A Writers Hiraeth

The Speech of the Dead

I float through the room and the girl shivers. She feels a presence but pays no heed to it. After all what matters is what is in front of the eyes is it not so? I plan to move on but something stops me. I turn. Her black hair falls over her shoulders and the stands move to and fro in time with the tap of her foot on the ground. Nervousness oozes off her and hopelessness stands over her, silent yet it's presence is ever loud. I move closer. a small bindi adorns her forehead except for which her face is bare. I raise my hand slowly and touch her cheek. My touch is light as a feather yet she shrinks back. She looks up right at me. No, right through me. I ignore the sinking feeling within my heart. She does not see me either. I hoped; alas. Sounds from outside the door drain the cries of my tormented thoughts. She takes a deep breath and stands up, as if preparing for a gruesome war her hand lay idle at her sides. She brings them up and brushes the invisible dust of her saree, the cloth looks as if deep colours of nature are embedded into it. The brown of the soil, the green of the trees, the blue of the waters. She opens the door to the frenzy outside. People are running about in this house of law and in it, she is a displaced figure. I blink and we are in the room of judgement. She sits up front and I, an observer in the back. The walls run high and remorse takes over the atmosphere. From then it is a war of words. I find out that the government has seized the girl's lands for some apartment construction. They fight and victory goes hither-thither, one side to the other. God is cruel. He has robbed the dead-like me- to the joys of life while being, always, an unseen witness to it. We exist among life, yet, Life itself seems so far.
Whispers run ever so slightly among the audience. I listen.
"There is no way that she will win, it is the government after all! The judge is not even listening, the crinkle of notes and clatter of coins is a more pleasant sound to him, is it not?" They snicker. No, I think. In this country the citizen is the real ruler right? Here the citizens keep the government in check, right? But even the dead feel. And now as I witness Victory with a defeated expression on his face trudge towards the opposite side, I shake my head in grief. Victory looks at the girl out of whose eyes drops of hopelessness fall down her cheeks. The colours on her saree seem dull now. Its waters are silent, its soil cracked, its leaves dried. I no longer stay. A life where money is more important than one's home, one's heart- perhaps death is kinder.

-Zainab Khan