Boombox

And in the Darkness I'll Meet My Creators || three

Se|| And in the Darkness I'll Meet My Creators || Se

10 years later, a Thursday.

The letters from Nirvan stopped since Saturday.

For ten years, they kept flowing beneath the dusty room's broken timber door delivered by Majno. He was the only boy working in a semi-looking post office you'd expect except the one in Calcutta resembled a broken shed near a great tree.  I never really appreciated them until now.

I miss him, is the echo my brain makes but instead of it being a buzz in my veins it became a dull ache not long ago.

I groggily stand up and with each small step I exhale through the polluted air, reaching the cracked window in the back of the room I sigh and close my eyes. I put a hand up on my chest and feel the wild beats. Their wails of agony causes me to shiver and I lean against the weak walls and slide down the ground.

Have I known for the past five years that Nirvan has met the woman of his dreams when the word was firstly spread throughout our village and then it came handwritten by him? Yes. Have I for sure known that he would ask her hand? Yes, I guessed that much myself. Have I felt disappointed and heartbroken? Sure. Have I tried to prepare myself for the emotional damage I knew I would go through when they officially tied the knot? Yes. Am I prepared? No.

Never will I be.

That night in the woods has changed everything. Or perhaps in fate's way, it changed nothing.

Nirvan left me that night. He didn't follow after me in the woods, he didn't wake me up after the previous day at dawn, he didn't come around my house during scolding noons to comfort me about my mother's trashiness and vowed to save me from that sort of life. I always thought he meant marriage by that line. And I foolishly, desperately clung to that line of hope. Perchance I fell in love with him because I saw him as my lifejacket, as an exit of the hell I lived and continue living. Sure, I'm not a prostitute but my life is definitely not richer than one. My husband, Marvin, who was named after foreigners' name is no better than all the clients my mother used to sleep with. He wants me for his desires and occasionally he would stroke my face gently as an act of affection but I can see the lust in his eyes if not in his pants. Thankfully, he's not abusive. I've had my share of abusive men after Nirvan left for studying abroad where he met Nadia.

Her name starts with the same letter as mine, ironic.

Jogia was the longest relationship my mother ever took part in after my father's death. He was the kindest man with morals you would ever believe existed in a place of poverty and scheme, but he was no better. Quite frankly, he was worse.

Behind the locked doors and between sheets that stank of their intercourse, Jogia liked to torture my mother.  How did I know? I would be literary tied in the closet to hear her screams. He was the sickest of them all. I completely lost sense of humanity when it came to him, I loathed him. I imagined fifty million ways to murder him. The most confusing part I never decided on was, would I want it to look like an accident or be known as the one who took his life? That's why I stopped. He grew, fortunately, bored of my mother and told her he would travel and never come back. He hadn't broken his words.

Marvin came a little later in life. Just before mother's death, Marvin appeared on our doorstep one day. I opened the door and he had the brightest smile I ever saw on a person's face and I was immediately attracted to him. I was nineteen and hormonal, yet not as much as my mother would've liked. He said he wanted to talk to me and not my mother when I turned my back to him and we went on walks to get to know each other. I liked him, he claimed he loved me. I wasn't sure but with Nirvan gone, I was desperate and he seemed really nice. So we bonded.

My mother took her life before witnessing the day her daughter got married, but it wasn't anything special. We stood still beneath the sun's curse and the bride had sand between her toes and the man had spinach leaves stuck in his teeth. His hand felt too sweaty to hold, his body seemed too large to mould, and everything indicated that I should run for my life however I lazily stood my ground and handed myself to the lions.

Mother was selfish. I don't miss her, I did feel a void flashing in my chest but the tumour of black holes I have are deeply stitched into my bones to let it kill me. Instead the pain has been going in a steady pace now, unlike when she was alive. I tap my palms on my chest and push the hurt aside, I push at my ribcage, I push at my chest trying to ease the throbbing of the overbeating heart of mine.

When once he was a source of comfort, now he has become a source of misery to me. I've always loved Nirvan too much for my own good and now I'm paying the price of making a person the centre of my life. It's too dangerous to attach yourself to a human, because eventually, they'll leave. Either dead and cold or haunted and ashamed.

I exhale and white smoke rises from my mouth and forms clouds as they go up and I can only wish to be a cloud one day. Pure and weightless.

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A/N: Sometimes you expect something to come out of a brilliant idea, then the norm happens and you're left doubting yourself. Well, I did not expect this to be so stiff (it was stiff for me, at some parts) I hope it wasn't for you.
MASHED POTATOES, chant these words and you'll find inner peace.