LOST

3. SAPNA

~Sapna~

'Daddy!' A little girl exclaims running towards a middle aged man. He spreads his arms and lifts the girl up, swinging her in the air as she giggles uncontrollably.

Round and round in a garden, with beautiful flowers of all colors – red, yellow, pink, violet --, she lays her head back and looks at the clear blue sky.

'Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!...' She keeps on chanting it as if it was a mantra.

The background blurs and now there are only two colors left.

Fierce Red and Bright Orange.

The man drops her down and runs away.

'Daddy!' She cries out.

She looks around.

There are flames.

Hot and fierce. Threatening to eat her up alive.

She cries and wails and whimpers and bawls her eyes out.

In the middle of the blaze she stands.

Sweating. Crying.

More sweating. Louder crying.

I woke up with a jerk for the fifth time that night. Thinking that I could sleep without the pills was the stupidest idea I'd ever had. When Ma tucked me to bed earlier and gave me the sleeping pills prescribed by my therapist, I spit them out the moment she left the room, determined to keep the nightmares away. Little did I know, I was trapped in them.

That wasn't the first time I hadn't taken my pills. In fact, I hardly took them more than twice a week. Because I knew better than turning into an addict. But those nights, I stayed up working or wasting time surfing the internet.

No matter how badly I needed to sleep, I couldn't.

And I wouldn't.

At least not to see some little girl stuck in fire.

I tried to avoid the fact that the girl scared me to death. Every time I saw her, she reminded me of some place. Someone.

I just didn't know where. Or who.

I got out of my bed, shivering, my teeth chattered, and I rubbed the palm of my hands against my arms, feeling suddenly cold, unable to get the images out of my mind. Glancing at the wall clock that showed 2.30 a.m., I turned my laptop on and decided to watch a movie in order to cut the night.

When Ma entered my room the following morning, I was still sitting in front of the laptop screen.

"Sapna." She said, drawing out the word, and stroked my hair.

I watched her with drowsy eyes, the slight depression in her left cheek that formed a dimple when she smiled. Her eyes didn't crinkle when she smiled anymore, proving that when she looked happy to the world, in reality she was broken on the inside.

And I was the sole cause of her suffering.

"Why are you up so early, Ma?"

"I felt like checking up on you."

The mere action of shrugging looked tedious and dull when she did it and it hurt me to see her like that.

I took a deep breath, grabbed both her hands and stood up. "Let's go for a walk!"