Late night, when he was entered the bedroom; his wife complained “Today is Valentine Day. You didn’t give me any special gift, not even a rose! Earlier you used to celebrate whole day with me; watching movie, dinning out, shopping and what a wife can desire of…..Sweet Nights!!” 

“At that time I was not that busy now I am!”

“If you were so busy then at least you could have pluck a crimson bottle brush flower from our garden which is in full bloom these days and wished me.” She taunted.

“I am hell tired.” He felt the intense pain arising in the shoulders while lying on the bed. “If you like the flower so much then why don’t you go and pluck one for yourself?”

He retorted, hiding his aches which would only add fuel to the fire.

“I am talking about your time, your attention. In the past month you haven’t attended any social function or late night party or watched good movie neither on TV nor cinema hall or gone to amusement park for fun.

“I was busy.” He didn’t have the strength to fight with his tigress.

“Busy in what? Getting older fast! Huh? She pointed at grey hair in his head, stooping back and sullen eyes with dark circles under them.

“In making profits.” He said opening his eyes forcefully fighting with pain or sleep or both.

“What will you do with it?”

“I do not want it for myself. I am earning it for you and my son, Rushwan.”

“We have repaid the loan, constructed a decent house and saved sufficient money for the future. I have wardrobes full of clothes and jewellery.” She turned around and opened her wardrobe to show him and a blue colored top slipped from the above shelves on her. She caught it. The falling of that piece disturbed the alignment and all the stacked tops in front row fall on the ground. “My wardrobe is over flowing with clothes. It can’t hold anymore. Moreover if you don’t have time to look at me then what is the use of wearing all these clothes and jewellery? For me your time, your company, your one glimpse is more important than all these materialistic things.” She gathered them from the floor and folded them.

She closed the cupboard, turned around and found him asleep. She sighed.

Collecting coins made him richer as well as greedier. He replaced the coin with the highest denomination currency note available. Constant bending to pick the objects from tub without doing any regular exercise caused a little bend in his back and his speed of doing work slowed down. He had to bend a lot to take out something from the tub and he worked at a snail’s pace still could make more than enough money from that magic tub. He was working his butts off! He moved less out of store to avoid useless arguments with his wife.

Part -7 is here

For #TheWriteChoice