Short Stories - A Series of Tales Frozen in Time

The Journey to Beatitude - the orignal short story

Authors note: This is another short story that story expanded into a novel. I thought I'd share this one here first. This was a piece I wrote back when I was 14, and I have copied it verbatim here with no editing. While it holds no spoilers unlike My dear Horrors orignal piece, it does lack in quality. The novel is going to much more polished and enjoyable (or so I hope). 

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He walked by the dilapidated shack and passed into the mansion situated a few kilometers away. Merely ten minutes by walk . . . so close . . . and yet a whole world away.

Mitali had spied on Shikhar everyday for months now. But he didn't even know she existed. No one except her conservative father did. Her father, Shri Ram Bhuvan Kesari, was a friend of Shikhar's father.

No, not a friend; rather an old enemy. At least that is what her father told her every time he came up with 'the old rascal's' name on nights he was particularly drunk. Shikhar's father was nothing except a greedy old moron who had cheated him out of his business, he was the reason they had to live like this, he repeated stubbornly with burning passion against the man whose land they lived on.

Mitali never really understood why it was so important for her to be a secret to the world, why could no one, especially Shikhar know of her existence?

The young man had never seemed hostile to her.

Shikhar's father gave them a monthly allowance and let them live in this place.... It wasn't too cruel, even if they had to live in an old storehouse and rarely got more than two paltry meals a day. With the way her father abused the man every time he saw him, she'd not be surprised if he kicked them out. They were after all nothing more than nuisances who contributed nothing to the estate they lived on except for standing out like jute on velvet.

Anything that involved steeping out of the house was her father's domain alone. Every time he left, he never failed to warn her – never step out of the house. The house and its shadows were all she could remember in the few years she had lived; as a child he would sometimes let her bask in the sun for five minutes or so when the entire estate slept in the afternoon, but that had long stopped.

Now she only lived in this 'home' of theirs; with no sun, and no comforts. Just a 6x6m room with one corner curtained off for her. Their only mat belonged to her father, tucked away in the corner he slept in. Since there were no other mats, she satisfied herself with an old sack for her pillow and another for her blanket.

But regardless of it all, she was content in her little world. What else was there to hope for? This was where she was born and this would probably be where she died. She would be lying if she claimed to not fear what lay beyond these four dusty walls.

There was a time when the outside crept in like a strong draft of wind through torn clothes. She had loved to sing, just like the birds outside did, but she never dared to raise her voice too high. Not while her father was around, he was not one to encourage expression and she did not want to find out what would happen if she did sing out loud. Sometimes, when her father wasn't around she dared to raise it a little, hearing her voice was an odd feeling. And her throat protested against the strain all too soon, but the little releases were always worth the risk. So even if her ministrations left her with a strained throat, she sang.

She hummed the tunes that drifted in as she toiled in the kitchen which was adjacent to her tiny bedroom. The bathroom was a wall sectioned off diagonally opposite to the kitchen, as was the door... always inviting her out every time her father opened it.

It teased her with its colors and blinded her with its light. There were no windows in her little shoebox after all. For the longest time she had no way to peek out into the wide world outside. But now, she was almost 16, and tall, tall enough and strong enough. And so, sometime when her father wasn't around a few months ago, she discovered that she could reach the ventilation slit if she piled two of those huge and old oil cans on top of each other and climbed on top of them.