Pocket full of stars

15 [RAHI]

Uday pulled me back and shouted, "That truck would have crushed you. Come and stand under the shade, you idiot." The pools of honey in his eyes were disturbed and agitated. He was angry.

As instructed, I moved in under the shade of the bus stop and sighed.

"What were you thinking?" He asked me.

I could sense from his voice that the anger had subsided a bit and he also felt bad for shouting at me in public.

The realization felt like a balm on my wounded soul.

"I am asking you something," He repeated. His voice was a bit firmer. "Can you hear me? Are you in this dimension? Hello."

An utter chatterbox!

It took me some effort to answer, "Nothing."

"What nothing?"

I groaned under my breath and answered, "I wasn't thinking anything."

"Liar." His voice suggested that he was sulky because I wasn't 'friendly' enough with him.

I wasn't thinking anything.

My brain was slowly and steadily regurgitating the wounds and traumas and chewing on them again...like a cow sitting lazily in a shade during summer and chewing on its food.

But now some thoughts trickled down from the far end of the land of memory.

There was a time when I attempted to get crushed by a truck as a punishment for my mother.

I loved it when people scolded her whenever I got sick.

"You have only one daughter and you don't treat her well, what kind of a mother are you."

Despite being sick, I used to listen to these comments and see my mother's embarrassed face with pleasure.

What kind of torment did you feel mother, when people scolded you like that?

You valued people's opinions more than anything. How did it feel to be shamed out in public?

I know your soul is haunting me all the time, so I will just tell you...I felt ecstatic.

Every moment of those times when people saw you with eyes full of contempt, I loved it.

I wanted to get sick and hurt myself even more because you would suffer the consequences of it.

When that doctor threw the prescriptions in your face and insulted you, Mother, I felt like dancing around even though my left leg was spewing out blood like a faucet.

Nothing hurt me or pained me as long as you got hurt or embarrassed.

It is so exciting, isn't it?

We were out for each other's throats. We lived for each other's torment.

So fun.

It was so much fun.

But now that you are not here in your bodily form, I hate it.

I so wanted to find out your weakness and expose it, laugh over it and see you drowning in shame.

Say, Mother, did I ever take anything precious from you?

I think you once told me out of rage that I have blood on my hands and that my birth was a mistake.

You said my birth was a punishment for your crime.

What was my crime?

What was yours?

Is your hand tainted with blood too?

Who did I kill before birth?

Say, Mother, don't just haunt me silently, say something.

Shall I teach you how to haunt?