Our home is probably located at some dreadful space-time discontinuum, through which malevolent extraterrestrials slip through with consummate ease. They come in their spaceships or riding on their unicorns and create havoc in my life. I am absolutely certain about this, but the missus does not believe me. I have never actually seen any Martian or Jovian or Venusian or whatever they might be but, deep down, I know. I know because it is they who make my things disappear, or they slurp them up into their flying saucers, only to regurgitate them later. And a few they suck back again into the vast unknowable.
It was the small things that first aroused my suspicions. You know—small things, like my car keys vanishing from the key rack and reappearing in the egg tray of the fridge. Or my aftershave dematerialising from the bathroom and rematerialising 10 days later, lying in a corner of my wardrobe. Or my back scratcher disappearing and then peeking sheepishly from behind the computer two days later.
These irritations could have been ignored, but I had to take serious note of the aliens’ mischief when I brought out my hardware box to fix a nail in the kitchen. The hammer was missing! Not just that; there were other things grievously wrong with the tools. The missus accuses me of being the ultimate fusspot when it comes to my toolkit. Maybe she is right, because I like the screwdrivers to be arranged according to size, the pliers to be fitted in their places and the spanners lined up just so. I believe all tools have feelings and can be easily offended if not placed in their assigned positions. Everyone knows that the tools are hierarchy-conscious, and crimp pliers will never accept a position lower than nose pliers. Yet their positions were reversed! Upheavals on this scale could only be the handiwork of extraterrestrials.
Illustration: Job P.K.
The otherworldlies caused more mysterious disasters. An unlikely victim was the washing machine, which is otherwise a docile young thing. It sits quietly in the utility area and remains well-mannered as long as it is regularly fed some detergent and its lint catcher is tickled occasionally. Yet, it started eating my handkerchiefs and socks—sometimes one and sometimes both. The missus refused to believe me when I complained that I could never find any socks to wear.
The strange ones also enticed my wristwatches to start playing truant. I have four of them and I always line them up on my dresser. But now, occasionally, one or the other decides to disappear for a couple of days, only to reappear with an embarrassed look. My favourite one has been missing for a week. I have checked under my bed, behind the sofa cushions, and even in the dog’s litter box (and the dog looked affronted!). Nothing! I am fully convinced my watch has been abducted by a small green alien and sent to some horological Valhalla. The missus, sceptical as ever, believes I left it at the swimming pool.
The aliens have started targeting even my cufflinks. My collection of fancy cuff wear has dwindled to a solitary pair, and I am loath to wear them lest they, too, attract the evil eye of the strange ones. However, the most susceptible to the extraterrestrials’ pranks are my spectacles and reading glasses, which keep disappearing and reappearing with exasperating unpredictability. I suspect that the otherworldlies have also taken a liking to my whisky because I frequently find the level of the amber fluid to be much lower than it ought to be. Sometimes the extraterrestrials get adventurous and start playing games even with me! At night they hide one of my slippers under the bed and I need to awaken the little woman to find it when I need to go to tinkle.
Curiously, the aliens seem to be as scared of the missus as I am. Thus, while they take the most atrocious liberties with my keys, socks, spectacles and slippers, I have yet to witness even a single instance of their fooling around with the missus’s belongings.
The missus does not believe me when I blame the aliens for all the troubles that have been visiting us. “You are losing it!” she says.
Quite fed up, I blurted out last Sunday, “Then how do you explain these happenings? We don’t have a butler. Everyone knows it is the butler who does it. It would have been so convenient if we had had one. I think we need a deep knowledge of quantum mechanics or an understanding of the paranormal to explain all that has been happening to my socks, my keys, my handkerchiefs and my watches!”
“Shut up, you stupid old man! Don’t you know it’s just your absent-mindedness? You’re losing it!”
I can only stoutly deny that I am absent-minded. Yet lately, my wife has started looking at me in that peculiar manner which reflects her deep concern. So far, I only had problems battling the conspiracies of the little green men, but now the missus seems to have become paranoid about my health. She keeps mumbling, “He’s losing it! He’s losing it!”
I am so, so worried!
K.C. Verma is former chief of R&AW. kcverma345@gmail.com