Cursed

An empty glass and a half filled bottle of coarse whiskey wrote her stories every night. Aastha’s third and final peg was bottom’s upped for the night. Her eyes had begun to resist and call it quits against Marquez’s long, esoteric sentences. Her mind drifted away into the blackhole that sucked her thoughts, blurred her vision, and squeezed out the last bit of strength from her muscles. The three paces from the study table to her bed seemed like a walk over an ocean – unstable, unending, and impossible.

Those days when Mihir wobbled on his unstable feet, she lent him her steady shoulders to get on bed. He didn’t need those shoulders now. He was early to bed, not inebriated.

The moon was the bridge between their separate beds. There was a time when they wove dreams in each other’s arms while the moon bore witness to their unending love. It bore witness even now, but of their twist of fate, and of the sleepless nights.

The sight of the full moon from the window next to her bed was boring. It was the same old monotonous cycle. The moon through his window, however, was far more desirable. It symbolized foreverness. It stood for the silent strength to keep a million secrets of births and deaths.

He wished to die. Yet, he was scared of death. She knew she cannot give up. Yet, she craved for death.

A part of her had died four years back when Mihir demanded a separation. Shocked and bruised, Aastha didn’t bother to ask him for an explanation.

“Okay. I am game.”

Not for once did she let her vulnerabilities show in front of him. Neither did she tell him about the little life that was taking shape in her womb. Divorce papers were mutually signed.

Somewhere, she felt that his new friend, Sameera, had a role to play in this. And he never denied this either.

During the divorce process, however, a part of her secretly wished he would apologize and come back. Aastha had spun so many scenes in her imagination where she made him hard-earn the apology for all the pain he had inflicted upon her. But, with the gradual arrival of the fateful day of divorce, her hopes had also faded away. They got replaced by sparkling whiskeys and cigarettes.

One fine night, when the crescent smiled, her belly felt a wincing pain. She writhed, smeared in her own blood. “Mihir, you are the reason for this. It’s the curse from a mother’s bleeding heart, you shall bleed the same.” She muttered by the window, the plumped crescent still smiling at her.

Stains of blood that night had shifted from her bed to the white sheets of paper. She bled day and night in alphabets on the paper until she turned into a published author.

And he? Yes, he did bleed too… on the sink and into the bin bag.

“Here, have the turmeric milk. You shall find some sleep.”

While he obliged, Sameera walked up to the open window to close it.

“How on earth is this window still open! It’s so cold outside!”

“I don’t like the clouds hanging outside. Let them come in.” He coughed violently. Before Sameera could hand him the kerchief, it was all over the place. Warm tulip drops had marked tiny round stains on his ivory quilt. Sameera rushed to reach out for the bin bag and kerchief.

“Gosh! Now do you understand why I ask you to keep that window closed?”

“All these years, you have nursed me well. Yet, I couldn’t love you enough. I have pained you enough though.But now, you shouldn’t see me die. It’s time we say goodbye.”

“Shut up, you selfish man. How big an escapist could you be! You left her before you could see her in tears. And now, you wish to do the same to me. But this time, you cannot escape. I shall make sure you watch me cry while you die.”

“Then cry, my dear. Soak your lips in tears and pull me up for the first and last kiss. And if ever you meet her after I am gone, tell her how beautiful are your nights on my lips.”

“You are a curse on me, Mihir. You leave behind for me no love, but the curse of a woman you’ve loved the most. In between two moonlit windows, I am the hanging cloud that shall never find a home.”

 

By: Satarupa Mishra