In the dimly lit
room she sat, her eyes gazing in the dark as if it carried all the wonders of
the world. Anyone entering the room would have suffered from a sheer sense of
claustrophobia but somehow the boundaries didn’t seem to bother her. She sat so
still as if posing for a portrait, or if she were a statute. She was a piece of
art, so magnificent that she carried a thousand tales within her. It’s not
always the words that dictate the stories, sometimes it’s the silence.
Sometimes the silence screams louder than the words. Sometimes not saying says
it all.
The absolute
stillness was broken by a loud thud at the door. Someone had brought her back
to the reality as if some paint splashed over the portrait, or the statute came
crumbling down to the ground. Her eyes widened. An expression crossed her face
but lasted only a moment. Silently, she slipped out of her dungeon into the living room. It seemed like someone had
tried so hard to give it signs of life, all the artificiality failing to provide
so. Twenty seven years!
Twenty seven years
ago, she had decorated this very room with her beautiful bony hands. Even when
everything seemed to be falling apart, even when her dreams shook under the
immense weight of the reality, even when every promise, every hope seemed a
fallacy, she worked. She worked to beautify her castle, the castle she was a
prisoner of, the castle she was meant to never leave again. Somewhere in the
darkness, she waited like a princess, like Rapunzel hidden away from the world.
The only difference was, there was no one coming for her rescue. Twenty seven
years ago, if you had seen her, you’d be baffled. If you had bumped into her
younger version of twenty seven years ago, you wouldn’t have recognized her.
Twenty seven years!
Pacing into the
kitchen, she turned on the stove, her hands following the rhythmic patterns as
if encoded to do so. The spark of the fire lit her eyes for a moment and faded.
In the background, someone was loudly talking. Provided she was the only other
person in the house, it was directed to her. Her demeanor didn’t change. Her
hands worked at the same pace they did before. Years ago, she would have
panicked, her hands would have moved faster, her heart would have thumped
louder, but now, there was no rush, there was no panic. The speaker was
standing in the doorway now. He did not look happy but her serenity never
broke.
The steam escaped
the kettle as she poured the tea in the cup and at the moment, it was the only
thing that seemed free.
Some order had been
directed to her, to which she had silently complied. She was back in the
dungeon which was now lit with much more light than the tiny room could afford.
Her now wrinkled
hands reached the cup-board, flashing it open like a gateway into the past. The
red dress glittered before her eyes, hitting her with a sheer nostalgia. Twenty
seven years! Twenty seven years ago, when she had first set her eyes on this
dress, she had beamed with such pleasure, she could have gone hysteric. Her
mind had wandered off, far away into the wonder land. She had so excitedly
chatted about her wedding day, and the life she had planned afterwards that her
elders had to silence her.
On the day of her
wedding, she had carried this dress like she had carried all her dreams, fancy
and sparkly. She had been, without a doubt, the prettiest bride there ever was.
Not because her beauty was unmatched, but because she had that glow, the spark
of life. Her smile had shone brighter than the jewels around her neck.
A curt voice shook
her out of her memory lane, the very voice that had shaken her out of her
dreams years ago. There was no evidence of violence because she had never been
physically hit. And that was enough for the world to confirm her safety.
Because invisible scars, no matter how deep they penetrate, never burst out on
the surface, because no one wants to see them. Her hand shifted from the red
dress to a dull grey one. She closed the cupboard shutting with it, the small
hints of life.
Once again, she had
to go out pretending to be alive, because to the world, she wasn’t dead, not
yet. Because to the world, she was still scar-less, bruise-less, only old,
withered out lady. The world was only willing to declare her dead, once she
would stop breathing, once her heart would stop beating. Little did they know,
she had stopped living a long time ago.