A Gift to My Wife: She Can Choose
A week passed without having a proper food. My colleagues noticed my sorrowful sight and when I told them my sobbing story, everyone was shocked. They had considered my marriage was at an epitome of happiness who would never fall in the snare of each other's disputations. I had tried everything to accept the aspects of her life. She told me she had headache in the mornings to cook food for me. Her headache could be a lie because she was watching TV whole night and I never disturbed her once. She told me she had backache when my greased Ghos had to wash. Sitting in a sofa for long hours would be a menace to the spine however comfortable a sofa was. I too had a backache from carrying loads of stationeries in the office store and still I could wash my clothes. When I went for a lunch after washing all the clothes I saw her sleeping like a log. A closer look at her I almost felt she was no better than a drunkard woman sleeping at the pavement curb. Her mouth was wide open, with spittle of saliva wetting the pillow and over her head was a bush of unkempt curly hairs ready to afloat like the tentacles. In between when she snored I was taken aback why she did not snore when I first saw her in the town. Had I seen snoring at that time I would not have called her to my place. She was not suffering insomnia and that helped her become my wife. I was an ardent fan of one singer who sang about keeping a wife happy. He sang to a wife who wanted to keep her warm with clothes borrowing from here and there. And like a die-hard fan I bought her many clothes and she did not even thank me for not having to borrow the least. He sang to keep the wife like a princess and I did exactly the same. She was the princess of my attic where she must be the only one in this world who had limited chores to do. Her only task I could remember was to sit in the sofa, one hand holding her jaw and the other with her favorite remote control of TV set. The way she watched TV would mistake everyone that she was once an assiduous student in her time. Drop a steel tumbler from the roof on the concrete floor she would be deaf to hear the tinkling sound. Yet whatever dialogues the characters spoke however low the volume was, it would be in her ears like a watchful cat. In summer she would look little feminine able to showcase to my friends while she put on her sleeveless shirt. Hold on my friends, the beauty to me in whatever fanciful dress she wore were all effaced from the way she slept till middle of the day, discharge from her mouth, snore and tentacle hairs. The argument started on smaller notes, from remote control to touching the feet accidentally in the bed. She would pull the blanket to her side and I would do the same to my side until we let a huge gushing cold air sleep in between us. And in the mornings she had least bother to cook for me and I used to leave her undisturbed as if her night had started at that time. In the office when my stomach growled I remembered my wife. When thoughts after thoughts followed I became an irresistible and impatient person from once a humble and decent one. Vindictive plans cropped to plot another nice argument the moment I reached home. And as if she had planned another wiser plan than me she would open the door with remote control still in her hand. I had sacrificed so much from my side that even a mare would have started fetching the water to my home. But I was not a donkey to marry a horse. However, I had not relinquished the plan to be the worst husband in her life. I would remain a faithful husband but never a henpecked any more. This Valentine I would give her the choice of gifts. If she did not change the brand of washing soap from Lux she would miss the cake and card.
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