Chapter 88: Side Story: The Broom and The Television

In a little house at the end of a narrow village lane, where the roof tiles grew moss in the rainy season and the jasmine vines climbed the courtyard wall as though they were trying to peek inside, there lived a broom and a television, and although the human who owned them thought of the first as something that swept dust from the floor and the second as something that filled the evenings with noisy dramas, advertisements, cricket matches, and old songs, the villagers knew better, for every household object that was loved long enough and used often enough was said to gather a little spirit of its own, and the longer it remained beneath one roof, the more it learned about the people who lived there, until one day it might begin to laugh when nobody was watching, sigh when nobody was listening, or dream of becoming something it had never been.

The broom had been in the house longer than the television, and because it spent its days close to the earth, it had become quiet and patient, the sort of spirit who noticed things that others overlooked, such as the way sunlight moved across the floor in the afternoon, the way rain sounded different against the courtyard stones than against the roof, and the way the human sometimes came home tired and stood silently at the doorway for several breaths before entering, as though leaving the troubles of the outside world behind required more effort than anyone could see.

Every morning, before the human woke properly, the broom would sweep the house from corner to corner, and every morning the television would watch.

The television had arrived many years later in a large cardboard box, shining black and glossy and terribly proud of itself, and for the first few weeks it had considered the broom a rather strange companion because the broom spent almost all its time upside down against a wall, covered in dust, while the television stood proudly upon a wooden cabinet and received everyone’s attention.

Yet spirits, like people, are sometimes foolish when they are young.

The television thought itself important because everyone sat before it.

The broom thought the television vain because everyone sat before it.

And so they began their friendship by annoying one another.

When the human swept too close to the television cabinet, the television would flicker indignantly.

When the human dusted the television screen, the broom would lean against the cabinet and mutter that there was no reason to polish something that spent all day showing other people’s faces.

When the television played a romantic film, the broom would deliberately scrape one of its bristles against the floor.

When the broom was left outside during the rain, the television would wait until the human returned and then make the screen go dark for precisely three seconds, which the broom considered an extremely childish act.

But the strange thing about affection is that it often grows in the soil of irritation.

The television began to notice that the broom always returned to the same place beside the kitchen door, and the broom began to notice that the television’s screen glowed softly whenever the house was dark, making the lonely rooms feel less empty.

On nights when the human went to sleep early, the broom would listen to the television humming quietly to itself.

"Why do you stay awake?" the broom once asked.

"Why do you care?"

"I don’t."

"Then shut up."

"..."

The television laughed, and the broom pretended not to hear it.

There was a monsoon that year when the rain came down for seven days without mercy, turning the lane into a brown ribbon of mud and filling the courtyard with little floating leaves, and during those long evenings the human sat before the television with a blanket around their shoulders while the broom rested near the window and watched the rain.

One night, the electricity went out.

The house became completely dark.

The human lit a candle, sighed, and went to bed.

For a while there was nothing but rain.

Then the broom spoke.

"Are you afraid?"

The television answered softly, "No."

"You are."

"I am not."

"You are making a strange buzzing sound."

"That is because I am cold."

"Televisions do not get cold."

"..."

The broom was silent for a moment.

Then it whispered, "You can stay near me."

The television’s little red light blinked once.

"I cannot move."

"I know."

"Then why did you say that?"

"Because I wanted to."

And perhaps that was the first moment the television understood that the broom loved it.

Not in the grand manner of the songs shown on its screen, where lovers ran through fields and declared eternal devotion beneath painted sunsets, but in the small, quiet way of a thing that simply wanted another thing to feel less alone.

After that night, they became inseparable.

The broom told the television stories about the old days, when it had belonged to the human’s grandmother and had once been carried to a wedding beneath a red cloth because someone had foolishly believed that a new broom brought good fortune to a new household.

The television told the broom about all the places it had seen through its screen, though it knew they were only images, and the broom listened as though they were real.

They watched mountains together.

They watched oceans.

They watched cities filled with lights.

They watched people kiss beneath cherry blossoms and dance beneath fireworks and cry at railway stations.

The broom became fascinated by the human world beyond the house.

"What does the sea smell like?" it asked.

"I don’t know."

"You show it every week."

"I am a television. I cannot smell."

