RAG DOLL: a toyish love story

8: CHILDHOOD IN GARBAGE

The doors slammed shut behind her with a deafening crash, enveloping her in a suffocating darkness. Palak's body crumpled to the floor, her knees trembling as she wrapped her arms around them, rocking back and forth in anguish. Her breaths came in ragged gasps, each one a desperate cry for escape from the torment that consumed her. She bit down on her knuckles with a fierce intensity, the pain a futile attempt to silence the sobs that threatened to shatter her very soul.

Tilting her head she looked at her room. It was getting blurred with her vision. Each of the furniture was shaping up to be expensive. Walls were melting to reform the cage of a big bungalow. There were sounds echoing in her ears. Laughter, screams, giggles, whimpers. Palak blocked her ears tightly with her hands. Not again. She was not going back to that stage again. Those insecurities....

Memories assailed her, a relentless barrage of painful reminders that threatened to consume her. The familiar surroundings, once a sanctuary, now transformed into a haunting nightmare, a constant reminder of the anguish she'd tried so desperately to escape. Her bedroom, once a haven of warmth and comfort, now loomed before her like a cold, dark dungeon, its walls closing in on her like a suffocating shroud.

As her eyes locked onto the space, her mind raced with the echoes of a thousand midnights, each one a stark reminder of the horrors she'd endured. Sweat trickled down her temple like tears, her breath catching in her throat like a mournful cry. She knew she had to steel herself, to summon the strength she'd honed over the years, the armour that had protected her from the darkness that lurked within. But oh, the weight of it all, the crushing burden of her secrets, threatened to consume her, to drag her down into the abyss of her own despair.

She has to have control over herself like she had done all these years. She had to do it alone.

Gathering courage Palak put force on the chilling floor and lifted herself on her trembling legs.

Struggling with herself she walked up to the window and pushed it outward. A thick layer of cool wind splashed on her wet face. She inhaled deeply, filling her chest fully. Somehow it saved her.

It was scary to stay alone when her past came to hunt her again but it was one good thing that she was all alone and she could scream her pain the loudest and wouldn't get that pity and sympathetic looks.

Clutching her chest she let out a loud cry and again slumped on the floor resting her head on the wall. Her body was petrified and powerless.

The truth was she was jealous of everyone. Everyone who lived so happily and completely which her fate didn't sign on her name. She laughed and played with children out of affection and sympathy so that they could live their rights but deep down she was jealous of them.

Didn't she deserve an innocent childhood with affection and care? What was her fault? Why everyone around her were so cruel at that time? Why they didn't let her finish her childhood naively and satisfactorily?

God could have made her either poor or orphan but she got all. But she wasn't poor neither she was orphan.

Palak rested her palms above her heart to regulate the heart throbbing when the memories swung her to the past.

Almost fourteen years back when she was a little mass, the little bundle of joy and the only child of her loving parents. Their family and her father had a respectable status in the society. They had a grand family living inside a grand house. Almost fourteen people were staying there including her uncle aunties and cousins. Her father was the youngest but he was the one who was more efficient in the family so everyone respected and adored him a lot. And as his only daughter, she was the Queen of the house. Her tantrums never go unheard. She was the sweetheart of her aunties and her uncles quarrelled with each other to get their turns to take her for visits. Her little feet jogging all around the house with her chiming piece of anklets were the Centre of attraction for everyone.