Ecstasy

It was a long way away, the ground; a good couple of minutes. And hard too: there would be a definite splat. Shrapnel would fly everywhere. But the usually crowded street was deserted. Funny that luck would start to favor her only at this moment in her life.

She felt liberated. The strong wind blew through her hair. Things could not have been more perfect, really.

She thought of her happy place. The tall grass, sun, breeze. Him. Them. All the people she loved. And she loved them most in this very moment.

Joy and love seemed almost to swallow her. She could not keep a smile from her face.

And she was hopeful. Hopeful of a better world without herself there.

She closed her eyes, spread out her arms. The smile on her face widened. And then she jumped.

Inspired

Her mind seems blank. Sometimes it tries to think, but it’s hard. It seems to be moving at a very slow, sluggish pace, like it’s just had a big lunch. But it’s a brilliant feeling.

But now it’s moving rapidly, and she feels that the kind of insight she’s getting should be put in books and taught to children as part of their school curriculum. A special course called ‘The Ways of The World’. Because let’s face it, school doesn’t prepare you for the real world, for what’s out there, outside of the safety blanket of those four walls. School’s fucking useless.

It’s amazing really. The range of emotions she feels right now is nothing like the range she can feel normally. It’s broadened, the spectrum. Her horizons have broadened. There’s new sensations, thoughts flying around rapidly in her head. Their speed almost blinds her. They knock against the sides of her brain and fly with increased momentum to the other side. Like dragonflies. She can barely keep track. They switch rapidly, from one thing to the next. Happy, sad, anguished, desperate, ecstatic, nostalgic, amused, bewildered, surprised, sorrowful. There’s a valid reason for each. She wasn’t even aware the human mind could move at a pace like this. What comes out of her mouth makes perfect sense. She wonders why other people find it funny.

It’s pretty, the smoke. It forms images in front of her eyes. Such a waste. Pretty things are almost always undervalued. Why do people run after the grotesque and leave the ultimately beautiful to waste away, she could never understand. It’s the same with relationships. The really beautiful people almost always end up dying alone. She supposes it’s their way of finding hardship in life, to make them stronger, more resilient. Even more beautiful. Yet never appreciated.

She gets lost in the beauty of the smoke coming out in front of her. It’s mesmerising. Even as a child, the soft shapes formed by the lit camphor at Diwali pujas used to invite her, tempting her into their labyrinthine cave. She’d get lost, looking at those forms for hours. It was perhaps the only way for her to get through those Pujas.

She feels heat on her fingers. Time to roll another. 

The Telltale Heart

She used to wear her heart on her sleeve. It was open, it was free.
It was vulnerable.
It was prone to damage from inclement emotional weather. From without, from within. So it got hurt. It got hurt repeatedly. It was stabbed again and again, over a period of years, brutally almost. Like a bad murder movie scene. By the end of all that time, the heart had nothing but knife wounds all over. Every time it was stabbed, it had spurted thick, dark, red blood. So much of its blood was gone now.

It had retreated. It was scared now. It was a basic instinct to step back and distance oneself when one got hurt repeatedly. And so the heart had retreated into her chest. And it had become blacker, drier, more shriveled. Almost as if it were descending into old age. It had lost its youth, its vitality. She was only twenty five. It had closed up whatever was left of its soft, mushy insides, within a hard outer wall. It was more cynical now, harder. And wary. Wary of more hurt. And it would not let itself get hurt any more.

She wondered if it would open up again.


P.S. Extra points to those who understand the connection of the title with popular culture.

Stuck in a Moment

She licked her lips. Her throat was parched. She thought back to the last time liquid had passed down her throat. It seemed like eons ago. In actuality it had only been two seconds. She saw the jug of water and empty glass on the kitchen counter out of the corner of her eye. She contemplated lunging for it, almost as if it were a final shield, the last wall between her and what was to come. But she couldn't. She seemed to be rooted to the spot.

She could smell her own fear.

She knew she must go in soon. He would be expecting her. She could see a sliver of the room through the door from where she stood. He had dimmed the lights and thrown the room into a complete shadow of darkness. Ingenious, she thought. She had always loathed darkness. It would always seem to envelop her, press on her shoulders like some heavy burden, on her throat like some murderer. She would choke, suffocate in the darkness, tonight. He knew this. And she wouldn't be able to see what he was doing to her, only feel it. Maybe that would be better?

It would be excruciatingly painful, though. She knew that much.

She could make out his silhouette. He had left the door ajar just so that she could see he was naked. He would have no trouble, she knew. He was familiar with her body, just as she was familiar with the pain. This routine was regular. She had been surprised how well he had found his own way around her the first time, though. She had realized only much later that he would have done this to many women before her. When she had, she had been sick. Right into the kitchen dustbin, the very same that was lying a few feet away from her now. Overcome with waves of disgust and abhorrence. It wasn't the fact that he had experience, it was that he hadn't bothered telling her just how much.

The same emotions coursed through her veins now. She could almost feel the steamy waves of her intense disgust coming off of her. Her fear had morphed into hate.

She knew her job. It was simple enough, to say the very least. All she needed to do was go in, quickly strip and lie down. He would take all the work upon himself. But he would be brutal, forceful and rapid. And he would try something different every time. Inflicting pain on her seemed to give him some kind of savage pleasure. His latest indulgence had cost her quite a bit. She would wake up with blue-black bruises all over her arms, legs and torso. Especially legs.
She had had to completely cover her body to go to work, and it was the height of summer. It would always raise uninvited questions.

She knew he would do something similar today. She could feel it.

She realized that she had been standing there too long. She put away her fear, her hate, and braced herself for the pain. When it came to him, what choice did she have? She would get used to it, she coaxed herself.

She knew it was a lie.

She took a step forward.