The Urn With a Box of Lucky Srike

After reading the letter his urge to smoke a cigarette was uncontrollable. So he decided to take a walk down the street to the shop which was at the end of the lane.

The street was crowded. Men and women of all ages filled the narrow road. Some were talking to others while some walked silently wrapped in the blanket of their thoughts. There were a few motorcars which was not an uncommon sight now-a-days. The letter stirred up memories which he never wanted to revisit. The street he was walking through seemed a million years away from the one through which his father used to carry him on his broad shoulders. Back then the road was not paved. There weren’t all these shops selling myriad stuff which looked glittery and expensive and he had never seen a motorcar back then.

His father used to come back home in the evening after a day of bone crushing work, in the lumber mill across the river, dripping of sweat and in dirt covered clothes. He would enter the house and then soon disappear for a bath. When he reappeared he would be all neat and dressed in clean clothes. By that time mother would be waiting with a cup of coffee and some snacks.

The blaring horn from a car speeding through the road brought him back to the present. The cigarette shop was on the other side of the road. He looked at the shop and in an instant decided to go to the shop where his father used to go with him to buy cigarettes after their evening snack. The old shopkeeper who started the shop died a few years back. The poor old man was run over by a truck while crossing the road. His son ran the shop now. Lost in thoughts he headed towards the place as if walking in a trance. The shop was a further mile and a half way.

The past started superimposing over the present as he started walking. The buildings and the crowded road gradually melted away into a vast expanse of lush green space filled with trees, grass and a few small houses here and there. Kids of his age were running around. Couples were sitting in their courtyards watching their kids playing and whispering in each other’s ears while enjoying the cool evening breeze. The air was filled with the sound of leaves bustling in the wind.

A few days before his fifth birthday his mother told him that he would be having a little brother soon. The joy he felt was beyond description. Soon he would be having a kid brother after whom he can run and play games with and huddle together and sleep in the night. Finally there will be someone to whom he can pass down all those toys which he had outgrown. His head was filled with images of him reading out stories to his little brother and putting him to sleep and of walks down the street along with his father and brother.

Human emotions and feelings are the toughest cipher to crack in this world. He was the only one happy about the impending new member in the family. When he asked his father about the name of the baby a curt shut up was the answer. Something was definitely not right, he felt. That was the time when father started coming back home drunk. Mother and father stopped talking. The only talk that ever happened was the arguments in their bedroom.

The mood at home resembled to those dark times which the family experienced a year back. The death of Dan was an unexpected bringer of chaos. Well that’s what happens when your perfectly healthy elder brother dies suddenly. Dan died of a bee sting, or everyone believed so, except his mother.

“How can anyone die of a bee sting” she asked anyone who tried to console her. After Dan’s demise she stopped going to church and to neighborhood get- together meetings. She was bitterly disappointed at her husband. She believed that he could have prevented their son’s premature death had he been more careful.

It was on his insistence that she agreed to send Dan with him to the lumber mill. He was supposed to keep an eye on him all the time. Who can control and watch over a curious fifteen year old who wants to explore the world around him.

One fine afternoon Dan sneaked out of the mill during lunch break and headed towards the river. After taking a dip in the Sweetwater River, he walked on to the shore, dried himself and headed back to the mill but never reached his destination.

The lifeless body was found in a sugarcane field, next to the river, after a day. He was buried and everyone in the village shed tears over the young life lost. The grown-ups never bothered to explain what happened to Dan to his little brother who was running around the house asking when will his brother return. The little kid didn’t understand what was death and the place called heaven where his brother had gone according to the elders.

For a month father didn’t go to work. He found his solace in alcohol. That was his way of grieving his dead son while mother seemed to hate the world and everyone around her. They couldn’t come to terms with the vacuum that had been left behind by Dan.

Things started becoming normal with the passing of time. Six months after Dan’s death mother started going to church again and started talking to the neighbors. Dad stopped drinking and was back at work regularly. The young boy still missed his brother but realized that he might not ever come back at all. He felt betrayed by him and told himself that if Dan ever comes back he won’t talk to him at all.

Now he was so happy to have a brother but no one wanted else wanted him. Once again it felt like three strangers were living under the same roof. As the bulge in mother’s tummy grew larger so did the tension in the family. Father insisted they couldn’t afford to raise a child while mother asked him how they can say no to divine blessing.

The shouting from children playing on the road dragged him back to the present. He looked around and realized that he was standing opposite to the shop where his father used to buy cigarettes every evening.

“A box of Lucky Strike”

The shopkeeper handed over the cigarettes. After paying him he took out a cigarette and lit it. He took a deep drag and he was preparing himself for the walk back. He was hoping not to go back down the lane of memories.

Images of the day his mother gave birth to a beautiful baby boy flew into his mind. His father went inside the room to see the baby and mother told him that they should name the baby Dan.

When he came out of the room he called his son towards him. The man kneeled down and looked in his eye and then pressed him to his chest in a tight hug and gave a kiss on his forehead with teary eyes.

Then he told him that he is going out to get a box of cigarettes. The boy looked at him.

“Let’s go” said the kid.

“No. I am going alone today. Go Inside and take care of mommy and little Dan.”

His father walked out into the road and out of their lives never to return again. The letter he received earlier today informed him of his father’s passing in a faraway country two weeks back. Along with it there was a package which had an urn containing his ashes, an unopened box of Lucky Strike cigarettes and few of his clothes.