She tiptoed across the room, her body tense, sweat from her forehead rolled down till her ears, as she fought to stay quiet. It was raining since two days and thunderstorms were forecasted that week. She had got up from a nightmare and wanted to visit the restroom. As she walked across the room, it filled with muck, oozing out of small holes in the wall. She felt rancid to put her foot forward. As she stepped ahead, she started drowning and when she lifted the other foot up she managed to come up from the muck.
Deetya collected all the items of her pencil box which fell down and stared at the chocolate as if it will eat her, rather than she eating it. She picked it up hesitantly and put it in one of the pockets of her bag. The pocket was full of chocolates.
As the day was came to an end and when the school bell rang, it turned murkier for her. She turned into a puppy, scared of anything and everything. To reach the gate of the school seemed like an ocean to cross. As she entered the slimy lane of her house, she loathed to swim across the dirt. She knew the snake skinned old man is waiting for her before she reaches her destination. She was ready to go deep into the muck so that she can skip the sight of the old man. She wished, if she had wings, this grimy and muddy lane could have been avoided. She disliked the dungy stench which was all over her.
The snake skinned old man had a long nose and would smell his prey from far. His ears were never visible as they were always under the wraps of his silver hair. His wrinkled skin seemed like an old leather jacket which made him look ugly and no one wanted to get close to him. Age had taken a toll on him but his wrinkled eyes paid attention to the minutest details. His cheeks were craggy and his teeth a rotting fence. He loved tiny creatures like Deetya and would follow their movement closely.
The snake skinned old man was waiting for her to emerge from the slimy lane. As he spotted her deep, he pulled her up. Deetya was panic stricken and knew what the old man had instore for her. He slumped on his chair shoveling rice from his plate with his shaking hands, keeping a watch on Deetya. She hated the way the old man watched her. His thin long arms with bulging veins…Deetya couldn’t look at him anymore. The dungeon smelled of a stale piss and Deetya cursed herself for being in an unpleasant setting. It was cold and the house was damp. The house had narrow broken windows and it looked abandoned but couldn’t be as the light was always on even during day time. This was not her first visit to the house. The old man taught her Piano.
He finished his food with great difficulty and kept the plates aside. His tired eyes were beaming with hunger, but a hunger which was not for food. His eyes were constantly chasing Deetya who sat terrified by the presence of her teacher. He dressed well and smelled nice and charmed creatures like Deetya with his talks and music. As he came closer to Deetya, he held her hand and made her sit on the chair near the Piano. He asked her to play the new piece he had taught her a week back. Deetya tried to play the piece hesitantly. She got stuck at a point and feared how the old man will react. He quietly placed his fingers above Deetya’s, rubbing through her shoulders. Deetya returned to the slimy dirty muck. She felt sick but couldn’t escape out of it.
The old man asked her to get up from the chair and he sat on it. He asked Deetya to accompany him in his lap. Deetya’s worst fears stood right in front of her eyes. Her bag lay open and the chocolates started to melt making the room dingy and filthy. The chocolates no more smelt as chocolates. The snake skinned old man grabbed her and tightly wrapped himself around her. He kept Deetya’s fingers on the Piano keys and his above Deetya’s. As he played the musical piece along with Deetya, the dirt and mud started rising, mixing up with the melted chocolates. As the music played it kept oozing out of all the rooms. Deetya was stung by the old man and she felt suffocated by his touch. The venom inside him flowed through her entire body and her hands stopped on the Piano. She escaped from the shrouded hands around her. She was so much deep in the muck that it almost reached her neck and choked her. The old man wriggled behind her but she managed to wade through the dirt and the muddy puddle.
She crawled through the lane to reach her house. As soon as she entered her house she ran straight to have a bath. She switched on the shower and the water splashed all over her body. She rubbed her hands to remove the muck and the dirt. She rubbed hard all over her body. She cried and her tears dissolved in the cold water but she kept scrubbing her body to get rid of the filth and stink. She washed herself dry with a towel and smeared a lot of perfume around her. She still couldn’t get rid of the stink and grime. She wore her night dress, jumped on the bed and covered herself with a blanket. As she thought about the horrendous snake skinned old man, she fell asleep out of fatigue only to wake up from a nightmare and to be surrounded by rottenness and impurity.
The snake skinned old man rested for a few days and wore on a new skin and waited in the dark to hunt a new prey.