It was in the secluded scrapyard of Reversi Hotel leading close to the southern ridge forest in Chhatarpur. Moor sat before a lit angithi. The warmth was pleasant in the dewy morning before sunrise and he just had a white shirt on. There was no charcoal or fuel, the fire of the makeshift angithi was fed with torn pieces of paper. The white shirt collected soot from the small fire flares with each feed. His chest was sooty. Another feed and the flare dropped on a defunct 300-litre double door fridge eroded into the ground as each ate into the other. Its bulkiness was a hassle but the space inside was suitable for many purposes. He tore from the middle, two legs of the paper fell apart. Another feed, the right on the ground, the left piece fell in the fire and light fell at the back on a rusting tandoor lying over moss. Rotting the fleshy moss with its burnt orange flakes. In his eyes, there was none of the burning flames, the rising smoke and soot or the tearing apart. He rolled his tongue over his thick lips. Rumination. Voices spoke within. They spoke to him as to their think-ling. They gave him the worst of his thoughts. The worst of words.

“She betrayed her father. Why couldn’t she us?”

“It’s not a year ‘till a woman reveals. If she’d been full with us, she’d’ve belched us.”

“We have bid a forever farewell to content.”

At this, he recalled the earlier hour when he walked in her room. Besides where she slept, no other article in the chamber had any presence. Not the settee, not the dresser, not the cupboard, not the other cupboard, not the side table, not the ring kept upon it. Nothing was there besides her and the bed for Moor. He walked in with the flashlight on. She awakened to see Moor upon her. The lights went on. Bright room, too bright, light cluttered. Yet all Moor saw was the handkerchief. He told her to think of her sins. She would have said that it was her love for him. He told her she’ll die for love. She would have said that it’s the unnatural that kills for loving. Yet all he heard was the ruminations.

“What we intend to do is a sacrifice!”

She protested. Moor tore, tore her apart. It was not a shed of her blood that remained. Drop by drop, scarred red ground. The next question for him was, tandoor or fridge. He chose none. And then, piece by piece, he fed them with tears into the makeshift angithi.