"Then what does the sky feel like?"

"I don’t know."

"Then you know very little."

"I know more than you."

"How?"

"I have seen people."

The broom considered this.

"I have touched people."

The television went quiet.

Perhaps, after all, the broom knew more.

Years passed, and the spirits grew stronger.

For every year an object remained in a home, it was said, its spirit gathered a little more of the household’s warmth, and after enough years, an object might begin to dream of a human shape.

The broom began dreaming first.

It dreamed of hands that were not made of wood.

Feet that could walk.

Eyes that could see.

A mouth that could laugh.

Most of all, it dreamed of arms.

Arms that could hold the television.

One evening, after the human had gone to bed, the broom whispered, "If we became human, where would you go?"

The television flickered thoughtfully.

"Anywhere."

"Anywhere?"

"Anywhere with you."

The broom became very still.

Then, embarrassed by the sudden warmth spreading through its wooden handle, it said, "That is a foolish answer."

"You asked a foolish question."

"Would you really come with me?"

"Would you leave without me?"

The broom looked toward the television’s dark screen.

"No."

"Then I won’t."

From that night onward, they waited.

And waited.

Until one summer evening, when the moon was full and the house was quiet, something extraordinary happened.

The human had gone to sleep.

The ceiling fan turned slowly.

The jasmine flowers outside released their fragrance into the warm night.

Then the television screen began to glow.

Not with a programme.

Not with an advertisement.

Not with the familiar blue light of an empty channel.

It glowed with something golden.

The broom trembled.

Its bristles lifted from the floor.

The television cabinet shook.

For a moment, the entire house seemed to hold its breath.

Then there was a flash of silver light.

The broom fell.

Except it was no longer a broom.

A young man lay curled upon the floor where it had been, his hair dark and slightly messy, his clothes plain and soft, his eyes wide with wonder as he stared at his own hands.

Across the room, the television flickered once.

Twice.

Then the screen went black.

And where the television had stood was another young man, pale and bright-eyed, with soft hair falling across his forehead and a bewildered expression that quickly turned into an enormous smile.

They stared at each other.

Neither spoke.

Then the television laughed.

The broom laughed too.

And because they had spent years listening to one another without being able to touch, they crossed the room at the same time and collided in an awkward embrace.

"You are warm," the television whispered.

"So are you."

"I have hands."

"I noticed."

"I can walk."

"I noticed that too."

"I can hug you."

The broom smiled.

"That one I noticed."

Outside, the moon shone upon the sleeping village, and somewhere in the old stories told by grandmothers, it was said that when two household spirits loved each other enough to become human, the moon itself would open a path for them, because even the moon understood that some things were never meant to remain locked inside the houses where they were born.

So the two spirits opened the door.

They stepped into the night.

They looked back once.

The broom looked at the familiar walls where it had spent its entire existence.

The television looked at the wooden cabinet where it had once stood.

Then they looked at each other.

"Ready?"

"Always."

And hand in hand, laughing like two children who had just discovered the world, they ran down the moonlit lane and disappeared beyond the village.

The next morning, the human woke with an inexplicable feeling that something was wrong.

They went to the kitchen.

No broom.

They checked behind the door.

No broom.

They looked beneath the bed, beside the cupboard, behind the curtains, and eventually searched the courtyard with increasing confusion.

Then they remembered the television.

They hurried into the sitting room.

The wooden cabinet was empty.

The human stood there in silence.

They looked at the empty corner where the broom should have been.

Then at the empty cabinet where the television should have been.

Then back at the broom’s usual place.

For several seconds, they simply stared.

Finally, they scratched their head.

"How did both of them disappear?"

Far beyond the village, two young men walked along the road beneath the morning sun, one carrying a little cloth bag they had found in the house and the other laughing because he still could not quite believe that the clouds were real.

Neither knew where they were going.

Neither cared.

They had spent their whole lives inside one little house, dreaming of the world beyond it.

Now they had the whole world.

And, more importantly, they had each other.

As they walked beneath the endless blue sky, the former television reached for the former broom’s hand again, and the former broom squeezed it gently, and somewhere behind them, in a little house at the end of a narrow village lane, a very confused human was still looking for a broom and a television that had decided, quite without permission, to live happily ever after.