A faded pale-blue washing machine was first thing he noticed as he opened the door of his not so small store. It was not in use from past couple of years and was placed close to the door. He came there to create something useful out of the clutter of unused things and to spend his afternoon lazily or somewhat productively. Ahmed viewed the dusty, dingy and gloomy area which had the cluster of items. A wooden bed with a broken leg was standing near the wall, on its one leg a dented bucket and a mouse trap were hanging. Three lamps of different sizes, non functional table fan, his child’s tricycle as he has out grown that age, a medium sized drum which has a hole on its side were lying on the floor. A huge wooden box handed over by her granny as an ancestral furniture was lying in dusts as his wife considered it ‘An old fashioned item’, two card board boxes one above the other were hoarded on it blocked his view to the rest of the room. He took small steps removing cobwebs, moved in between all those precious junk which they have accumulated over the years. He saw an old monitor piled on the CPU, keyboard was slanted on the monitor, a small stool of no use was put upside down on the monitor, a radio whose knob was missing was set in between the rods intersecting its legs, a small metallic container out of which scratched CD and tapes were peeping were positioned on the radio by a skilled person. On the top of pile of old magazines and a few books with two fuse bulbs were set on the radio. He was amazed as well as amused whether all these items could be stalked again in the same manner if removed. His thoughts were distracted by the flattering of a bird on the window. The broken window pane allowed the free movement to the new tenants.

Although he took a few small steps back even then the bird screeched and flew away. Two tiny black spotted balls in the shelf seemed to be the giant obstacles in his plan to create the best out of waste by constructing a rotating fire pit out of the perforated tub of unused washing machine. He planned to give it to his eleven years old beloved wife on the Valentine Day because he didn’t have enough money to buy a pleasant gift from town market. Monetary predicament gave way to creativity! He took out a screw driver from his jeans hip pocket and unscrewed the bolts on all of its sides very slowly without disturbing the unborns. While he slowly lifted the plastic body of the washing machine leaving the tub behind, one of the eggs from the nest slipped into the tub. He removed the cover, stalked it on the cardboard box as it was the only place vacant in the store, took out that egg and placed it back on the not so well knitted twigs. Removing the agitator he noticed one more egg in the tub of the same size, same color and same shape. He put that also back thinking he might have not noticed the falling of the other. To his utmost surprise there was one more egg, a replica! He had to stop placing eggs in the nest as it couldn’t hold more or the bird couldn’t rear more or both. His surprise transformed into confusion as he started filling the dented bucket with spotted eggs.

Part -2 is here

For #TheWriteChoice