Conditions for much-needed slumber
This is Mr D’Costa’s third night with her voice seducing him and lulling him to a dreamy slumber. He tosses and turns, grunting and shuffling his feet, finding a way through the sheets. His back toward her. He is unsure if he is letting go of his inhibitions or denying them altogether. Sleep has left him devoid of the memory of rest.
Lying on his firm mattress, Mr D’Costa has become accustomed to the squeaky noise rendered by the old, borrowed cot. He tries paying attention to her words, following the rhythm and rhyme word by word, whisper by whisper until it melts into a symphony intermittently broken by sounds of nature that is strange to city life. He dreams with his eyes open as her voice fades away. He decides to finally shut her up. It is 3 A.M.
Yet again, he turns towards her and sighs. The pills haven’t worked.
He drags himself toward the voice and switches off the application on his mobile device. His body hasn’t traversed the ordinary everyday terrain of sleep that was once familiar to him. He wishes he knew the trick to manipulate his mind to quiet rest.
This application was the penultimate option recommended by his fourth doctor in the past month. He has resorted to reading boring books, emptied bags of chamomile tea, played glum music through the nights, exhausted himself at the end of a day and yet, sleep refuses to present itself in the dimly lit and quiet room. His body remains desperate for the rendezvous, and as he pops the pill, he hopes once again to wake up tomorrow morning. To wake up and head to work, to file papers, and ensure that people do not claim the insurance money without reading the terms and conditions delicately attached in fine print.
His eyes are red, and he looks for a bowl of carrot soup at the cafeteria lest they may melt and explode. Mr D’Costa has had a terrible week with young people with promising and healthy lifestyles going outdoors and living life to the fullest; dwindling a bit too soon. He has watched 11 young clients glide to death, making the entire enterprise of life (or death) assurance and medical claim a big mistake
Mr D'Costa is not a religious man, but he ardently goes down on his knees, joins his palms, and pretends to strike a deal with the gods of life and death every Sunday.
He could not save Mrs D' Costa a decade ago owing to his poverty. He did not love her as much as he loves her now. Or as much as he loves the memory of her death now. He recalls her death every day and carries the wedding ring as a token of the past. His clients know the story by heart. They do not stop him by pointing out the redundancy, but by signing papers and extending their contract with the company.
Mr D'Costa has never fallen in love and cannot attribute his sleeplessness to unfulfilled desires. He only needs to sleep, to be able to wake up like everyone else and go to work. The waking up is contingent upon falling asleep, and Mr D'Costa is a poor victim of this inane necessity.
At work, he exhausts himself by manipulating contracts, looting money, holding them tighter by citing policies, and being appalled at the nature of death. His colleagues, he has noted, are empathetic and try making ends meet with the same.
Mr D'Costa's style is different. He is a wonderful listener, and by making a note of people's shortcomings and fears, he designs contracts that suit them on the surface and benefit him intrinsically, and consistently.
His visit to the doctors has exhausted him more than his affairs. His relationships with people have always been distant, carefully watching people from within his cage. He risks no part of his personality and fits in everywhere. He desperately wishes to be liked.
He has been trying to sleep, so he wouldn’t disappoint his doctor, with whom he had hoped to strike a deal. After all, life, death, and medical claims are favourable to him. Along with the pretence of Sunday Mass. His neighbours adore him, and friends at the parish admire his success. Mr D’Costa’s presence reminds them that life after death will be taken care of.
Agnus, at Church, watches him every week and makes shy eye contact, and smiles with a slight nod.
D’Costa knows she likes him. She is old but her features are attractive. Her body reminds him of the transience of youth, and her eyes hold the wisdom of age - that this, would never work out
As he speaks to his doctor of his sleeplessness despite the lullaby and therapy the previous week, his phone rings. Agnus has died.
He has been called to work out her papers. He rushes to her residence where she lived alone. By the end of the day, everybody has paid their respect and retired. The church choir leaves a bouquet of gardenia and lavender on her vase. Mr D’Costa peruses through her documents, and as he waits for the funeral director to arrive, he looks at her calm dead face. He tries to picture her breathing, recalls the sound of it, and her voice when she said “Amen.” She enjoyed singing Ave Maria. Each time she stood by the choir, she’d find his eyes. His eyes would watch her sing and pay attention to her voice alone. The rise and dip, favourably interspersed by a smile on her lips. She was healthy and perhaps not too unhappy with life, and her voice was, dare he say, at the moment, full of life.
Hours later, the funeral director finds Mr D'Costa, lying next to her dead body. Among the papers, Faulkner's stories lay on his chest, his phone beeps. The application notifies it is time for a nap.
