I woke up after a bad dream that night: dead sparrows rained down from the sky; my mother walked on, pushing them aside with a pole; she carried an infant at her waist, and the baby had my face. Unable to bear the dream, my sleep was disturbed.

I step out of the house and see clouds swallowing the moon. I shake the neem tree in the hopes of enjoying a shower of dew drops, but snakes fall from it and slither across the floor. The howl of a dog in the distance, echoing like the cry of an old man in a trance. The air is still and dense as if someone had bundled and taken away all the breeze around me. When I stare at the stars, they start collapsing on me. I run into the house for shelter. There is no one inside to stop me and enquire why I am running so hard.

Staring at an empty room fills me with melancholy – like looking into an empty fish tank. I try to gather and give shape to whatever remains of human presence I can find in the room. The little bloodstains on the wall were once mosquitoes....

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