The albatross hung around the Mariner's neck was his sin and remorse. The one that lies hanging around her neck, bruised, bleeding and gasping for breath, is neither her sin nor her remorse. It is something that should have irrevocably remained hers but hasn't. It is the gray shade of grief, claret of scars, russet of wounds, sable streaked azure of silence, scarlet of shame and maroon of outrage. It is the muted shade of raw innocence, overshadowed by tainted lapis and blemished blush pink.
It is hers, the embodiment of the horizon where her soul and body meet.
The tears that trickle down her kohl smudged eyes follow the well etched path on her face. Her fingers dig deeper into her thighs, drawing out blood and jostling the still raw wounds on her legs. It, though, is still not enough and it never will be enough. The grief that cascades in waves can never be mitigated by self inflicted wounds on a canvas that's already blood trodden. It ceases to matter, another scar in the tapestry of many, a tapestry that is brook and bark when it should have been silk and rose petals.
She has never been the meadows but the barren land she now harbors is the sin that stains their hands. Callous hands with silver rings and bracelets that snatched everything from her. She forgave them, for clipping her wings, for stomping on a spirit long gone underneath. But she cannot forgive this. Will not forgive this.
Fire and coal, the rage in her veins, the flames that burn through numbing agony and die down in the helpless shudders of a wrecked body. Her grief, so all consuming that she does not have the hearth where the embers of her rage can burn but her rage, primal, raw and so very feral that she cannot let it eviscerate. They clash vigorously till dusk sets, numbness setting in. She picks herself, her face bruised and lip swollen. She picks herself, blood staining her t-shirt and pajamas, haunting emptiness in the womb which has been wrecked. She picks herself and with a deep fortifying breath, she limps to the washroom.
_
He places the wet cloth over her wrinkled head without meeting her eyes. The fever has been rising constantly despite their best efforts and her weak immunity system isn't making matters any easier. Her breaths are labored, a slight wheeze in them. The situation is deteriorating with every passing second. She dismisses all the others, her voice hoarse and cracking. All except him. She looks at him then and he is forced to meet her eyes because he knows, these are her last moments.
"I'm sorry" she whispers, tears trickling down her eyes and he wishes it was in his capability to forgive her, to tell her it's okay. He can't!
All these years, he's held on only because of her even if she is the person who's failed him the most. (She failed him in the most devastating way possible when he needed her protection, desperately, amidst the disgust, shame, fear and hurt and she refused. She imprisoned him in silence, buried his voice in a way that those hands on his mouth could never muffle.)
He's held on because after his parents and brother died in a road accident, she's the one who raised him. She has, in a way, given him this life and he cannot forego that debt. But after that wretched moment when he lost the only safety net he believed he had, the affection and faith in the term 'mother' has died in him!
"I am truly sorry" she says, years after everything like it means something. Like it can make things better, heal all that has been broken and scarred and still haunt him to this day! He would laugh, bitterly, if he could.
He is not that person. ( He has killed the part of his soul that brewed the need for vengeance and ached with thirst to destroy long ago. He can never bring himself to be cruel even if he wishes, like now, he could.)
Her hand lifts shakily in his direction and he can see the pain in her eyes. His eyes fill up.
"Why" he wants to ask but he doesn't. He holds her hand, lets her believe it's his forgiveness, granting her the peace she needs. He lets her take her last breath believing in a lie and feels subhuman for it.
His tears fall and he places his head on her stomach and sobs. He sobs for that small boy and his loving mother, both of whom were lost on that cursed day.
He sobs as his last thread to endurance falls apart!
_
WC: 789 words
Love,
Pratyusha
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Edge Of The Night | ONC2024 ✓
General Fiction[Open Novella Contest - 2024] ONC2024 Longlister Round 1 & 2 Qualifier Prompts: 24,5 Tired of rising from the ashes, when his last reason to hold on falls apart, a man seeking peace moves into a new apartment. What he doesn't expect is to become e...
