As rain pelts against the gravel on a sublime afternoon, she unfurls from her curled up position, hollow, raw and bare. Her nightie sticks to her skin with sweat, blood stains tainting the expanse against her lower body. She manages to lift herself from the bed and move towards the bathroom, her actions mechanical and more in tune with the need of the hour than any conscious awareness.
Lukewarm water pours out the shower while she sits beneath it, allowing it to drench her completely. To wash away the stigma she still feels on herself. To wash away the disgust and the despair. To wash them away, these haunting indentations left on her.
"What you've lost is on you. You deserved it"
Her words are serious and they cut her deeper than the words pouring out that venomous mouth and the whip in those hands with silver rings ever could. She stumbles back, hurt cutting through the haze of her puffy eyes that emanates emptiness.
There is a cruelty reflecting in those eyes that stare at her impassively, a rigidity in that stance that comes with complete belief. It breaks the last thread of trust and hope from family within her. She blinks away the hurt, the betrayal and the anger and walks away.
_
The feeling of being cooped up forces him outside to the balcony even amidst the rain. He stands, watching the rain or more so, watching the closed window through the rain.
There is a peculiar feeling within him, a certain discomfort he isn't sure why he is feeling. It seems to elevate the more the rain pelts against the ground and he knows, he needs a distraction or more appropriately, an outlet.
He rushes into his room and pulls out a diary from within his cupboard. It is an ordinary diary but it is a lot more inexplicable in the way that it is important to him. He picks up a pen and makes his way back towards the balcony. Sitting on a chair facing the balcony but a little within the house, he opens the book and begins writing.
The throbbing pain in his body is nothing compared to the utter suffocation he feels from shame and bitterness clogging his throat and soul. Curled up against the corner of the room, his eyes search frantically for something, anything to take his mind off the turmoil within him. His eyes land on the table at the other corner of the room that he isn't allowed to touch and there is a brown book lying at the bottom of a pile of books. He stands on his wobbly legs, almost stumbling because of the pain but manages to hold himself.
He limps to the desk and slowly manages to pull the brown book. It is the correct size with it neither being too small or too big and he limps back to his corner. Sitting down, he looks at the door nervously before slowly dislodging the one part in the wall and pushing the book in. He then puts back the part again just in time to hear the footsteps in the corridor outside. He curls up into himself after making sure the part is properly put back. It is his hiding place, one that he had found during one of their 'sessions'
_
hazy clouds, eclipsed paradise
enshrouded in silence, a resounding voice
bleeding from the sky, the wounds of a star
the verity is in the illusion, for evermore.
He reads the words he had penned in flow, trying to interpret them. Because sometimes you just have to let your pen word the mess of feelings within you, one that radiates its presence but never allows you to decipher it.
He cannot comprehend it because it feels like these words from his very depth, do not speak his story at all. It is, as he repeatedly repeats the verse in his head that the window in front of him opens.
_
She opens the window of the one room that is her solace, that makes her feel human. Her eyes meet his, through the sheen of the pouring rain and they stare at each other for an entire moment.
She lifts her hand and waves at him and after a beat, he does as well. They cannot speak as they will not be heard over the sound of the rain but they remain at their places, still looking at each other like a conversation has already begun in the silence.
_
They are strangers. They don't even know each other's name. All their conversations so far have been about her paintings and again without any hello or hi, just down to the point. But now as they stand looking at each other, there is something that he feels. Something that he cannot exactly word. Something that he does not realize.
It is not violins in the background, pleasantness in the air, a lightweight glide to an aura. It is the slow entwining of two threads, the first spark of connection, the feeling that in the crowd full of strangers you encounter in life, you've stumbled across one that harbours something that you seek or the knowledge that there's something that you've gone through.
There is something enigmatic about her, something in her ordinary looks and extraordinary paintings and poignant thoughts, that intrigues him. That makes him want to seek out a human connection that hasn't been his family.
There is something about her, a complete stranger, that draws him out of his introvert shell and helps him strike a conversation like he's known her all life. But there is also something about her, something in her stance that hints at a tempest.
And who better than him to know the mask of a calm shore enshrouding a turbulent squall!
_
WC: 971 words
Love,
Pratyusha
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Edge Of The Night | ONC2024 ✓
General Fiction[Open Novella Contest - 2024] ONC2024 Longlister Round 1 & 2 Qualifier Armaan x Abhira AU 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 ex...
