[rajnish manga]

The next morning

Smooth jazz is playing in my earphones, the weather is unlike typical summer morning it’s humid and cold. The park is full of joggers, old people and hot beverage vendors, I am lazy enough to do all those jogging and exercising part, I just come to park to enjoy the fresh air. In front of my bench there is a neem tree, since it’s after a slope I can see its branches, at the very end of a branch there is a nest with three little birds but one of them is different from the other two, a cat climbs up the tree walks carefully towards the nest, as it nears the nest the increasing weight on the branch causes the little birds to turn over and look at the cat, they look frightened to me, one of the little birds which looks different releases a secretion, it deters the cat for a while but the cat doesn’t back off, it takes the different looking bird by its mouth and runs away. A crow comes flying to the nest cawing intensely, now I understand the different kind of bird is cuckoo, I had heard that cuckoo lays its eggs in crow’s or magpie’s nest. ‘Is this how it happens? Does the little cuckoo save the crow’s family? is this how nature planned it?’ Such questions are interrogating me, as an old man comes and sits beside me on my bench, he is panting heavily, I offer him my bottled water he gently refuses it and takes a minute of rest and starts speaking, I unplug my earphones to hear him “ you asked about my daughter right? My daughter and my wife died in an accident last year…” before he could continue I interrupt him.

“Excuse me sir, who are you? I don’t even know you, why are you telling this to me?” I say.

He looks surprised and insulted yet he continues “Don’t you know me?! We had met yesterday and I had shared my story with you, don’t you remember it? Don’t you?”

“No we have never met, you are confusing me with someone else, now would you please excuse me?” I say and start walking away from that strange person.

__END__