It's Midnight in New Delhi and Boiling Hot

by Ani Banerjee

The fan overhead makes a creaky sound; somewhere, a dog howls, and from downstairs, Baba coughs. The couple toss and turn in bed and he says, "Let's go to the roof."
 
Under the stars, their bodies meet, sweat dripping salty over her, both breathless, air thick as mango pulp.
 
“Like dipping in the Ganges,” she jokes.
 
“Next year, we should get some air conditioning,” he says. 
 
“Or we could just hop on a cloud and go to the mountains,” she replies, and he laughs.
 
Below, on the street, four flights down, the night watchman stomps his cane and asks, “Everything ok?”
 
On cue, from downstairs, his ninety-year-old Baba calls out to her, the disposable daughter-in-law, “Munni, water, water.”
 
She says, “Coming, Baba,” but she can’t get up; her saree is crumpled and wet and tangled. As her feet keep slipping beneath her, she clings to the railing, but like old houses do, it groans and the railing gives way.

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Ani Banerjee is a retiring lawyer and an emerging writer from Houston, Texas. Her flash fiction has been published in Lost Balloon, Janus Literary, Dribble Drabble Magazine and others. 

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