MONA-LISA

PART ONE

   From the shadows, dark spindly fingers creep across the frail wooden door. Then, clutching the door with a screech, made vain attempts to gain entrance.
   I remained stilt sitting on my favourite chair, rocking back and forth covered in the mist of this marauding mare. The living room was not exactly silent so I could hear louder than the angry moan of whatever was outside, the trepidation of my heart.
   The face behind the noise was never unmasked- never revealed. Its just remained outside having a huge preference for odds- choosing to visit in a cloud of darkness, reaching from the door, Windows, ceiling but never entering. My eagerness had never prompted me to move and yet every other night I would come there to the darkness and void of our old house all covered in dust and webs to wait sitted in the middle of the room facing the door.
   I always waited with my eyes closed and it always came but not inside as though held back by something as I was by pelting emotions that always seemed to surge into prominence no matter how far trodden.
   Tonight was different. It sounded angrier. The clutching had become more ferocious, more desperate- mad desperation. BANG!BANG!BANG! Louder and Louder, deafening. BANG!!!

    I jerked out of my sleep just as Nadim came in with a nurse.
    "She's having one of those dreams again,"she said softly to the nurse."She has them every night". Her eyes wore a permanent look of empathy that made it seem like she felt sorry for everyone.
    The nurse nodded her out curtly and turned in time to give me a belligerent smile.
    "I am fine", I muttered. I knew that smile and I said this every other time but I still turned my arm in for the injections and went through the routine examination and took my medication.
     Today's nurse was new, aged in a very scary way, quite unbecoming of a woman her age.
     "I know that already. I'm just here to listen",she said in a husky voice almost as though she had meant to whisper- a failed effort though.
    I looked up from my palms abruptly, expecting her to say more.
    There is some sense in everything, some knowledge to deduce. I hear they don't listen", she said eyeing the door and by that I knew she meant everyone- my family, the other nurse...
     She sat beside my bed and it suddenly felt too intimate for her to be doing that. I was uncomfortable and she noticed.
     "Dear, when you have seen the things that I have in my few years, you would find that no story is incredible". She paused but I didn't want her to. Her words were cooling and I just needed more of it.
     "So,"she said eyeing  me knowingly,"let me hear it"
        I shifted and suddenly had the urge to belch my yesterday's meal. I stared at her wondering where to begin my tale. This nurse would either jump out of the window after hearing my story or brand me crazy before my husband, my sister and well...my two kids.
      It seemed easier to just stare at her once more and sigh as though I would change my mind but I knew I would not. Two years may seem like a long time but I remember it all like it was yesterday. I live in those memories each new day and so I began from where our lives were still inactive before they crumbled into these jagged pieces that cut deep each day...

                  MONALISA, MONALISA
sleep by me tonight. It's getting cold and darkness has descended. The night could be long and agonizing.