The Yellow Helmet

By Kanchana Menon

It was a dark, moonless night, and there was nowhere else to go. No bar in town stayed open this late. And for the life of him, he couldn’t remember where he had parked his car. He eyed a broad icy park bench by the sidewalk. It looked infinitely more attractive than his lonely four-poster bed. The frigid vastness of its crisp white sheets… He shuddered. But sleeping in public is NOT encouraged in these parts. He knew…

I can walk home. It’s just three blocks away… Or is it four?

After all, he had grown up in these streets, and nearly half the buildings in this part of the town were built by his firm.

Wait, did I take a wrong turn?

Jeremy stared, bleary-eyed, at a colossal hull that blocked his way. Something he had never seen before. A concrete monster chopped in half, sinewy tendons of steel splaying out of its belly. It looked…

Beautiful.

He peered around. There was no one in sight. Not even a security guard? That’s odd… Only luminescent tapes and yellow boards that glared at him: “WORK IN PROGRESS” and an eerie glow that seemed to radiate from somewhere within the site.

I need a closer look. Just a little peek…

Jeremy gingerly lifted the tapes and crept in. A gaping hole opened up a little ahead of him—a basement under construction, lined by unfinished pillars and beams, and a web of metal weaving in and out, sentinels ready to impale an unwary interloper. A blinding white light emanated from its depths. What is it? Had someone left the work lights on?

Like a moth drawn to a flame he edged in.

Is it worth the risk? If nothing else, the fall alone will…

As if it matters to anyone. Who is there to mourn for me?

Jeremy emptied his beer can and tossed it aside onto the scrap heap nearby.

“Owww!”

He stumbled, nearly landing in the basement pit. A cold chill crept up his spine as the aggrieved pile of trash unfurled.

“Where is your hat?” it demanded, rubbing its head.

“My what?”

An old woman glared at him.

“Your hat, Jeremy. H-A-T. Your yellow hard hat.”

She knows me?

“This is a construction site,” she barked, her eyes flashing. “You, of all people, should know that.”

Her raspy voice sounded vaguely familiar.

“Don’t gape at me like a fool, boy. Take this and put it over your pate.” She threw a faded hard hat at his feet. “Or just leave! This is no place for people like you!” She walked away in a huff. Suddenly, it was dark again.

The bizarre meeting left him shivering.

What is happening to me? Once a successful builder, reputed entrepreneur. A respectable fifty-year-old gentleman. Now a grieving, broken soul. Getting drunk, trespassing into a construction site, and… thinking the unthinkable?

And if not for that vagrant…

His skin crawled.

Surely, I must be better than this.

He turned and tottered back to his villa.

The next day, Jeremy woke up feeling the sunrays kiss his eyelids. He had had a good night’s rest for the first time in ages. Today was going to be a great day. He resolved to finally move on with life. Get his act together. Return to work. But first, I need to go to that construction site. Find that old woman. And thank her.

His eyes were still foggy with sleep. And his head throbbed, as if still stuck in the tight helmet. A pungent fragrance chafed his tender nostrils.

Jeremy tried to sit up, but his body felt like lead.

Argh! These hangovers!

A profusion of beautiful bouquets swayed into his vision, blotches of color that filled a tiny, unfamiliar room.

Where am I?

His mouth filled with the taste of metal. An empty IV bag hung above, and a range of instruments blinked behind him, some with soft beeps and gurgles.

“Ah… I see you are awake, Mr. Jeremy! How are you feeling?”

“Um… good. Who… Who are you?”

“I am Dr. Valerie, junior resident, Department of Neurology.” She smiled. “I have been monitoring you for the past year.”

“A year?” He gulped.

“Oh, no need to panic, Mr. Jeremy! You are in safe hands! The hammer impact… erm… Well, anyway, there is absolutely nothing to worry about now. Vitals are almost normal. Rest now.”

“But the old woman…”

“Ah yes… That.” She pointed to a dirty yellow helmet left upside down on the bedside table. Dented and decrepit, only bits of duct tape seemed to be holding it together. A bunch of oriental lilies lay inside, along with a dog-eared photograph.

“An old lady brought them yesterday, claiming you would wake up today. She insisted you would want to see that broken thing!”

The young doctor grinned.

He stared back, nonplussed. The band on his head seemed to tighten a little more with each passing minute. The sun seeping in through the open drapes was hurting his eyes. Was it noon already?

“Of course we cleaned it,” she continued apologetically. “And normally we wouldn’t have let her in. But she said that it was important that you have this.”

Fingers trembling, he reached for the black-and-white photograph inside the helmet. The picture seemed blurry at first. But it gradually yielded to his persistent stare. It was a forty-four-year-old Christmas card, the photo of a happy young woman hugging a bunch of beaming kids. They were all holding up their precious presents, toys she had just given them. The hard hat she was wearing looked just like the one that lay battered in front of him.

But all Jeremy could see in the yellowing picture was her warm smile.

Aunt Jenny!

The woman who had inspired him to follow his dreams, lent him money to open his first company… yet died, alone and penniless, in a homeless shelter… twenty long years back…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kanchana Menon loves conches and shells, stories-well-told and random bits of information that hardly anyone cares about. An engineer by training, but a story-teller at heart, she bade goodbye to her MNC career to become a full-time author. Some of her stories and articles have been published on online platforms like Dialogue & Discourse, Storymaker and Boloji, and her personal blog. She is presently at home (!) in Bangalore dreaming of perfect tales and unicorn tails.

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