time after time
Time seems to be different for everybody. I have grown out of my shell. Whenever a monster bewitches my father, I cannot hide myself under the blankets. I no longer take some pillow as my friend, clinging on to the entire night, crying, hoping to fall asleep. But mom and dad seem to be the same, always finding something trivial to argue over.
Mother was an okay woman, my grandparents had said. For the last five years, I have been trying to find that ‘okay woman’ inside her. Seldom, I do. And I do not know how to make them last longer, how to stop the devil from taking over her body.
Dad doesn’t drink and they had said it’s a good thing but I am not sure if I admit. I could have loved him then, could have told myself he’s not innately twisted, it’s just a matter of a peg, would have known the calm is about to come, in an hour or a little more. Maybe then, I could have settled the arguments but it’s something internal, something I cannot see. Something he doesn’t care addressing, killing him from inside.
Don’t cry sweetheart, mom tries to hush me when she was the one to get hurt. I don’t want to stay here, I say. More than that, I don’t want you to be here, I add, I want you to leave, mom. Tomorrow, she says. Tomorrow, we will pack and leave. It’s too late today.
There have been too many tomorrows ever since. Never quite one as I expected. Too many tomorrows where dad hushes her down. Begs her to stay and by midnight, she’s at his feet, massaging; applying ointment on his ankles.
For you, she says, but I do not care. I do not want to cry for the beast, I do not want to worship him. I do not want to forgive him just to feel the same hatred clenching my body again. I do not want to forget.
Months pass by and I can do nothing but go on with her apologies. Her apologies for the man who tried to hurt her, destroyed her life. Who tortured her, from the day she got pregnant to the day I passed my school and who knows how longer.
I believe in their fairy tales. Now we’re a happy family. All sorted, all cool. But it’s the calm before the storm. And we choose not to prepare for what’s coming, we chose to remain blind. Months and the same story again, and again, and again.
Mom has grown out of my hand. Sometimes banging her chests with rock-hard hand fists, sometimes pressing the light’s switch over and over again like a maniac, or banging her head on the wall…! I cannot take it anymore. I am losing my mind. I want to help but I am as helpless as a lamb in the hands of a butcher.
The pain, the rage have inflicted me and I feel such hatred for myself, I cannot explain. I walk, my head lowered to not make a contact, afraid I will turn out to be the same as him; hurting everyone doing me good, trying to lend me a hand. I get paranoid. I do not feel myself. Sometimes, I wake for hours at night thinking aimlessly. Hours in the middle of the day, in between my work or assignment, I find myself lost.
I feel like yelling my heart out but I am left with no choice. At these times, all that I can do is grab my notebook and let the words do the work for me. Like now, not much but it helps. I do not know how long I can go on with this. Sometimes, I feel I have already hit the bottom line. I haven’t been home for a week and you can guess what my parents were up to the last time we met.
I know, I cannot spend much days on my college hostel. I’ll have to leave, sooner or later, but there’s nowhere I can turn my face to. What I will have to see when I get home is engraved on my mind like some scene from my favorite movie I re-watch very often.
*
Sister will be in the kitchen doing the dishes, and mother in his room. As I ring the bell, mother will get up to answer but he’ll insist her to sit by his side. My sister will be the one to welcome me. He’ll avoid any possible eye contact. And before I can say anything, she’ll be speaking to me, You didn’t have to create a scene, I was doing fine. Where were you?
Marks under her eyes will be just as fresh, painted blue. Feeling like I’m letting these things consume too much of me, I’ll rush to my room, try being a child again and cry under my blanket.
I know it, this is how it is exactly going to be.
