The Last Night
The Last Night The night before I left home Denzil Jayasinghe 11 min read · 5 days ago T here are nights one remembers for a lifetime. Not because anything extraordinary happens, but because, without our knowing it, something is coming to an end. This was one such night. I was standing beside the old well, somewhere in the darkness of our garden in Dalugama. I had stripped off my clothes and lowered a bucket into the cool water. My arm was still aching from the nurse’s needle that afternoon. She had given me injections for malaria and typhoid, and had complained bitterly about my thin arms. I had thought her a thoroughly unpleasant woman. Now, with the bucket in my hands, I was less concerned about her opinion of me. I lifted the metal bucket to my lips and drank. Half its contents disappeared before I remembered that this was to be my last night at home. My last bath at this well. My last drink of water from this old metal bucket. My last evening standing naked beneath the famil...