अन्तः अस्ति प्रारंभः।
The end is the beginning.
A caterpillar dies, to birth a butterfly. Water evaporates to rain down. Dead carcasses fill the stomachs of vultures.Life gives way to death and death to life. In a vicious circle of different karmas...
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Some days, she forgot herself.
Many memories blurred in the churning abyss of guilt and some were hidden behind smokes of blazing bombs. Mihira felt whispers of questions behind her back wherever she went, words that slurred together only to make senseless sounds but always carried the same meaning: she had been wrong.
Somedays, Mihira almost pushed her hand against her flowy skirt before she realised it was no longer a pair of jeans she was wearing. Somedays, she wanted to forcefully remove the silver chain around her neck so that it would leave back marks that were once tattooed on her skin.
She idly wondered on dark days, of it was worth wandering in these forests, in the same road that would lead to nothing concrete.
At the moment, sitting near a Lake and looking into it, Mihira felt detached in a way that she was very used to. Her eyes were dropping from the exhausting heat and she could feel the water teasing at the blistering skin of her feet.
Her hair was tied back, a lie that mostly kept wandering eyes away, leading them to believe she was married. The scar on her shoulder that Durukti left stayed inspite of the amount of turmeric Atharva had nagged her to rub over it. In the scorching heat, it burned more and Mihira once more wondered what was the reason that just some wounds hadn't left her.
Looking at herself in the lake, Mihira tried to analyse herself. The way her hair was parted. The way bangles on her wrists were rearranged in chaotic patterns because of her fiddling. She tilted her head and relaxed her right shoulder, sitting in horrible posture that was so familiar. The way she swirled her feet in the water, one forward to make a current and another backward to rip into the current and stop it from becoming.
In the reflection of herself, she noticed that she did not exist.
The way she parted her hair was because of her mother. The way she fiddled with her bangles was because of her aunt. The way she sat, was the exact copy of how her father mimicked her uncle. Her feet were repeating the same patterns Shaili made everytime she went to bathe as a child.
Her clothes were draped in the way Lakshita preferred, only on the other side so to hide her scar. Not out of shame, really, but self preservation. Mihira grinned bitterly at the words, almost hearing Atharva's bitter and disappointed tone again.
Did she exist? In the planes of a world that she had no right to be in, was she anything more than a copy of people who had made the mistake to love her?
Disgrace, a voice whispered in her ear almost seductively, purring silently. The voice was distant and distorted but the words were clear as it spoke again. What makes you think you were anything more than a pawn? The goal of every life is to succumb to the sweet home of death. You beat that, but at what cost?
Those who love you, don't know you only pretend. Waiting to strike, like a snake in the trees. How poisonous are you? Alone in this forest, this is where you belong, do you not? An untameable beast, abandoned in a forest to survive. Only to find, you don't even fit here. Are your claws sharp enough to tear into your enemies?
