INNOCENCE LOST (Rewriting)

12 :SHADOWS OF TIME:

The ground beneath squeaked under pressure, my toes curling each time the thought stirred some recollection.

Oh, what demon possessed me!

While my brain busied in whipping one main course after another, my mind searched for logic— one dam logic to rationalise that dreaded move.

Mamoni stood irate, flinging the door open the moment my feet landed at the top of the porch stairs. She had been watching from the windows, I concluded. I bolted past, kicking the sandals to the side and thumped all the way up the steps until my bedroom door locked tight. The moment the latch fell into place, I breathed a sigh. Somehow the confines of the room gave a sense of safety, the four walls cocooning me from the danger that lurked outside. My hands shivered, the water choking when it spurted out of the bottle. For a second, I thought Mamoni banged loudly, screaming, “you went out despite my warnings! Where exactly were you?” I rushed and looked on either side of the corridor— it was empty, pin-drop silence. Just my wild imagination wreaking havoc— I sufficed in relief.

“It’s you whom I want”—could he be any more obvious? “I'm still aware of your appetite, Sonu. How you used to look like a dog on heat.” His eyes, nose, lips, and the low baritone of his voice all echoed within my head creating a buzz. I pulled at my hair to drown the tension, stomped on the anxiety. A shriek protested right at the tip of my vocal chord.

I hate him. I hate the sorrow, the anger, the desperation or whatever the hell he’s hiding. I wish I can rip…

I sighed. At this point, I wished to rip my very self apart. Sweat dribbled the side of my neck, moistened the kurta collar before vanishing deep into the breast folds. I brushed aside the pooling dampness and turned on the air-conditioner. Will the days now go like this? Alarmed, Panicking?

Any thought of the future came laced with fear. But, it was imminent! It would surely happen, this day or the one after! Rajesh Chowdhury was a man on a mission— he sought vengeance, the very look in those eyes asserted the same.

Two and a half years, thirty months of passion turned to poison. And now, when the night had awakened to drown the insulting and the gratuitous in its tsunami of darkness, the final hour had arrived, ready to knock at my door. I felt it— the ominous juddering of ground, the receding water, the saltiness, the frantic chirping of birds and last but not the least my own heart jolting to a stop. Oh, shit!

It all started with a kiss— a single kiss that turned the world upside down, not that it was quite sturdy before, but at least it was there, something was there! Never in the hell did I imagine seducing my professor, never in hell, did I imagine being wanted in such a wanton manner — taunted, teased and tortured by someone. Not in hell, could I fathom what tasting the forbidden felt like. Still, I continued— twice, thrice, repeatedly until there remained little to nothing of the line separating us. And yet, that line snapped.

“You destroyed our child..you destroyed our child..you destroyed our child..”

Booming voices ricocheted off the walls, each louder than the preceding one. Was it my conscience or was it him? Or was it..

‘No, no, no', I whimpered. The tears gushed like a mountain stream, why I was bursting in pain I had no idea and from where did those bloody emotions come? I had simmered them for the last five years. Not simmered, dumped them. I thought there would be respite once they stopped rampaging my conscience. Could I do it?

Can a mother ever?

Did I just call myself a mother? Funny, it even popped in my head. Me? A mother? Never in this lifetime, never it had the remotest possibility of being true. I saw Ma suffer, through years she endured anguish, her worth diminished to that of a servant. No, even a servant gets paid, there’s a reward for the labour; hers was just unaccounted for.