Casualties Of War

Chapter 4: Dear Santosh, The Tide Rose, The Waves Crashed And I Fell

She was promised a date after work.

Neither did the meeting happen nor did the person who was meant to bring her out return. She waited, eyes sun-baked, bones weak and festering scenarios of sleep-inducing movies that rendered her mind ineffective.

A confetti cannon in hand, she waited almost like being put on a back burner. The only thing that returned was the news of her older sister's death from the mouth of her other sister.

It felt like a sick joke that made her stomach churn. Maybe it was a sordid dream, she thought.

Dreams were visual jokes, the conjuring of a playful subconscious mind. Some endings were good and some were bad. But in the end, she always woke up and everything would go back to the way it was. Her loved ones were safe and she didn't need to think beyond that.

Her soul that was travelling on the different planes would return to her body come daybreak - only she wasn't sleeping.

Blood was lost. Blood on Karishma's clothes was answerable to their misery. Blood was blameworthy of someone's death.

Santosh clenched her first, digging the recently sharpened manicured nails into her skin until she felt moisture- blood. The offender would pay with his life for the bloodshed.

Madam sir is not dead.

Urmilla Mahadev Mathre is Haseena malik.

Madam sir is not dead.

Because people see the truth from different perspectives, their narratives of the same exact events are often completely different- just like these six different stories that started to blend together forming a discourse of fantasies.

What is my narrative?

As the baker turns flour and water to bread with the mesmerizing movements of the soft push and pull that calms a tangled mind, as the blue-grey brindle skies turn buried seeds to blossoming flowers, Haseena turned the most impossible scenarios into doable tasks; she was my superhero.

Her superhero made her less burdened by the need to set things straight. She could rely on her to do things right- to model the path of veracity. Like a puppy, she followed behind quietly and ardently imprinting each detail, each action and each word into her mind.

Then, Haseena was gone along with the tranquillity she brought; never again seen on the road of righteousness- vanished by the wind that swept her away. Her world was suddenly upended.

She looked everywhere- whipping her head in every direction, lost in the route, unable to find the destination to peace. Wisdom comes with age just like clarity comes with patience and time. But somehow, she could not find it- she was a prisoner of this incomplete voyage.

She saw her other family members scattered across the hardened cement street. She could not call out to them for they were lost too in their own turmoil. The tears that didn't dry, the weeping that didn't calm down, the memories that wouldnt stop tormenting them, they couldn't find reclamation to blissful slumber. Their foibles in managing loss left them incompetent to do their jobs.

The road infront of her was a bifurcated pathway. One taken by her family- the journey into a dark cave where they were blindsided by grief and the exit was blocked by an air of melancholy. The other was best known as the road not taken. Classic Robert frost. Only her inner compass could embolden her to take the right path.

The compass pointed in a completely different direction. From the parched ground, a new passage was craved. She knew the destination before she even bypassed the gate.