The Snacks and Ludo

It was nigh morning and everyone was sleeping except her. She stretched her body and yawned. A fly buzzed past her ear and alighted on the glass, trying to suck juice from the late night mango cocktail. She rolled the newspaper and then came a sharp slap. The fly fell inside the glass, floating in the dregs of juice. After a second, the poor creature ceased to struggle for her life. She threw fly in the bin and washed the glass.

As the morning drew nearer, light started streaming through the milky white curtains. She perched atop the pile of cushions to compete with herself. She picked yellow color for herself and threw the dice. It landed on four. A sigh came out.  Shutting her eyes, she threw for the second time for her competitor, the green color. She slightly opened her eyes so she could see what the number was. It was six.

Although she herself was throwing dices for both players. She thought of beating green by cheating because she was alone in the room. But her consciousness didn’t let her to do so. As the game progressed, she was constantly under the attack of green player. At a moment, she cursed herself for choosing the wrong color; she should have gone for red, her favorite color. But next time, she’d definitely beat her opponent.

After half an hour, she lost the game to green. She abruptly stood up to unfold the game, then gave out a loud laugh for it was a board game on the floor. Her father hired a mason to construct ‘Ludo’ on the floor; and it took him almost a whole day, designing and coloring the four houses. It was fashioned because her little bro usually tore up Ludo board whenever he lost the game.

She heard footsteps and the next moment her cousin, who came to stay with her, thumped on the bed. They both looked at each other and nodded slightly. She remembered how she played ‘Ludo’ with her cousin and siblings, holding a cup of tea in her hands and sipping slowly to keep it from finishing. A platter of Nimko and chips with titbits scattered on the floor, her hands salty with the excessive salt resting in the bottom of the chips bag. How she used to lick those grains of spices from the packet of nimko?

LAYS made a late entry in her life. Tripple Em, her favorite chips which she munched watching LATE NIGHT ELECTION TRANSMISSION on PTV. She reminisced how they made fries and relished toast, eggs, kebabs with tea. She competed with her brothers to wake all night but always fell asleep on her turn.

Now ‘Ludo’ is suffocating under the carpet, waiting for reentry in human life. It has made its way during ‘covid-19’, but it’ll be buried again as it was.