Journey Through Hell

Chapter 3 - Wife

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?"  Benjamin Franklin. 

I went alongside the corridor to track the noise of a distant lullaby. The song was emanating from a young sweet soft voice of a woman that I could barely recall. Nevertheless, I felt the urgency to find her. I was running but I did not know why. The voice called out to me.

"Ali? Where are you, my dear?" enquired the unknown siren. She continued her singing of long-lost or forgotten lullabies that was jogging a part of my brain that felt primal and instinctive.

"Who are you?!" I asked out loud, forgetting the dangers of this hell for the moment.

"...you already know who I am..." her voice called out in a considerable distance but I still could not detect the source of her voice.

"Where are you?" I asked another question that was only answered by a vague response.

"You know where, silly!" she teased lightly as she chuckled and resumed her singing. I ran straight through the corridor with a single thought in my head. I must find that voice. Somehow, I felt that she was or is someone important to me.

There was a large brownish red door with an ornate golden handle. I huffed and panted, trying to catch my breath. I heard her songs through this door. I was so eager to open it but I stopped right there as I remembered something very obvious about this woman. I can still hear her singing inside the room

I asked through the closed door hesitatingly. "Aisha, could that be you?"

The singing stopped abruptly. The silence was deafening as there was thick tension between the door and myself. I opened the door only to be shocked to find a phantom-like spirit cloaked in darkness with red eyes. The door suddenly slammed itself shut really hard with a loud bang. The sight of the phantom and the door being shut so unexpectedly, rattled me for a second.

"Aww, what's wrong my dear?" a woman's voice asked behind me. I turned quickly with my guard up, only to find no one there in the corridor. I heard the door clicked open once more and I saw the room more clearly as the lights were on. The room 'looked' inviting with its warmth and brightness.

I stepped in the room and shut the door behind me. I inspected the master bedroom and I felt like it has been a very long time since I came to this place. The bed was queen-sized with golden arabesque design of plants encircling around as a spiral at the center of the quilt. There was a black office desk next to the bed that seemed to look like it was mine. There were various items on the desk. A lamp, journal and some stationaries. I picked up the journal and opened some pages in random.

I noticed that this was my journal since I recognized my handwriting. The entries were trivial and impersonal notes of how I spent my days without any feelings or opinions of my own. I flipped some more pages until something caught my attention. It was on the April 12th, 2010, I met a certain someone. I described her with such detail and emotional attachment that was clearly absent in the previous entries.

"Aisha?" I asked myself or the phantom witnesses somewhere nearby. I described her with expressions like how her black hair flows like a river, how her movements were graceful as she danced like a movie star and her sparkling smile brightened up the day. I read on how we met each other for the first time in the café as unsuspecting strangers, the times we spent together in the open night sky, romanticizing the idea of being together and the time we gotten married a year later.

Although, the entries further on showed how our relationship strained and grew tense with each passing year. I became a bit worried as I moved through the pages with each glance that unveiled a darker turn in our relationship. I closed the book and rubbed my temples hard to gain some relief after reading my journal. I asked myself another question.