***He realised that in the past he had fallen down in the eyes of others. But this time he had fallen down in his own eyes. He was married to a woman who never belonged to him. He spent his life in the futility of a gardener, who tended the plants so that others plucked the flowers.***

AN angry wind swept across the town, before the sky turned from gray to black.

Dry leaves and pieces of paper swirled in the air, thick with dust, while the lightning flashed like flickering neon and the peeling thunder heralded the rain. As soon as the first few drops spat on his head, the middle-aged man covered it with his hands, and started to run as if chased by a ghost.

But no sooner had he reached the front gate of his house than the mishap happened. Suddenly, the earth scraped under his heels like abraded skin, and the burly frame of forty-five came crashing down like a barrel. His wife, who saw it from the window, smacked her lips in annoyance and muttered under her breath that this man had lifelong problem with staying erect. She ordered a servant to rush to the scene, and help his master get into the house.

Inside the house, the man limped like a prisoner returning from the torture cell. At his age, he knew,

there was no sympathy for a grownup man who had fallen down. He looked at his wife with a pounding heart, and knew she was going to do something to embarrass him.

The wife threw some dry clothes and asked him to change in the bedroom. As he proceeded, he could hear her hissing behind him that she had wasted her life with a man, who didn't even know how to keep standing. Then she said she wasn't surprised at all, because an empty top couldn't sustain a heavy bottom. He could tell without think-

ing that the reference was made to his head and the rotundity of his lower body.

The rude comment cut him deeper than the fall had hurt him. The words rang in his head like a buzzing swarm of bees as he wondered what sins he had committed to deserve a wife like that. Though he didn't think what she said was true. It should be an empty bottom, which would be upset by a heavy top, he convinced himself. The voice of his late grandfather echoed in the air. Never mind what a wife said, for she was not going to make

sense most of the time.

He sat down with a cup of tea, and tried to avoid the sight of his wife. There was certain solitariness about middle age, when one felt drifting in the mid-sea of life, farther from the beginning and closer to the end. The bones in his body clattered under the skin as if they were broken in more than one place.

The calling bell rang and the servant opened the door. He could tell from the staccato ring that the visitor was his wife's cousin. He shifted his weight in the chair as if in

anticipation of a horrible thing. The man would soon enter the house, throwing off his charm like a freshly bathed dog shaking off water. His wife would then mention to her cousin that her husband had a crashing fall in the rain, which lowered her head in shame before the entire neighbourhood. Then together they would make fun of him until he lost his temper and asked them to stop or go away.

He twitched at the thought of the imminent opprobrium, and wondered whether courtesy was weakness or strength of a man. By then

his wife's cousin had appeared in front of him, like a ghost which had materialised out of the thin air. The man stooped over him with an uncharacteristic smile and asked if what the servant said was true. His heart jumped like a frog as he realized that the secret was already out.

His wife joined her cousin in no time, and together they descended on him like the Visigoths destroying a civilization. They jeered at him, caressed his head in improvised sympathy, sucked their teeth to express their sorrow, pulled him,

poked him and made all sorts of innuendoes about possible spots in his body, which could have been bruised by the fall.

The wife said that he must have fallen down more times as a grownup than he had fallen down as a toddler. The cousin retorted that his brother-in-law turned younger as he grew older, and became a toddler again. In his mind he wished many ills to his giggling persecutors and his heart burned with hatred for them. Little did they know how he stumbled every day in the storm that swept across his heart year after

year! He walked alone in that storm, fell down, stood up and walked again, the deadweight of sorrow weighing like a boulder on his heart.

He looked at his wife, who came into his life like a groundhog in a golf course and ruined it. When his parents settled his marriage, they insisted that in the old age, when the fired died, a man was going to enjoy the company of his wife. But he has been lonely ever since he got married, increasingly squeezed into the corner where howling winds echoed in the silence of heart.

Then there was the clown cousin, that emotional monkey, who had made it worse. For twenty good years, that scoundrel remained lodged between him and his wife like a membrane. They lived together, close to each other, in the same house, same bed, yet one couldn't touch the other and feel the warmth. Their marriage had been like a plug in a dead socket; everything was there but no electricity.

The two cousins were still busy putting up their acts, while he realised that the tea he sipped was cold as poison. He stood up and thought

he was going to go to the kitchen, using it as an excuse to get away from them. He had hardly slipped one foot into his sandal than the servant came running for the mug. The cousin-in-law pushed him back into the chair, and teasingly said that it was too soon for his brother-in-law to risk another walk.

He fell back in the chair, but it seemed too long and hard. For the first time he felt he had actually fallen, which hurt him in his depth. This time he felt that his body had merely dropped, but his spirit had actually fallen, that before his weight crashed in the chair, his soul was already shattered.

He realised that in the past he had fallen down in the eyes of others. But this time he had fallen down in his own eyes. He was married to a woman who never belonged to him. He spent his life in the futility of a gardener, who tended the plants so that others plucked the flowers. He had fallen down in the past because he couldn't manage the balance of his body. Those falls were his own fault, their embarrassment and shame imposed on him by himself.

But how dare another forced him to fall down! He stood up and slapped the cousin of his wife and screamed at the top of his voice that he should have slapped him twenty years ago. The sky was clear by then as the rain held off. In the cold breeze that followed the rain, he said to himself that he wasn't going to fall down again.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.