The daily travails in an Electrician's life

I knew an electrician, who had woken up on a certain morning with a pounding headache. The previous night’s dreams had assaulted him; where he had seen hammers and pliers everywhere. Outside his tin roofed shanty that morning, the birds were unusually chattery, leaving behind  droppings on his window sill.
Just before the birds arrived causing a cackle of sounds, he in his dream, was searching for screws in a room that had hammers lying in abundance everywhere. 

Jolted out of his reverie, he dashes to the bath for a quick shower before lighting up a stove to make himself a cup of tea which turns out to be pale and watery. All dried up, he opens a wooden shelf and notices a jar of half-used face cream, a tin of talcum powder and a packet full of colorful bindis. He pictures his mother with the red dot on her forehead and his eyes glisten unwittingly. He doesnt find it important to dispose any of his mother's bare belongings after she had passed away a few years ago. He locates a plastic bottle, lying at the far end of the shelf that has a fine layer of oil stuck around it's edges. On opening the cork, a strong whiff of jasmine scented oil arrests his nostrils. Pouring few drop on his roughened palm he gently applies it over his mop of curls and slicks it on to the side.
The tiny mirror by the kitchen window catches his blurred reflection showing few strands of grey sprouting at the temples. At the age of forty, intentionally single, he has no complains from life and busies himself in re-arranging the contents of his toolbox. The morning outside is nice and bright carrying with it the smells of chicken curries getting cooked in the neighbouring kitchen. His weather-beaten toolbox in tow he then heads to travel to faraway distances. A bus that he alights in takes him to a nearly dried up creek bed. Once he steps out, placing a leg atop a slithery stone; the toolbox held close to his chest; he takes two long strides and crosses the creek to get on to the other side. 

Every now and then his feet take him to strange unnamed streets, alcoves that look haunted, narrow gullies that are stretched forever. 

The sun today is certainly not kind; the harshness of the weather bringing in big droplets of sweat that drip casually from his underarms. By day end he would notice angry red blisters gathering in a clump at the soles of his feet. 
Days when he is fortunate enough to make a quick buck, he finds himself in dark sullen rooms wearing a slim torch like a band around his head. 

Behind dingy cupboards, the plaster peeling from wornout painted walls he discovers crumbling old switchboards. 
The switchboards he realises always made a creaking sound when drilled with screws and pliers. Once in a while he hears a splinter of darkened wood tearing away. A tangle of wires get ready to greet him sprouting out of those moth eaten wooden boards. The light shining weakly from his torch; he fumbles with a hundred open wires knowing exactly which one to puncture with his array of instruments. 

There are times, when he comes across buildings that are torn down and dilapidated; the owners themselves over ninety years old, coughing and tottering around with their walking sticks screaming out instructions to the electrician. 

On a certain evening, like today, when the sun is dipping behind the shadows, he is called to fix up a house that is enveloped in darkness due to the breakdown of electrical systems or faulty wires. The sight of half lit candles meet him everywhere; the melted wax dripping in a continous stream. 

Inside those rooms, where the blinds are perhaps raised to catch  the last filter of sunlight, spiders in a corner are busy rustling up a patchwork of intricately sewn cobwebs and roaches have a gathering of sorts in between weedy spaces of thin cupboards. 

Nothing misses his eye like today. His torchlight catches a flash of a mouse or two darting across from one end of the room to other, scurrying beneath the wooden four poster bed, and chewing at the weathered ends of a tray table. 

Under the glare, the mice appear to be frightened, taken aback, as they stand exposed to their crime. But in true sense, they are cocky enough to know, that the man standing before them is benevolent and is compassionate in nature and means no harm. And even if he decides to run after them with a stick in his hand, as they had often seen the old couple do, they had their runaway route planned. A hole in the bedroom wall, that was dug after days and days of perilious labour now stood in front of them worthy enough to justify every means of their escape. The meek mice stand at a distance, guilty as charged. 

The sharpness of their teeth amazes the electrician, and he  wonders in his head whether bits of flattened wire would have got stuck between their teeth while tampering with the switchboard. But answers he has none to and there is nothing much he could do, other than fixing those half chewed wires. The mice aware of his growing dilemma stare back at him, brazenly flashing their teeth. For a moment they both lock their gaze. In a flash of a second, they escape promptly by vanishing into their cubby hole. The last image, he catches of them is of their grey tails sweeping the ground below. 

The lights in the house is now restored, and the angry wrath from the old couple’s face is replaced with smiles and thankful gestures. 

Some decent money in his pocket, he stops by at his favourite Iranian restaurant. The owner recognizing that he is a regular, offers to add an additional spoon of sugar into the already sweetened milky chai, to which he gladly obliges.
He has his first proper meal of the day. Two slices of buttery toast with a spread of strawberry jam mocks his tastebuds and he devours it in an increasing speed. He leaves behind few annas as a tip which he has never done before and steps out of the place. 


The night breeze is cool as he resumes his journey back home. The street lamps glimmer on the pavements. Hunger-ridden moths circle wildly around those lights making it their home for the next few hours.

Lights, he wonders out aloud. The reason he makes a living.