They sat on the veranda, as they usually did every evening after Baba came home from work. Ruban was curled up on his father’s lap as the latter rocked slowly on the creaky easy chair that had been there ever since the boy could remember. The vast countryside spread out before them like an unending vista of gold. The crops, carefully arranged across numerous fields, swayed gently in the breeze. Spring was well on its way to Surai.
“How was the picnic, my love?” his father asked, voice hushed in deference to the tranquillity of the evening. His fingers carded through Ruban’s short brown curls.
“Good,” Ruban mumbled, burying his face in Abhas’s shirt.
His father lifted Ruban high enough to be level with him. “What’s the matter, my child? Didn’t you enjoy yourself? Did someone say something to you?”
Ruban shook his head, trying to bury his face once again into his father’s rumpled shirt. He was prevented from doing so, however, by Abhas’s gentle but insistent hand on his chin, holding his face up and forcing him to look into the older man’s eyes. “Come now, child. You know you can tell me, whatever it was. Out with it.”
“Mi-Miki’s mommy baked us a cake for the picnic,” Ruban said finally, putting up a valiant struggle against the tears that threatened to spill out and make a mess of his father’s shirt.
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Abhas sighed, allowing the miserable boy to wrap himself further around his torso and hide his tear-streaked face in his shirt. “And didn’t you like it?”
A muffled sob. “Did too.”
“And?”
“W-where’s my Mommy, Baba?” the words tore themselves past Ruban’s trembling lips.
Abhas continued to run his fingers through his son’s messy locks, gazing contemplatively up at the starry sky. “I don’t know, love,” he said, gently rocking Ruban on his lap as he spoke. “They used to say, a long time ago, that those who left the earth went to the sky. Became stars.” Ruban spun around, extricating his tiny wet face from his father’s shirt to gaze eagerly out at the star-studded sky. “Who knows? Maybe they were right. Maybe that’s where she is now, watching over us from the skies.”
“You think?” Ruban asked, wide eyes now bright with excitement rather than grief. “I’ll tell Miki that’s where she is, then! You think she can see us?”
“Of course,” said Abhas, lifting the boy off his lap as they prepared to enter the house for the night. “And she can see you’re awake past your bedtime. Come on in now, Ruban. It’s getting late...”
A violent crack of thunder shattered the peace of the quiet evening, obscuring all the stars with its harsh light. Terrified, Ruban grabbed at the hems of his father’s shirt, but it was too late. Fire engulfed the house around them and even as he watched, Abhas faded away before his eyes, turning to ashes despite his efforts to hold on to his father’s arms.
“Baba!” he cried, but the word stuck in his throat, refusing to be spoken. Miki screamed in the distance, her voice laced with pain and horror. Ruban tried to reach her but she was surrounded by fire – screaming, calling out to him for help he couldn’t provide. Then she too was gone, and he stood on a pile of smouldering black ash, tiny sparks burning the soles of his feet as a loud screeching noise permeated his senses...