Casualties Of War

Chapter 1: Dear Karishma, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

She was promised loyalty.

Sub-inspector Karishma Singh did not understand why children were told to hold their parent's hands when they crossed the street, went to the supermarket or changed locations. Clammy hands held her own every time she left the house and she would wiggle her tiny ones indiscriminately. Once there was a little leeway in those enclasped palms, she would yank hers away and wander off- observing, understanding and finally, initiating.

She understood the phenomenon now; when she sat before her senior whose untruthfulness and deception lay barren in front of them all.

"How dare you," she growled, low and menacing as Station House Officer Haseena Malik stood in front of her- head bowed and tears wetting the floor beneath them. It wasn't a question of courage. It was a challenge to the audacity displayed.

When children strayed away, they lose the protection a parent could offer, the warmth of affection, and the comfort of a companion. A lost child needed to be found as soon as possible, found by safe hands that could nurture them with warmth and compassion.

Karishma did not believe she needed those. She resorted to protecting herself from any and all danger- a courtesy that was extended to her loved ones as well. Affection and comfort were as unknown to her as the existence of extraterrestrial beings to the ignorant pocket of people. She left that shelter or rather, that shelter was taken away from her the day her mother had departed and her best friend turned her back on the sub-inspector.

Friends wasn't a title she threw around carelessly like the current generation of nonchalant adolescents. She grasped it tightly around her iron fist, encapsulated in the remains of her broken dynasty of stability. It was never to be let loose again after receiving anguish and solitude as a souvenir of said sacred relationship.

She had become a bit of an Alexithymic- someone with an inability to express emotions through words or identify them- thus constantly clashing with Haseena in terms of ideologies. However, she did feel them in every cell of her body- the good, the bad and the ones that were riveting enough to burn her resolve to intangible soot.

People the age of her mother-in-law would oftentimes say that when one has mastered the art of being alone, they are ready to be in partnership with others. Yet, the journey to recovery wasn't easy because she didn't let that pain in. It lingered right outside the doorstep of her house, never allowed to cross the threshold, waiting for an invitation.

Despite the gaping hole in her heart and hypochondriac notions with new people, she was willing to give it- friendship- another chance. To let herself believe in someone else and trust that they would hold her heart, shield it was any harm that was to befall. They would nature it and make it a little less cold and revolting to the touch. They would teach her how to use words and how to empathize with others.

Only when she let that pain through the doors did she heal. Haseena, like the orange ball of fire that raised and fell every day, warmed her way into that cold frozen spot in her chest. After many unpleasant days, she was okay. She found joy again, or maybe it found her in the form of the Station House Officer. She made the arduous journey worth it.

As recalcitrant and obstinate as she was with her beliefs, she accepted that irascibility wasn't always the answer to her problems. Although fear drives changes, it was temporary.

The relegations given by her seniors became efficacious methods from trifling orders. Wavered were the very foundations of her philosophies but it didn't matter. She gave herself up to autocratic powers of emotions that won her over because someone with a frivolous faith in those feelings walked into her life.

It was part of her persona, she figured. She is loved with the intensity of a tigress, protected like a mother bear and was possessive like the roots of a tree about the people she cares about.