Reality defied trust and her extremely subjective sense of logic that she misunderstood as superior for the umpteenth time today. She knew somewhere deep down inside her mind that what happened today, a few minutes ago was bound to happen. But she had chosen to avoid the reality which now lay in broad daylight, dazzling this time in fact that she would not be able to overlook even though every atom in her body chose otherwise. She knew today was the time to recall the hardest night which she wished in vain was a nightmare.
She headed towards the neglected room with no windows. People found it suffocating, but every time she stepped foot inside it she experienced a sense of liberation and heaved a sigh of relief and each time it was different; the rhythm, the tension, and a million other emotions that she knew were beyond expression through a mere couple of words that she had stated for what she could not decipher yet in spite of encountering it, trying to escape it and eventually confronting it and battling it on a daily basis now.
She switched on the computer and she could see her swollen eyes from the broken screen. She was about to write something that would soon be gone to the trash and eventually disappear. She wished it happened with the mind too. How you could erase memories and live as if those moments, those macabre, mind-numbing moments never existed. Mind instead chose to provide, rather pressurize you with a thousand reasons to move on, the memory would fade with time, but the scar that was once left by it stays forever, transgressing time, reality, and everything else.
Her hands trembled as they tried to reach the keyboard, which was damaged beyond repair. Writing this up was going to be hard for her, both ways.
She knew she wanted to get it out of her someway and what she knew for sure was that it was not going to be him today. Anyone but him.
Writing it meant rewinding it, revisiting that wretched night and more so reliving it through the words which were of utmost sanctity to her for her words never lied even if she wanted them to.
She had to tap on the ‘I’ several times for the letter to finally appear on the screen and when it did they wouldn’t stop. Her frustrated hands had almost thrashed the keyboard when she realized how she could not destroy her last streak of hope which would finally lift the weight off her chest.
She braced herself. She was ready now. She could feel the heat build in her eyes, the words gradually blurred and the tears desperate to roll down embrace her cheeks finally erupted as she went on writing. She could feel the heat against her cheeks. She went on writing, pouring her heart out, crying, and sometimes having to catch up on her breath.
She stopped when her hands stopped moving. It seemed like she had narrated everything.
Wiping her face with cold hands, she began to read what she had just written. She enlarged the font size. She had a distinct habit of reading aloud anything she had written, no matter how trivial it was. The large italicized words were about to take her on another roller-coaster ride.
She began……
“Clonazepam and voxidep, are you sure those were the ones you ate” he eyed me suspiciously
“Aadithya, are you serious? I have been taking these medicines in particular and numerous medications in general for the past 10 months and I can read, I am sane and most importantly I am 19.”
I chuckled and gave a pat on his back.
“Well, you had messed up with the medication the one time I forgot to take it out for you and while you certainly are of 19 years you behave like a two-year-old with me”
“Aadithya, it’s just with you. I act, in fact, I am extremely sorted and matured outsi…”
Before I could finish I saw him counting the medicines, looking at the calendar, and probably doing odd calculations. After checking and re-checking, he stacked them back to the box and gave a smile.
I made a face, chuckled, and proceeded to do what I was doing, possibly the most important thing. I have never taken anything as seriously as this. It would look like a girl drawn to the world of numbers, or a dropout making desperate efforts to get admitted to a better place than she was. But to me, it meant life.
This was one among my numerous attempts to get my life back on track, feel like I’m still capable of doing what I did the year before, conquer the secret little fear of trying, and my crazy theory of things repeating itself. It was day 4 of the successful completion of my timetable.
I was waking up in time, doing a decent job with eating, and most importantly I was occupied with lessons and reading all day. After the three long and excruciating months of university and its adversities, I felt like normalcy was back in me and my life.
It was 11pm. I wished Aadithya was busy with work or dozed off with his favourite weekly on his face.
