssss! Something rattled.  

Swamy stopped dragging. ‘What was it?’ She thought, looking around.

Hiss! She heard it again. 

‘Is it a snake?’ She gulped. 

She was standing in the middle of the storeroom, some ten to twenty steps away from an old trunk. 

 It had occupied the brusquest corner of the room and appeared to be placed far away and beyond her reach. Swamy stood still for a few minutes, waiting to detect the source, however, everything had fallen eerily quiet. 

‘Must be wind!’ She concluded and continued dragging. The more Swamy dragged the box near the wooden trunk, the farther the wooden trunk seemed and the heavier the box became resulting in frequent halts. Swamy had paused to catch a breath when she heard it again.  

 Hiss! The sound echoed again and this time Swamy stood still. She focused on the source. It pounded more to the left. Was it the broken table or Wicca’s old cupboard? Nope! It was not it. Then? The trunk in the corner. Oh, God! Had Wicca murdered somebody and kept the corpse in the trunk? Was it a spirit? Wicca had specifically forbidden her to stroll near the storeroom. Was that the reason? She had watched many horror movies and had a vivid idea of what it could be. Should she check? She wondered. 

Hissssss! It rattled again. It sure was the trunk—the hissing noise was coming out of it. She left the box in the middle and went closer to the trunk. Heart pounding with a fear of something fatal lurking inside. 

Wicca had not placed any other object near the trunk. Swamy observed as she inched closer to it with baby steps, sweating profusely.  

Hissss! It went off again. Swamy stood moronically staring at the trunk. Not knowing what else to do, she blew the dust off its surface and pierced an industrious web a spider had formed over it as she pulled it open. 

She coughed out all the dust particles that had invaded her nostrils before she peeked inside. Three different boxes differently sized blinked in her vision.

Swamy let out a breath she did not know she was holding. It was not a corpse! She sighed and shook her head at her fatuousness. 

The boxes were crafted with metallic layers and followed a pattern. They were forming an outline of something triangular—Something Swamy had seen before—on Sugata’s forehead: the first one was small and looked like a pencil case. It was silverish and had a Swastika engraved in the middle. Beside it, the second box, bigger than the first one, scattered rays in the trunk. It was glowing like a rising sun.

Then there was the third one, the biggest out of all. It was a bit golden-ish at the surface and seemed to carry something significant. The rays coming out of the second box blinked over its lock. 

Outside the house, the water fell with ferocious intensity, picking up speed. The arbitrary cloud inclined closer and closer upon the roof of number 309 as the roaring became louder than ever. 

Just when Swamy was about to pick a box randomly, she heard the front door opening and closing as Wicca’s scratching voice rang in her ears putting a halt to the curiosity. 

Outside the house, clouds cleared and it had stopped pouring.