"I can feel my breathing getting heavy, I tried to normalise it; I counted ,"one , two , three..." in my head to make it slow and steady - once again a night of disaster, a night when I desperately want to fall asleep but all I get is a thousand rounds of toss and turn and despair .
I clutched my pillow and buried my face into it - I want to shout ,I want to cry but nothing - it's just nothing ! It wasn't this way , I have had complete control of my emotions but now it's different, I am unable to cry on my own; I need something to cry for or a person to push my emotions out of my eye socket. It's exhausting at times , when you want to let go of your emotions but you have to push harder and harder every time and now you're unable to cry alone . Sigh .
At a point I was confident, I was confident about me being the strongest like an alpha ,when it comes to controlling emotions. I could easily roar out without hesitation, " None has the authority of my emotions " . But at this point of life I am just tired . Tired of putting up with the pretentiousness . Tired of faking a smile . Tired of the new and exciting. When I was in class 10 , our physics teacher Anushua Mam said , " You're not bubbly anymore" to which I smiled, clearly denying her statement. As I look back now , I question myself ,"was it the beginning of my transition as they call it ?" Or may be it started long back and was surfacing then - I don't know .
I turned around , the room is pitch dark , windows and doors shut and locked - secure . Except a faint streak of light coming from the air ventilator. This room is air conditioned and all the air ventilators are shut with cardboard but this one has rotten at the edges as that section of the wall soaks moisture during rains .
The cloaks ticking. I closed my eyes again and desperately tried to sleep . Mumma and Papa are fast asleep.
Today I read Lady Lazarus , a poem by Sylvia Plath. A section where she referred to her face "featureless" . "Featureless" - "a face without a face" , interesting indeed . I remember one of my dreams i had long ago - it was a faceless women , a demon rather, trying to catch me and I was running from it , clearly frightened by the faceless women . It's one of the darkest and scariest nightmares I ever had. I couldn't get her off my mind. The very next day I googled about the "faceless women " of my dream and got to know about the Japanese legend Noppera-bō , a faceless ghost . As per the legends , a Noppera-bō usually frightens people but doesn't kill them . They appear as normal people before causing their facial features to vanish . But many says that a Noppera-bō is actually a Mujina , a raccoon dog , in disguise as a lot of hairs were found on the bodies of their victim . But all these information didn't connect with my dreams .
"A faceless face...a faceless face..." , I repeated in my head . The cloaks ticking shamelessly. I pressed my ears against the pillow, the sound is just getting on my nerves. I want to sleep. "Come'n sleep", I said to myself . Nobody's awake at this hour. The dogs on the street have dozed off as well.
Silence prevails."
Akira Roy .
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Akira opened her eyes . It's morning now but her nightmares are getting worse and worse . All her nightmares include her running away as if something's or someone's gonna catch her and she will be vulnerable. In most of her dreams she is running stark naked .
Beads of sweat covered her forehead . She lifted her arms and reached for the water bottle and gulped down some of it . She checked the clock it is 8 in the morning , her class starts at 10 , she quickly took a shower and got dressed before her online classes resumed .
The day went on as it should , Akira's schedule was packed , class after class , homework and anime in between . She was full .
As the night crept in Akira's thoughts were scattered all over the place . She has been alone for a longtime , her parents are divorced and they live along with their respective spouses and after the pandemic hit the shores her mom and dad offered her to live with them but she declined as she knew she'll feel awkward and invaded all the time , it's better to be alone then being with people and still feel lonely .