Before I could fancy more possibilities he said
“It is 11. Come let’s go”
“I actually had a little bit of logical reasoning and a very tiny bit of general knowledge to complete. I promise I’ll be done soon. I really have to finish this today”
Without giving him another chance to speak I continued
“You needn’t stay up. I’ll make sure to switch the lights off”
Both of us knew that the lights did not hold an iota of importance in the context.
His reply came immediately.
“NO. The last time you said this, I heard you stayed up till one.”
“But I was reading that night. This is different.”
This time he did not say anything. He simply pulled a magazine from the stacked pile of books on the table and reclined on the couch reading. In less than 10 minutes, he dozed off.
Wasting no time I immersed myself in solving the problems aiming for 11:30 on the clock. Neither my math nor sense of logic was sharp enough to compete with time. I was done by 12:00. I wondered if I should take up GK. But the fear inside me, which was the primary force that forced me to go beyond my limits and perhaps make the impossible possible showed me a grim image of the future, a whole year of tyranny in fact.
I immediately picked up the text for general knowledge and started to read feebly.
I was about to complete when he suddenly woke up.
“That’s enough for today. Come.”
He sounded more persuasive than he did the last time.
But I took it lightly for it was our usual. He would command me once more and go upstairs with a sulky face. The worst-case scenario would be dad having to do a call to make amends and remind us how we need to take care of each other and boastfully lie, how proud they are as parents to stay away and work in peace because of his highly intelligent and responsible kids.
I was almost lost in imagination when he shouted
“You don’t want to get out of this vicious circle, don’t you? How many times should I tell you that it is important to sleep in time? Or do you want to keep continuing these medicines one after the other? Why wouldn’t you understand?”
I was caught off-guard but my reply was quick
“Why do you make everything about medicines and my condition? It is not a weapon you can use against me at your convenience. And even if I go to sleep, I can only pretend to sleep, it would take me at least an hour and a half to fall asleep.”
Before I could say it was a side-effect of one of the medicines I started to sob and he rushed upstairs glaring at me.
The sudden silence felt weird. I fixed my glance on the book and the words had started to look blurry because of the tears.
I heard footsteps again. But I kept staring at the book as if I was engrossed in it.
“I am going to stay up until you leave” he was stubborn this time
After ignoring his existence for another five minutes I knew one of us had to give up and that it had to be me.
I shut the book frantically and was about to leave. I was still sobbing. He proceeded to the room probably to fix things like he always did or to leave only after ensuring that I slept.
Whatever it was I shrugged away and asked him not to accompany me. I was stuttering but I said it.
When he pretended not to hear I asked
“What is up with you?”
“I am crazy, mad, a lunatic. Is that what you want to hear?”
I was unfamiliar with this tone. I still don’t know how to explain it. I stepped forward to calm him down when he did the unpredicted. He punched himself in the chest and banged his head against the door.
I was perplexed and I stepped back in fright.
He said a few things after that and I could only partly hear, how he had taken care of me all these years, especially what he had gone through the past couple of months, how he had sacrificed work and sleep. He was counting on everything he had done so far.
My heart was racing at this point, I was fully out of breath, my whole body shivering, legs trembling I fell on the floor trying to gasp for breath. He held me immediately and kept saying things I could not decipher. What I had seen a couple of minutes ago kept flashing before me.
I got up as if with no life headed to the washroom and slid the nail filer as hard as I could on my hand. I was sure I did not want to kill myself. I wanted to hurt myself. There was no pain, there was just heat and a little blood over the bruise which was absolutely harmless.
I wanted to tell things, but I couldn’t.
I lay in one corner of the bed, sobbing, feeling like every atom in my body was ready to explode and more so having to live with this image for the rest of my life.
And most importantly I was haunted by the idea of how I had transmogrified a good, sorted man into doing what he did today.
The last line had been haunting her for hours now; how she had transformed an intellectually superior, emotionally stable, and more so her pillar of support into a vulnerable, meek, and unstable human being!
👏👏
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