Fiction
Oh, this ache of mine!
Oh, this pain of mine, this pain in the heart! It just refuses to go away. Something seems to gnaw on and on in my heart. Someone seems to be piercing it with the tip of a sharp knife, to be trying to open an old wound over and over. I feel the pain, its so deep, deep inside. This pain of mine, it always makes my heart weigh like a thousand stones.
I can see my reflection in the mirror. My hair has grown salt and pepper. The curly hair grows wild all around my face. I seldom brush and tidy it up. My sister sometimes puts on oil on my hair and braids it up. The eyes have a look of being lost. They look at everything in a dull way, as if nothing stirs up any interest to bring in light into the dark eyes. The eyebrow is thick and bushy. I remember at one time I used to go to the beautician to have them shaped. But that is now history. The wide mouth droops at the corners. The sharp nose seems to stick up for nothing. When I look at the nose wonder how could it still manage to look so sharp when my inside was crumbling like sand piles! This pain has made my thirty years of life feel as if I have crossed seventy or so. I feel so old, so out of tune in this rolling world!
My sister is always making appointments with doctors, doctors who ask me more or less the same questions.
"Where is this pain? Is it in the chest?" they ask when Sis says I mention of a pain somewhere in my heart.
I clutch my chest and point to the heart and say,
"The pain is inside, deep inside and it hurts!"
Then follow the usual routines. Have EKG, ECG, ETT and so many more tests of the heart. The doctors are surprised to see the reports. Everything is okay. The heart is very sound! Why the pain?
They look into my eyes. They see the troubled soul. It's all in the eyes. The eyes are supposed to be the mirror of the soul. The wild look, the momentary lost look and the confused self; so many expressions are there in those eyes. Suddenly the doctors seem to arrive at a conclusion and then they tell Sis,
"Maybe some psycho therapy would help, we have done a thorough examination of the heart and the rest of the body. She is fine…."
That makes me laugh. I laugh aloud and again clutch my chest and point to my heart,
"Doctor, the pain is too deep, you can't reach it, you can't cure it! Ah this pain of mine…ha …ha …ha" I cannot stop the laughter. But and then suddenly the pain is too much and I start crying, break down with great sobs. I see lights getting dim, the walls around me seem to be closing around and I feel suffocated. I must get out of the doctor's room. I rush out. Sis follows me and links her hand with mine.
" Flora….Flora calm down. We will go home now." She says to me.
" I don't need doctors! How many times I have told you that?"
" Ok…ok…no doctors…" She promises to me. And then and there I know right on the next day she will drag me to that psycho therapist.
These sessions with the psycho therapist, they make me feel like a real lunatic. I tell them that I am not crazy, but their treatment of me makes me feel like one. They think I am out of my senses just because I don't eat right, don't dress right and spend sleepless nights just star gazing. But how can I tell them that when I do things in my own way I feel more in tune with my pain? When I punish myself in some way I feel as if the pain has a right to be there, as if it has come to stay with me for the rest of me life. And feel an oneness with the pain, the pain that seems to squeeze the life out of me.
I will have the night to stay awake and see all my lost dreams rewind like a motion picture in the darkness of my room. Sis will come with all those sleeping pills. I take them in my hand and throw them into the wastepaper basket. I smile at Sis and say,
" Don't worry, another sleepless night won't make me any more crazier. Just let me be…can't you do that?"
Sis shakes her head , her brows knitted into a deep frown as if fed up with me. I just do not want her around me, I want to be left to myself.
Then finally comes my peace. Sis has gone to sleep. I sit in the balcony and look at the night sky. It's a clear autumn night. Wispy white clouds are floating over a full moon. Countless stars twinkle with their soft lights. When the others leave me in peace I am with my Shayaan, my lost Shayaan.
But and then, did I tell you about my Shayaan? Ah no, nor do I ever tell the doctors about him. Only two months back he was there in my life, filling each and every hour with his laughter and words. And then he vanished. We were in love. Listen, very much in love. He couldn't leave me but he did. My dark and tall Shayaan, my love with his dark eyes and manly features! He had told me countless times that he loved me and I saw that love deep in his eyes. Now where has my love gone? When love was there I had felt as if the world belonged to me, as if I was safe and secure. I had only to set my eyes on him, had only to hear his voice and I would feel as if heaven was there for me. Love had given me a place all my own in this huge world.
Tell me how am I supposed to feel when this love and the person; all vanish. They have left me with a pain, a dull pain that makes me almost numb to the rest of the world. The doctors can't see the knife that gnaws endlessly into my heart, the knife that opens up fresh wounds every minute. They see the lost me in my eyes, they see the aimless wanderer that inhibits the world now. They ask me to play tennis, to go to movies and have good times with friends and relatives. But how can I with this endless echo in my heart, " Shayan..where are you?".
I laugh, that crazy laughter that comes from my within because nobody can see my inside, nobody can feel the emptiness that suffocates me. I can hear Shyaan's voice calling me, calling me to his side. And then a huge bell clangs and brings me back to the reality. Shayyan is gone. He does not call me any more, does not seek me out any more.
"Doctor, you don't have to go with those test for this pain of mine….you just can't cure it….no doctor can…….ha..ha..ha .." I plead as my sister takes me from one doctor to another. I laugh and cry; all together.
This pain, for me or any other woman like me, when love is betrayed, the pain is not there to be healed……it's a fire that is burning the inside out. There is one question to ask,
"Where has love gone?"
See the dark sky of this rainy day? There is more water behind my eyes than the whole day's rain. See the ocean flowing? There are hundred oceans behind my eyes. See those firewood burning? There is a greater fire in my heart. See the infinity of the sky? My heart is lost to a greater infinity. Oh this pain of mine…"Doctor…please no more of these tests..it just won't go away. Oh, this pain of mine…"
This pain of mine will go the day my love comes back. Will he come? Someone tell me, will he come back?
Tulip Chowdhury writes fiction.
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