The Weight of A Lie
The Story of a Child’s Stoic Resilience
Little Rounaq, a name given to her by her father, walked into the bakery and her heart pounded with joy. She had to take a small packet of crunchy coconuts from the store. Whilst she entered, the familiar scent of fresh bread, chicken patties, sweets, and all of that bakery’s stuff was welcoming her like – as if, it were to her an old pal.
Then came her ‘favourite salesman,’ blue-eyed baya, who always stood behind the counter, his face lighting up at the very sight of her. He had always exhibited a special kind of affection, one that made her feel seen and understood in a way that few adults ever did.
As she approached the counter, his smile deepened, and his eyes lighted up with warmth. “Why are you alone, beta?” he asked, his voice filled with concern for the little girl.
“Where’s your papa?”
Without even thinking for a nanosecond, Rounaq’s left arm lifted involuntarily, pointing back towards the street.
“He’s in the car,”
she whispered, her voice cold and she, barely audible.
The lie slipped out so easily, as if it were a shield, a defense mechanism. Her body had decided to protect her from ‘the truth’ before her mind could even catch up with it.
Rounaq’s papa was not in the car. It was rather her uncle sitting inside, talking to someone on the phone, and waiting for her to come back at the same time.
Her papa was not even anywhere close by. Her papa was gone!
How could such a little soul articulate this? She felt unable to communicate her feelings to her ‘favourite’ baya. The pain was too raw, too immense for little Rounaq to carry alone. However, she also carried a new burden with her now – the burden of guilt, for lying to her favourite person.
The moment she answered that heavy question, a cold shiver ran down her spine. A flood of memories washed over her, crashing down, quivering deep within her whole body and soul – memories of the day she lost her father.
She remembered his voice from those final pangs of death, calling out her name in pain,
“Rounaq… Rounaq…”
She had been leaning over him, laughing, ignorant of the suffering, too young to comprehend the dark reality that – she wouldn’t hear that beloved voice again.
Then, the face of her aunt appeared from nowhere, all of that day’s recollections flashing before her eyes, vaguely reviving back to life, tears streaming down her aunt’s cheeks, as she sat by his corpse.
“Your papa has left this world and gone to God,” said the young woman. Rounaq had been as silent as her papa’s lifeless body, which was wrapped in his black and white blanket, she was unable to grasp the certitude those words presented.
She lied because the truth was too much to bear. She lied because the weight of her loss was a burden she wasn’t ready to share, not even with someone as kind as her ‘favourite’ baya. By pretending, even for a fleeting moment, that everything was still normal, she could keep the overwhelming grief at bay. Or maybe there was something even more profound to this act of lying.
Maybe, she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the happiness in baya’s eyes turn into something else – into sympathy!
Sympathy, with its slushy eyes and pitying gaze, was the last thing Rounaq wanted. She considered it as a distasteful favor, and a bitter pill to swallow for the one on the receiving end.
Sympathy was something she abhorred because it seemed to strip her of the small fragments of normalcy she still clung to. It would make her loss public, and expose her vulnerabilities, turning her grief and her loss into something that others could acknowledge.
And this was something that would change the way they looked at her.
As Rounaq left the bakery store with that small packet of coconuts in her hand, she carried with her not just the sweets, but also the heavy weight of a truth she left unspoken, buried deep within her heart, along with the fear that one day, even her favorite baya’s kindness might be tainted by sympathy.
