Ronnie woke up. She was startled. Some noise from the floor below woke her up. She quickly grabbed her coat and turned to the other side of her bed. She was surprised. Her husband was not there. ‘Where in the world is he now?’ she thought. The noise was louder this time. It was from the kitchen. Surely someone was in there. She quietly got up and opened her bedroom door. She slowly came down, careful not to slip and make any creaking noises on the old wooden stairs. Blame it on Rakesh, her husband, she thought for being such a miser to use such old wood.

‘Maybe this was Rakesh in the kitchen’, she thought. ‘But he is not the kind to sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night! But where is Rakesh then?’ She was getting irritated by the second. Maybe this was Rakesh in the kitchen.

She quietly tiptoed into the kitchen, where she saw a dark-hooded figure stooping in the refrigerator. She flicked on the lights. The figure quickly rose and turned to her.

“Ashok? What in God’s name are you doing in my kitchen in the middle of the night?” she shrieked. She was both surprised and scared to see her neighbour.

The man had a half-eaten mango in his hand and his mouth was full. There was mango juice dripping from his mouth and his clothes were half covered in mango pulp. He struggled to eat it quickly and in his effort to do so, he made a big gulp to the half eaten mango inside his mouth. It was a big ordeal just to get the mango into his stomach. And he breathed a sigh of relief just as soon as he did that.

“What are you doing in my kitchen?” Ronnie shrieked again.

“Shhh….don’t shout. Rakesh will wake up. I was hungry, Ronnie. So I came here for a little snack!” Ashok replied. His throat was still aching from the last effort of gulping the half-eaten mango.

Ronnie breathed in and out. ‘Baba Ramdev, Baba Ramdev,’ she thought. She always did that just to calm herself down. Some people have the strangest technique to calm themselves!

“If you are hungry why don’t you ransack YOUR refrigerator in YOUR house ASHOK?” Ronnie spoke in a cold and threatening voice.

Ashok could almost hear the grinding of the teeth. “My refrigerator did not have mangoes, Ronnie. So I thought of coming here. It’s not as if this is the first time I did this!” Ashok gave the most innocent look he could manage.

“What?” The window pane beside Ronnie almost broke. The glasses cracked. She was fuming at that moment. “You have done this before?”

So this explained a lot of things that were missing from Ronnie’s kitchen from time to time. All this time it was her respected neighbour, Ashok. And where the hell was Rakesh? Why wasn’t he coming?

Just then the doorbell rang. Ronnie and Ashok almost jumped. Ronnie looked at the watch. It was 1.30 am. Someone was at the door. ‘Maybe I am dreaming,’ Ronnie thought. ‘What is happening tonight?’

She signalled Ashok to stay exactly where he was. Ashok could not have agreed more with Ronnie. His feet were glued to the floor and he was badly shaking. He was having trouble just to stand still.

Ronnie went to the door. She looked through the keyhole. She saw her neighbour, Ilavati, Ashok’s wife. Maybe Ila knew that Ashok was in her kitchen. But something else caught her attention. She was holding someone from the collar. She couldn’t see who. She opened the door and was shocked to see her husband, Rakesh. He was holding a pizza slice in his hand – half eaten and a little messy.

“Your husband was fishing my refrigerator in the middle of the night!” Ilavati said in a venomous voice.

Rakesh gave a guilty look.

Ronnie was reeling in shock.

“Sorry Darling, I was hungry and they had pizza today. So I couldn’t control my hunger.” Rakesh gave Ronnie a justification, which was, well, not needed!