A nursery. A big field. Varieties of flowers. Sweet pungent smells of roses, lilies and marigolds were there too. Bees and butterflies were flying around. With soil a tall woman named Rewa was toiling with a small spade. She looked contently tired for she had been working here from the early morning. She rolled her sleeves and checked her watch. It was eight thirty in the morning already. She had worked for long two hours without a break. After looking at her watch she suggested herself that she should take a few minutes' rest. She stood up. She stood almost six feet. Her long legs needed stretching. She went near an upturned cement water tank in the middle of the nursery and sat on it. On the cement water tank was placed a big thermo-flask and a cup. She poured some hot coffee into the cup and as she started drinking her mobile phone rang. Irritatedly she looked into the source of sound, that's, her mobile phone. She greatly valued her solitude and the company of coffee. Whoever distracted her while drinking coffee… well it never happened. No one dared to disturb her on such occasions. It could not be her husband, because she knew that he (her husband) knew that she would get frustrated and angry. And he was mortally afraid of her. He would not call her, unless it was an emergency.
She checked the screen. She could not see the name on the screen. Side effect of crossing forty. So she dug in her hand into her apron pocket. She was wearing an apron to keep her dress clean… She found her glasses. Then she wore them and saw the beeping screen. On it was written "Husband."
"Husband!" she was stunned. "It must be an emergency." And before she even took the call, before her husband could utter a word, she understood everything. She understood why her husband had called her. What circumstance had pushed him to dare calling her in the morning, when he knew she was busy tending to the nursery. Even though he took the call.
"Hello," there came his staggering voice.
"Hello," she said. "What is the problem? You sound out of breath. What is the matter?"
There was an eerie silence for a few seconds. As if her husband was communicating through silence and asking: Do not you know what is the matter?
But she knew he never showed his anger. Always controlled his anger before her. Because mortally afraid of her. Poor boy: her mind would say to her, had it been an ordinary occasion – had it been an ordinary husband – wife mobile phone call. But she knew it was not an ordinary call from her husband to ask how was she doing, or how was she gardening, or had she finished her coffee he had made for her, etc. Her husband sounding exasperated out of worry over the mobile phone said, "Do you have a news paper around you?"
She eyed around. There was no newspaper. But then she recalled that the coffee shop owner near the nursery must have bought one from the nearby newspaper stall. She answered to her husband, "Yes, I have one."
"Then please read it. We have a message."
"This is odd. This is not the time." She said.
"Yes… still… see the message…and keep calm. I am coming to the nursery."
The nursery was a few meters away from their home where was the flower shop – attached to their home. Then she leaving the mobile phone behind ran for the coffee shop adjacent to her nursery almost trampling over some of her precious buds of roses. She noticed it. She thought she could grow them later. Even she almost fell near the iron gate of the nursery. But she protected herself from falling by stilling herself for some seconds and putting her hands on the iron gate. Actually the soil was watery and so slippery. That was why she accidentally slipped on it. Now she got her balance and started moving forward. But did not run. Just walked toward the coffee shop. Reaching it she opened the door and entered in. As she entered in the owner, an old man named Bob looked at her baffled. For she hardly came into the shop.
"The last time you came here it was s ix months ago," Bob said.
"Sorry Bob, but I do not have much time for your foolish jokes. Do you have today's newspaper?" she asked.