Flash fiction, Mehreen Ahmed

The fur

After many months of drought, Monsoon sets in—season of mixed abundance, more crops, more floods. Rarely more crops cause,’ there were more floods than not. I scrape last night’s vegetable peels off from the kitchen floor and chuck it away in a compost bin. I hear my neighbour, Rosina scream from upstairs. 

            “Too much rain. This Monsoon is particularly bad for chillies. How’re you going with yours?”

            I don’t say much but continue to scrape away the last of the tidbits, scraps. I have a roof-top pot garden where I grow my daily requirements of vegetables—chillies, cauliflowers and green spinach. This home-made compost helps. Monsoon destroys crops, specially chillies, they say. I hear it, but doesn’t bother me much. Rosina is right. The fate of chilly farmers is at odds as always.

            I press down the bin’s lid to push down some of the scrap; the bin fills up too fast. I carry it to my garden on the roof to distribute it evenly around into all of the pots. My chillies don’t shrivel in the Monsoon rain. I pluck a few plump ones. The overcast sky looks grey as expected. I walk to the edge of the roof and look over to peek into Rosina’s flat. I see an empty chair. I wonder where she may have disappeared. Perhaps, she is washing up in the bathroom or taking a bath, even. I decide to give her a couple of chillies. I call her. “Sina, Sina, Are you at home?”

             I hear nothing. I decide to go downstairs and knock on her door. I knock a few times. Rosina unbolts the door and stares in silence. She is wrapped in a towel. I try to move my face away when I hear her laughter. 

            ”Don’t be shy, I’m in the bathroom washing up,” she says.

            “I won’t stay, I just want to give you these.” 

            “Of course, thank you, chillies are way too expensive, these days.”

             “Yeah, I agree. Any way, I’ll leave you to it and maybe see you another time?”

             “Sure,” she said and shut the door to my face.

            That is rude, the way she shut that door. I come down the stairs feeling miffed, I open the door to my flat and get in. I put the chillies in a bowl on the table and walk to the verandah. I hear a scream coming from Rosina’s place. I wonder what’s up! Although, it still peeves me the way she shut her door to my face, I scream nevertheless at the top of my voice, ‘Sina, Sina, are you okay?’ I hear more screams, then a moment of quiet. I think, she must be okay. But I am not completely sure and fear something is wrong. I have half a mind to call the other neighbours. They hear it too. By now, I see a couple of them necking out through the window. Our eyes meet. 

            “I think we need to call the police,” I say. 

            They agree.

            The police come. I am upstairs again with the police. The door is ajar. We enter and we see Rosina on the floor. Her body is covered in some kind of a furry substance on her shoulders and chest but she breathes. Her eyes are closed. I call an ambulance. They take Rosina to the hospital. However, when I look around the room, I see that my chillies are broken, crushed, and messed up all over her table. I’m confused and look at the police.

            “She had a hairy visitor, who doesn’t like chillies,” an officer said.

            “What? Why? What do you mean?” I ask.

            “The visitor didn’t think she deserves any chilli of yours.”

            “What’s going on?” I ask.

            “Rosina did not atone for her sins. She didn’t say, ‘sorry.’ There’s a new hairy beast in town who will strip to the bare bones if someone’s soul didn’t grow, they take the target’s happiness away because of their inability to say, ‘sorry.’ Here’s its signature note.”

            “Really? I never knew. What’s her sin, though?”

            “The worst kind, one who doesn’t acknowledge in her heart that they’ve sinned.”

            “Hubris?”

            “Poison hearts. The beast knows better he’s a soul-reader, a snatcher and a compost-maker of new souls.”

            I grab the chilly scraps and rush out of the flat before the hairy beast destroys me, too.