Onirique

Greed

Annette, that's my name. It's actually a French name which translates to 'gracious' in English. My mother gave me that name.

My mother.

Long, black almost brown under the sun, hair flowing freely into the afternoon sun, is all I remember of my mother or rather it's the only good memory I have of her before she died. Drug overdose was what they whispered to each other when they came to take away her body.

Red dilated pupils, hollow cheekbones, tongue yellowish due to cocaine eruption inside the mouth, blood dripping from the edge of the shattered glass table where her once beautiful face laid after heavily suffering from the self-inflicted blunt force trauma. That's all I could see before they took her dead body away.

I was old enough to ask the police to receive the body myself but being at the tender age of 14, I was still considered a minor according to the Indian law. Since my father was absolutely not in the picture, the responsibility of the dead body went to the next of kin, my uncle. But honestly, he was no better an option for he had just turned 18, with a penchant for illegal smuggling. So as luck would have it, I stood beside my dear uncle as he faked his tears and his painful moans for the loss of his beloved sister while pocketing all the consolation money. Occasionally someone would direct their pity towards me, for losing my mother at such a young age but then again no one was willing to take my foster responsibilities so eventually my uncle was the last resort.

I had noticed no one ever mentioned my father but the prospect of being an orphan for the rest of my life on top being poor and undernourished and staying with a self-acclaimed criminal really kept my mind occupied. Soon it was time to go home with my uncle, his one room accommodation in the congested slum area of Mumbai.

I did not fear going to such a place, where the water was polluted enough to appear black and it was almost as if even the air came with a price tag large enough for the people to willingly choose to suffocate themselves. Rather I was scared to leave this place. Ironic, isn't it? It was the same house which took away everything from me, forced me into a world full of unknown without any support or guidance and yet I was scared to leave it. Afterall it was our house, my mother and me, it was where I spent my entire childhood, baked Shor Bhaja for my mother on the weekends and played with abandoned puppies under the broad highway of Dhapa Bypass overlooking hotel JW Marriott when I wasn't washing dishes at the local restaurant. Located in the small but friendly housing area of JBS Haldane Avenue, this tiny one-storey house with dust covered furniture and blackened walls held the memories that I would cherish forever.

It was almost as if yesterday that mother smiled at her food because I made Dimer Dhokar Dalna, or gave me pat on my head when I massaged her forehead skillfully enough to make her fall asleep without having to resort to snorting cocaine, then there was that time when she took out her faded pink and white striped sweater to wear, it was her favorite piece of clothing she told me once without me asking. You see, it was gifted by my father when she was pregnant with me. She never told me about my father, who he was or where he went as if he was someone I didn't need to know about and I never bothered to ask, but sometimes she would tell me something very insignificant about him and I would find myself imagining of how he must have looked like, or how he came to meet my mother or how mother came to like him. And now she's gone along with all those days I spent in her company and I was set to live with a stranger with fake tattoos on his arms and a shallow gaze that convinced people of trouble and to stay out of his business.

"Annette", "Annette", "Annette", the voice kept getting louder.

Mother?

"Annette" followed by huge jerk on my arm and I woke from a seemingly momentary paralysis in broad daylight. It was my uncle.