Trigger warning: Mention of suicide
She would think, "Why can't my parents live happier?" But Raina was not 11 anymore and she had given up on having a peaceful domestic life. She stretched her arms on the bench and closed her eyes in the cool shade of the banyan tree. She could feel the skirt grazing up her thighs. But her neck hurt and she didn't care to comply and pull it down. The society could go to hell. They could give her a visit. It would be a change in her life.
She would come to the park behind her house whenever her parents would fight. She had been doing so for 10 years. During summer vacation, she would spend all her days poking around the empty park. School was over and her father had not allowed her to go with her friends, as usual.
From the empty bench, you could see the road sloping upwards beyond the railing and faint outline of hills enveloped in mist.
She felt a sudden urge to be touched. Someday she would feel so aware of her body that it could hold her attention throughout the day.
She breathed in and her bosom heaved. Shadows of orange and pink danced under her eyelids when sunlight filtered through the canopy.
The soft chirping of sparrows lulled her into a dreamless sleep.
When she opened her eyes, clouds had sheltered the sun and the threat of rain loomed overhead. She rubbed her face, hoping to remove the drowsiness from her gaze.
She shrugged into her overcoat, covering her till her knees, and walked on.
"What would happen if I were to keep on walking to the edge of the mountain and then take another step?" She chuckled mirthlessly. It would take about four hours until her parents would find out she had not returned. They would search the park, calling her name through the streets. They would call her friends' parents, for a moment forgetting their differences to share in a mutual anxiety. Days later, the paramedic would find her body tangled in a mess of shrubs and branches of dried trees downhill. Maybe they would count how many bones had been broken or shake their heads and stolidly prepare how to break the news to the frantic parents.
Her death might bring them together. Or maybe not?
Even grief has its own limitations and when it gives way to brooding, they might be better apart. After a while, when there would be no reason to pretend, none to suffer together, they would let each other go. It might just give them freedom. Even courage which would stem from indifference to how they spend the remainder of their lives. It is uncertain whether they would be happy again. But they were not happy with her either, so it's not like she was taking away their happiness.
Raina looked down the lush green slope. There was no reason strong enough to want to stay, and none dreadful enough to leave. It was a strange meaningless existence bordering on a simmering suffering, stemming from the lack of it. Her suffering was not imposed, rather created. She could not decide which form was worse. The former imposition made you resentful towards the world and the latter, towards yourself.
Was it a curse to live an uneventful life? To experience everything behind a curtain, through eavesdropping on stranger's conversations. As if life was happening on a liquid surface, you could watch it but never be a part of it. Always at a distance. It would drown you if you took a plunge.
She had no purpose in life. Nothing propelled her. When she looked back, there was no regret but no nostalgia either. She had forgotten how to feel anything except resentment, stretching through her past to the present like a string on which she balanced herself. It was the only adventure through a forest of constants.
She smirked and stepped behind from the ledge. Half the sole of her shoe had been in air, the other half grounded on cement questioning their stand.
Should she pay attention to these thoughts?
Nah....
It did not mean anything. Just the musings of an idle brain.
From the window of Mishra's residence uphill, a man had been watching her. He had been far enough to not notice how close she was to the chasm. How close she had been to dying. For if he had known he would have been more than heartbroken. Her father had been saving, despite her mother's refusal, to send her to the annual foreign trip that the school planned but Raina could never go because of finances. But this year she would. In his mind, the winter vacation would be bubbling with excitement and laughter, the sound of which had been absent within the confines of their home for years.
Raina could then visit the potential college representatives in the U.S. and ponder her options for further studies. Explore the innumerable possibilities in front of her. He knew that she was unhappy in the staleness of their town. Her potential had been dimmed by boredom of the countryside.
If he had somehow found out about his daughter's proximity to the ledge, perhaps it would have been better.
He might have prevented her suicide a week later.
But then, we can only guess. The loss has befallen on the couple and there is nothing left to do.
Today would have been her nineteenth birthday. Every year, children gather around fires and tell the story of the neighborhood girl who killed herself. They attempt different forms of the story to make it more terrifying. Last year, a boy proposed that she suffered from a contagious mental disease that targeted children who played a lot in the park. What still surprised their parents was the swiftness of her death. It seemed only yesterday when they had seen her walking with a bicycle to school. She had killed herself as if it had been a part of her daily routine.
