That day the pen got tired. Hopeless and hapless. Her words shattered it whole.
“Where were you?” demanded her pen. Like any possessive lover, it hovered on the face, again.
Rolling her eyes and fidgeting the fingers, she fixed it in bun.
Fiddling the nerves she inhaled whales, in despair and desperation.
The pen choked. It suffocated and scuffed. Fought hard to breathe some ink and drink some words.
She warned, whispered to its nib, “Cease your words. Can not you see I am having fun here? You are walking on sword, beware!”
“Oh you Pell-mell. For God’s sake, stop living down in the dumps. Fight, you damn. Write it into words.”
Day and night she caressed those weal. Skulked the bruised eye gags, under those shades. Sometimes, when her voice croaked, the brain shushed, “Overlook silly! It is absurd.”
“Listen to your intolerance. Speak your gut,” advised the pen in rage and stir.
“Stop preaching, moron. Love travails. Houses are built with patience. With mouth shut. It is no fairytale” “If, not for you let me reunite with my love and kiss the paper. Free me into words and verses. Write. Write, before you die. Before I die. For freedom, before repentance.”
“Go away. I need you no more. I am tired of this hide-o-seek. Under the closed palms. Untidy bun. Inside the last shelf of the drawer. Into the cracks of my heart. Go, go please.”
That day the pen got tired. Hopeless and hapless. Her words shattered it whole. The Sun dimmed. The Moon cringed. Universe pitied. While she tittered at her cowardice..
Lifeless. Listless, it lay there.
Then, lights thundered under the dark sky. Shaking in fear, she stretched her fingers. With a penchant to survive.
Survive to narrate. Survive to share. The pain, no sane.
She broke down. Like those zillions stars. Scattered in the sky. Her pain needed a pathway. She moved aside and let it glide.
The invincible pen, “Write it right and write you must”, screamed her pen with hope and trust.
As the pen met the paper, words sailed in. Like a whirlpool. Seeped in deep. Into the soil. Drought it was. For years and alas!
She wrote. Yes, in that white fluttering sheet. At the edge of window side table, under the mellowing sun.
“He used me abused me, in the name of love. No naïve I was, but unsure thereof. Now, that I have courage and want to hold on. With the Leap of faith and some air, I wish to tell. Yes, he is insolent. He assaulted me and pushed me into silence, night after nights. I defied his writhe with fright, but the demon that side enjoyed my plights. “I like resistance”, he glares at his win. “You know, I feel supreme”. I stopped to fight. I killed my might. “Brawl you kitty. Don’t behave like a corpse.” Satisfying it was as painful it got. Bruises, clots, marks. And what not. But today, as I hold it in one hand and lines in another, Two pink ones. A new life. Oh my God, am I? Yes, yes, a mother. I vow to unveil his disguise and end the torture Undersigned the paper to expose his curtained hover. Brutal, cruel and undercover. It was time for the world to know, no peace is virtue of crime. He will have to pay for everything and plead dime.”
The nostrils flared and eyes twitched. Walking past that doors she let the pen kiss to hitch. They found their solace…in that piece of paper. In this story. Once and forever.
Image via Pixabay
A researcher, an advocate of equal rights, homemaker, a mother, blogger and an avid reader. I write to acknowledge my feelings. I am enjoying these roles. read more...
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Earlier my husband would say, 'Arey! What is there in making dal-roti? It's so simple.' After he had to cook everyday when I was ill, he has stopped saying that to me!
“Arey! What is there to do in making dal roti? Put a handful of lentils in the cooker and let it whistle and make two rotis. After all, how long will it take?” A handful of dal (lentils) and two rotis! This is the story of every woman and no one seems to understand.
Some time ago, after a shopping spree, my husband and I entered the house, exhausted. I had just about kept all the bags aside, when my husband said, “I am very hungry, can you make something.”
I looked at my husband in amazement and thought, ‘He had just had food, how did he get hungry again so soon?’
My husband, as if he had read my face, said, “Arey! You know that my stomach is not filled with outside food. Just make dal roti. What is there to do in making dal roti? Put a handful of lentils in the cooker and let it whistle and make two rotis. After all, how long will it take?”
‘Is this the way dal (lentils) and roti are made?’ The thought came to my mind. ‘After all, I also went along and now I am tired too.’ I was also getting angry at myself that after all, I had spoiled the habit of everyone in the house.
Nirmala disconnected, and turned to speak to Amma. But she was long gone. Once more, the poor kitchen utensils were bearing the brunt of Amma’s temper.
The Muse of the Month is a monthly writing contest organised by Women’s Web, bringing you original fiction inspired by women.
Ujwala Shenoy Karmarkar is one of the winners for the October 2021 Muse of the Month, and wins a Rs 750 Amazon voucher from Women’s Web. The juror for this month, Himanjali Sankar commented, “The age-old connection between a mother and daughter is explored poignantly through an exasperated love, which is often seemingly angry and impatient, that a daughter feels for her mother and the way she comes to make peace with it. A story set in Covid times that puts us in touch with the importance of love, connections and gratitude in a non-preachy, very real way.”
Nirmala grimaced as she picked up her cup of tea. It was cold and had a greasy film over it. Her class had lasted two hours, and she had been talking continuously for most of it. Her back was aching and her throat was sore.
"It was my decision. I tolerated him being a drunkard. But he chose another girl. When I confronted him, he said it was love, that he loved the two of us. Strange right?"
“It was my decision. I tolerated him being a drunkard. But he chose another girl. When I confronted him, he said it was love, that he loved the two of us. Strange right?”
The clock struck five and indicated to Lena that it was time for her evening walk, as suggested by her friend Reshmi for quite some time. With great difficulty, she dragged herself from the sofa, keeping aside the book she was reading for the past few days, and stepped out of the house.
The basic idea was to inhale fresh air that would help destress her and give her a calm, peaceful mind to face the situation she is currently in, at least that’s what Dr. Reshmi had told her.
‘Listen to every step a doctor says’, a plain mantra that her parents follow and make her do the same.
We often depend heavily on our assumptions and miss out on great relationships. Being open and honest may stop us from losing the people we love.
I sat writing my personal diary, a habit I picked up in my teenage years. That evening, my parents were out and I sat writing in my Maa’s bedroom. Suddenly, my pen gave up on my stressful outbursts. I was penning down on my poor diary about the pain that the torturous eleventh standard syllabus gave me, after the graceful Board exam results.
I knew my Maa’s personal diary had a pen in it and started looking for it as I didn’t want to move to my study to fetch another pen and disturb the flow of my thoughts. And while I did find the pen, I found something else beside it. A letter! I knew I should not look through other people’s personal items but I couldn’t resist glancing through it. It was from a very dear uncle, a family friend of our’s.
As I my eyes looked through the letter’s contents, my heart began beating faster than ever. My hands shook and I sat on the bed, reading it again and again.