The Dream He Forgot – Marzia Rahman

And the days smell like copper. And the nights like Star cigarettes and cheap sentiments. And the whistles come from tea stalls, roadside cafés, a young man, riding a motorcycle, a middle-aged drunk, cussing out the moon. A car window rolls down slowly, a finger emerges, beckoning. A cheap hotel has no fragrance, no clean sheets, no white bathrobes, only half-lighted corridors leading to half-lighted corners. A 10/12 feet room, a torn picture of a nude girl on the wall. The bed creaks loudly for some time, and then silence, broken by—drip…drip…drip—floating from far away or nearby. A toilet flushes, a door slams shut. Get up. Leave, comes the command. Two hours. Five hundred-taka, one ripped note, taped with Scotch tape in the middle. Change it! Fresh notes rustle in his hand as he takes the corridor that seems to go on and on like old classics. A copy of Dickens’s David Copperfield, a home library, his sister’s barbie doll with straight silky hair and long legs flash through his mind. He used to imagine himself as a doll. A doll with a red bindi, red lips, sari wrapped around his slim, slender figure. A woman in the mirror, happy and pretty. He can still hear the sound of shattering glass, the shouts, the cries, the whiplashes. And one morning, the shirts and trousers no longer fitted. Life on the streets is tough. Shameful. If lucky, one finds a friend or two, a new shelter where they all look alike, dress alike. And in the mornings, he zigzags between the cars, begging, clapping, cursing. And at nights, he dreams of a house with dolls and no glass. And in his dream, there is a wedding sometimes, family and friends showering rose petals on the bride and groom, going round a sacred fire, chanting a prayer. With achol swaying in the late-night breeze, bangles tinkling, he walks down a narrow path, flanked by tin-roofed houses. A manhole behind. A lamppost ahead. He looks up and tries to remember what made him so happy last night!