LOVE: To Infinity And Beyond

*BLINDED*

Hi lovelies,

I feel like saying 'Long time, no see' XD
Anyways, if you people have checked out the books-and-plans list in my bio, you would all know that I've mentioned my desire to write something on Ashshwatthama someday.

This is a tiny one-shot from his perspective, that has been born after sudden inspiration struck me in a school lunch-break from the memory of a Bengali essay of sorts that I had once written for the school magazine.

I need feedback, okay? I need to know if I can oneday, maybe, write something on Ashshwatthama.

And, before you all already start throwing rotten eggs and tomatoes at me, I'll just say that, it was something I read online that gave me this idea of Ashshwatthama being infatuated with Draupadi.

And, I mean, why not? 99-100% of the men of her generation were. So, why not this one too? Poor dude, though...

(P.s.: Yeah, I know that I have an inclination towards dark characters ;) )

~With love and gratitude (for 140k+ reads!!!)
Bristi ❤️

______

BLINDNESS

I stare at the paintings on the cave wall.

All beautiful women, stunning natural scenarios, colourful flowers from which the natural paint has faded in all these thousands of years.

How many thousands has it been, anyways?

I have no idea. The searing ache in every pore and bone of my body has successfully kept me occupied enough for all these days. There are no outwardly scars - not anymore - but my insides are shattered and tattered and burnt right into irredeemable cinders.

I had locked myself up in this cave a few millennia back, and yet, there's no end to my torment.

He has been showing me how the world moves on while I dangle here - somewhere amongst the definitions and confusions of the past, present and future - as the excrutiatingly long moments in time blend together into an eternity of agony.

An eternal curse. An eternal punishment. But for what?

Fir trying to annihilate a dynasty by attempting to kill its only, unborn heir?

I ask Him everyday when I feel His omniscient presence invade my mind-space. He never answers, just goes ahead to show me how much the world has moved forward - leaving me behind. How even time threatens to forget me.

But honestly, I don't care.

I don't care till I can sometimes find my peace as I withdraw my senses from the pain, into the sweet oblivion that harbours the most beautiful of my memories.

Maybe, this is exactly what He wants me to do. Because this is torture, pulled up a few notches, to another level.

I sigh a shaky, shuddering breath. It burns its way out through me. I stare up at the paintings and engravings on the wall.

All beautiful, but nothing even nearly as beautiful as her.

I close my eyes and the burning image of my first sight of those blazing amber eyes, that has been branded right at the back of my eyelids ever since, reappears.

I embrace every pain and every burn only for the sake of the company of this fervour that I still feel for her. I don't yet know if this is love. I've never known.

Maybe because He has always been right - omniscient powers and all - and I have really always been too blinded by her beauty to look past that.

As if no one else was. I scoff.

All the Pandavas were - even if momentarily - maybe, except Arjuna. Karna was, for quite a while, before he finally fell in love with her - maybe just as hard and hopelessly as me. Duryodhana was too - but he wisely chose anger over those other ruining emotions.

Well, I am a totally different story. The story of the biggest fool of what they know today as the greatest epic ever. Though, I won't call it all 'epic'. But there was certainly one thing that was truly epic.

Rather, one person.

She was epic - truly epic.

Even for a blind fool like me who supposedly failed to look beyond the raging dazzle and glow of her physical beauty, I could easily say that her personality was just as epic as those piercingly magnetic amber eyes of hers. She was the one lady who drove the whole story.

And stagnated mine.

Yes. My whole world stopped spinning the moment I saw her walk into that Swayamvar hall in all her glory. It stopped enough for me to pledge to never marry anyone, if not her.

It wasn't her. So it could never be anyone else, either.

And yet, my 'obsession' for her - as He has been putting it all these millennia - is said to have become my downfall. They say, it was when I saw her being dragged into that infamous gambling hall that I sealed my fate.

Or maybe when I killed her sons in their sweet slumber.

I shake my throbbing head and let the corners of my aching lips quirk up.

If only they knew that I had known it full well that it wasn't those five Pandavas - those were her sons. If only they knew that I had lied to Duryodhana to let him pass into peace.

If only they knew that I had kept my own last promise to myself - if the world couldn't witness even a shred of a memory of my love for her, they won't see that blinding beauty being passed down the bloodline either.

I gaze up at the cave-art-work again - that same face occupying my line of vision.

And suddenly, I feel lighter. Lighter than I ever have in a few millennia.

That's when I hear His cynical laughter from the hazy daze in my head.

"It's over.", His mystique voice says. The voice that reminds me of her voice.

And I finally know what my key to salvation has always been.

Admission. Of my ultimate sin. Of the lie that I used to tell myself.

I embrace the light breeze that steals into my prison, signalling the end of an eternity of agony.

It brings along the fragrance of heaven and hope.

Who knows? Maybe I'll see her again? Fall again? Get blinded again?

But I don't care about the tragedy of the purgatory, if only I can see those blinding eyes again.