It was 4 AM or maybe 3 ... Pushpa as always had no clue and probably would never have ever again. As always, since Bubba broke the Rs. 20 watch which had fallen their way in times of blessed fortune from the hands of Guddu Baba, it had always been dark when she had woken up, darker when she had slept and bleaker when she had woken up. Guddu Baba was the kid in her last assignment as a domestic help, who had finally outgrown the 20 bucks-a-watch his mom gifted him when he was five, and somehow it found its way to Pushpa through her gracious employer. Come to think of it, she had always been a domestic help, first in her own house, then in her Grandma's, after her father killed himself in a brawl and finally graduating to the wraith-of-a-breadwinner in her married life. But, now she had "graduated" to being a construction-site worker. Housedust replaced by white, coughing concrete dust, cleaning instructions replaced by constant dhrum-dhrum of the rotating top with that huge wide-open mouth. Though she had been racked with coughs since the past 5 weeks, atleast the pay was better, enough to feed both Bubba and Bani after the wreckage rendered every night by the monster which shared her bed. First came the Rs. 10 booze, then came the red-hot beating and finally the violations in bed, which were the unapologetic substitutes for post-marital sex. And then the dreamless sleep before the darkness woke her up again. Strange, but when things go bump in the night, she felt the most comfortable, atleast her life did not stare her directly in the face, it was dark and hence unseen, like death.