The Riverside Gift

The summer of 1985 in the hill town of Bhalukpong was heavy with rain and the smell of wet earth. My father, Arjun, was sixteen then, and his younger brother, Manoj, had been gone for barely a week. The fever had come quick and cruel, and the doctors in the small town clinic had done what they could, but the sickness took him before the monsoon truly broke. Arjun was left with an empty bed across the room, a shelf of shared comic books, and a tin of marbles they had collected from the riverbed.

Every night since the funeral, Arjun dreamt of Manoj standing at the foot of the bed. He wore the same torn blue shirt he had on the last day, but his feet were bare and wet, leaving dark footprints on the wooden floor. He didn’t speak at first, just looked at Arjun with an expression that was half smile, half pleading. Then, on the fourth night, he said, ‘The red top. I want the red top.’ Arjun woke with his heart pounding, the words ringing in his ears.

At breakfast, he told his mother, Asha. She paused, ladle in hand, and stared at the steam rising from the rice pot. ‘The red top?’ she repeated. ‘You mean the one he used to spin on the veranda?’ Arjun nodded. ‘He always loved that thing. He’d get dizzy watching it go.’ Asha sighed. ‘It’s in the wooden box under his bed. Your father hasn’t touched it yet.’ Arjun felt a chill despite the warm kitchen.

That night, Arjun dreamed again, but this time Manoj was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding the Red Top. Its colors swirled – crimson, vermilion, scarlet – and the hum it made was like a swarm of bees. Manoj’s lips didn’t move, but Arjun heard his voice clearly. ‘You told me you’d give it back. You said after I was done. But you never did.’ The top spun faster until it was a blur, and Manoj’s face contorted into something hungry. ‘You kept it. Now I have to take it.’

Arjun woke gasping, drenched in cold sweat. He stumbled to the wooden box, his hands shaking as he lifted the lid. There it was, the red top, resting on a bed of old matchbox cars. He hadn’t touched it since Manoj got sick, but he remembered the day he ‘borrowed’ it without asking. He remembered his brother’s angry shout, and how he had hidden it under the mattress until Manoj gave up looking. He never did apologize, and when Manoj died, he figured it didn’t matter. Now it mattered.

He took the top to the veranda, the same spot where they used to play. The wood was warm under his palm. He gave it a hard spin, and the colors blurred. For a moment, it was almost like old times, but then the humming grew louder, and the air grew cold. He saw Manoj’s reflection in the spinning disc – not the gentle boy he knew, but a hollow, mocking thing with eyes like dark pits. ‘You can’t give back what you’ve kept too long,’ the voice whispered. ‘It’s part of you now.’

He left the top on the floor and backed away. The spinning continued, faster and faster, until it suddenly stopped with a clatter. The veranda was silent. No birds. No wind. Arjun felt a weight lift, but also a lingering wrongness.

That night, he dreamt of Manoj one last time. His brother stood by the window, no longer pleading, but smiling – a serene, peaceful smile. He held the top, now still and dark, in his hands. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I can go now.’ And then he faded, leaving only the faint smell of rain.

The next morning, the top was gone from the veranda. Arjun searched the box, the house, the garden. He never found it. But sometimes, when the river was high and the wind carried the scent of wet earth, he thought he heard the faint hum of a spinning top, just beyond the bend. He never spoke of it again, but he never forgot the weight of a promise unkept and the power of a simple gift returned too late.