Amita BasuThe lights blink off on the mountainside
and the stars blink gently on.
City-dwelling, I’d quite forgotten
that nights should be pitchblack.
Drowsy in my pillowy bed, I watch
the inn, the mountainside get swathed
in dense white radiant cloud. Why don’t
I move here for good?
The northeast is our last great bastion
of wilderness. Wonderful people too,
and fantastic food. Yes, I’ve got to move.
Okay, done! I drift asleep.
Gone, the white cloud when I awake,
gone, the pure pitchblack night,
and gone, my peace – for in the dawn
they’re slaughtering all the lambs.
Petrified in bed, I stare out the window.
I clutch my blanket over my nose,
terrified I’ll smell the blood of the poor angel
lambs they’re killing outside.
It’s a noise from hell that woke me: a thousand
voices bleating, agonised, shrieking,
weakening, abating, then returning
loud with fresh pain and horror.
My God, what’s happening here? How many
lambs do you need to kill? (I only eat
one at a time, a tiny one, just once
in a great long while.)
Sweat dripping, breath shallow, body curled up
under the sheets, I wince, anticipating
the river of blood, like from The Shining
crashing through my window.
How right they were, my colleagues’ snide remarks
about northeastern food, the horrors of
boiled meat, red meat, too much meat. And to think
I stood up for this place!
Poor, darling lambs! (And also, why
must they kill them out in the open,
and at dawn, when sleep is sweetest?)
What an outrage. I’m leaving right now!
The noise dies down. I creep to the window.
Wincing, I peer around for blood, and bones,
and wool. Unpinching my nose, I sniff
the clear, sweet morning air.
God, there’s the noise again! I jump out of
my skin. Heart racing, I follow the noise.
Out my room. Downstairs. Down the corridor.
Still louder! Ever louder!
Terror and curiosity tear me
in two. Beyond the garden, in the swamp,
I find the slaughterhouse, the noise:
a thousand croaking, mating frogs.
I ogle. I dance a fingertip in my ears.
Yes, it’s the same sound, alright. I creep
back upstairs, half relieved, half ashamed.
And then I laugh out loud.