But no one in the world was aware of the turmoil she had borne. The mystery of it gave her the air of significance that sixteenth years of life could not.
She would come to the park behind her house whenever her parents would fight. She had been doing so for 10 years. During summer vacation, she would spend all her days poking around the empty park. School was over and her father had not allowed her to go with her friends, as usual.
From the empty bench, you could see the road sloping upwards beyond the railing and faint outline of hills enveloped in mist.
She felt a sudden urge to be touched. Someday she would feel so aware of her body that it could hold her attention throughout the day.
She breathed in and her bosom heaved. Shadows of orange and pink danced under her eyelids when sunlight filtered through the canopy.
The soft chirping of sparrows lulled her into a dreamless sleep.
When she opened her eyes, clouds had sheltered the sun and the threat of rain loomed overhead. She rubbed her face, hoping to remove the drowsiness from her gaze.
She shrugged into her overcoat, covering her till her knees, and walked on.
"What would happen if I were to keep on walking to the edge of the mountain and then take another step?" She chuckled mirthlessly. It would take about four hours until her parents would find out she had not returned. They would search the park, calling her name through the streets. They would call her friends' parents, for a moment forgetting their differences to share in a mutual anxiety. Days later, the paramedic would find her body tangled in a mess of shrubs and branches of dried trees downhill. Maybe they would count how many bones had been broken or shake their heads and stolidly prepare how to break the news to the frantic parents.
Her death might bring them together. Or maybe not?
Even grief has its own limitations and when it gives way to brooding, they might be better apart. After a while, when there would be no reason to pretend, none to suffer together, they would let each other go. It might just give them freedom. Even courage which would stem from indifference to how they spend the remainder of their lives. It is uncertain whether they would be happy again. But they were not happy with her either, so it's not like she was taking away their happiness.
Raina looked down the lush green slope. There was no reason strong enough to want to stay, and none dreadful enough to leave. It was a strange meaningless existence bordering on a simmering suffering, stemming from the lack of it. Her suffering was not imposed, rather created. She could not decide which form was worse. The former imposition made you resentful towards the world and the latter, towards yourself.
Was it a curse to live an uneventful life? To experience everything behind a curtain, through eavesdropping on stranger's conversations. As if life was happening on a liquid surface, you could watch it but never be a part of it. Always at a distance. It would drown you if you took a plunge.
She had no purpose in life. Nothing propelled her. When she looked back, there was no regret but no nostalgia either. She had forgotten how to feel anything except resentment, stretching through her past to the present like a string on which she balanced herself. It was the only adventure through a forest of constants.
She smirked and stepped behind from the ledge. Half the sole of her shoe had been in air, the other half grounded on cement questioning their stand.
Should she pay attention to these thoughts?
Nah....
It did not mean anything. Just the musings of an idle brain.
From the window of Mishra's residence uphill, a man had been watching her. He had been far enough to not notice how close she was to the chasm. How close she had been to dying. For if he had known he would have been more than heartbroken. Her father had been saving, despite her mother's refusal, to send her to the annual foreign trip that the school planned but Raina could never go because of finances. But this year she would. In his mind, the winter vacation would be bubbling with excitement and laughter, the sound of which had been absent within the confines of their home for years.
Raina could then visit the potential college representatives in the U.S. and ponder her options for further studies. Explore the innumerable possibilities in front of her. He knew that she was unhappy in the staleness of their town. Her potential had been dimmed by boredom of the countryside.
If he had somehow found out about his daughter's proximity to the ledge, perhaps it would have been better.
He might have prevented her suicide a week later.
But then, we can only guess. The loss has befallen on the couple and there is nothing left to do.
Today would have been her nineteenth birthday. Every year, children gather around fires and tell the story of the neighborhood girl who killed herself. They attempt different forms of the story to make it more terrifying. Last year, a boy proposed that she suffered from a contagious mental disease that targeted children who played a lot in the park. What still surprised their parents was the swiftness of her death. It seemed only yesterday when they had seen her walking with a bicycle to school. She had killed herself as if it had been a part of her daily routine.
But no one in the world was aware of the turmoil she had borne. The mystery of it gave her the air of significance that sixteenth years of life could not.
/Published in the anthology 'Yellow Woods', available on Amazon/