The Waterworks

“None of the other regulars have turned up for the bus today. So there’s just you and me here in the rain.

Well, not quite. There’s still quite a few vehicles on the roads and the odd cyclist wrapped up in polythene. Wonder why all drivers in the rain wear the same expression? More grimly intent on getting who knows where? It’s something I’ve seen since when I was a child living next door to the waterworks. That was a long time ago, but it still feels like yesterday.

Even then, the waterworks had seen better days. There was a tangle of rusting machinery there, moldering and overgrown with weeds, around a well that had run dry long ago. We were forbidden to play there, of course. The body of somebody’s kid was found there and the place was supposed to be haunted. Certainly, everyone avoided it; even the municipality that was supposed to be responsible for it.

I was a sickly child as endless bouts of chicken pox, measles and mumps kept me mostly bedridden. My bedroom window overlooked the moss-covered walls of the waterworks and as there wasn’t much else to do, I used to spin scary stories of dark deeds done in the depths of the well.

I don’t remember all of them now, but they certainly gave me sleepless nights then. Most kids are afraid of the dark and what’s under the bed. But the monster of my nightmares was lurking down in the well. It was a sort of giant toad-like creature, slimy with festering warts. I could swear it was leering horribly up at me in the dark as the wind whipped at the branches of the trees screening the waterworks. The thing was quite a blood-curdling sight, with a huge snake-like tongue flicking through rows of needle-sharp teeth and slobbering lips. And then there was that awful hissing whisper in the wind…

The nightmares used to become worse during the monsoons when the rains really came down. That was until the night of the storm, when the waterworks were struck by lightning. Funny thing; before the storm, no bird would nest in the trees around the waterworks or even fly over it, but afterwards it was simply swarming with vultures. Judging from the smell then, something must have died in there.  Anyway, my sleeplessness stopped after that.

Since then, I’ve come to love the rain. But never mind about that now, here’s our bus at last...”