One Foot In The Grave

Chapter 16: The Burning Bridges

Ahalya, Day 17

Everything hurt. The bulb above the bed was glaring at me. In fact, it seemed like two bulbs, merging, dividing and merging, as if looking through a kaleidoscope, but with pain. The last memory I had was of going to sleep. After that, everything went blank. I didn't have any dreams. You didn't sleep peacefully either, said my pulsing headache. My tongue tasted like sand.

I was in our bedroom. A jolt of pain hit my forehead, and I used my fingers to press it away. Didn't work. If the younger Ahalya would visit me right now, she would be star-struck at the hangover I won without drinking. Vishwa was nowhere to be found, so I stumbled to the bathroom, holding everything I found midway. I switched on the heater and grabbed my brush. My reflection in the mirror above the sink threatened me. You used to be beautiful, I told myself.

A second after I finished brushing my teeth, the bathroom door swung open. It sent a shrill down my ear and I swiftly closed my ears.

"What's with you and the doors? Can't you enter like a normal human being?"

Vishwa didn't answer, standing at the entrance holding the sketches. Shit. Did Vasu give them to him? Or did he find the new ones from today? If I had drawn today, who brought me to our bedroom? Was I not supposed to wake among the papers? The questions didn't soothe my headache. The pain flew round and round like an 8D audio from the headphones.

"You are the most selfish person I have ever met," he yelled.

I understood his rage, but I also realised: Shouldn't I be the one yelling?

"I don't want to talk right now. My head is killing me already."

He walked inside and loomed over me. "If not now, when? You would escape into the village and come back either wounded or drenched and sleep."

I wondered how accurate he was about my timetable except for the sleeping thing. "I really don't want to talk."

"I asked for one thing." He raised a finger at me. "Take a break. Don't sketch. Yet, you went on drawing your father's face and now, this." He waved the papers at me.

"You wouldn't understand even if I tell you."

"So, I am the problem now?"

I picked my hair with both hands. "I already told you last night. I didn't know I was drawing my father."

"How could you possibly remember him out of nowhere?"

I switched off the heater.

"Perhaps, my memory is getting better now," I said to piss him off. However, it was true. I got back a lot of things. "Like the time I was sketching my mother's faces while you were arguing in the comment section."

Vishwa shut up, blinking nonstop.

"Did you think I wouldn't remember?" I cocked my head forward—a tic when I get something right. "You want to talk? Fine. Tell me why you blamed me for that."

"It's not how it happened."

"Tell me how it happened? Enlighten me."

"That guy was saying mean things about you, and it bothered me. You are my goddamn fiancée. It started as an argument with different opinions. Then, he provoked talking about my father and the argument escalated into a fight. Before I knew, I was—"

"Hollering your anti-religious ideas at the world using my name," I cut him off.

"I never used your name."

"Ha! Don't play the first-person and second-person grammar rules with me. You pushed everything on me. People hate me now." I held up my fingers. "More people than I can count."