Someplace Safe

"How do you feel?" she whispered in my ear. I could hear her smile through her voice. Her eyes twinkled in the moonlight that had found its way through a broken window-pane.

A cool breeze sneaked through the window. She tightened the blanket around us. I could do without the blanket though, with her warm skin touching mine, her warm breath against my chest, rhythmic like a melodious song.

"Hm?" she prodded me, lifting her head up from my chest and staring into my eyes.

Simple question. Complex answer.

"Nothing. I feel nothing." I told her.

Her smile faltered. I hated myself for being so poor with words. If only I could have words to describe everything I felt, like she always did.

"My head feels empty,  no worry! Absolutely no worry here!" I pointed at my head and told her almost like a patient talking to a doctor.
"It's a rare feeling. It's like-" I struggled for words again, "Like you'd feel in a temple. I feel-" I said and fell silent.

"Safe." she completed, touching her forehead to mine, "Like your soul has been touched. As calm as you have never felt in your life."

The sheet of her hair fell around my face like a dark tent. I loved whenever that happened.

"The wound." she murmured, tracing her finger on my chest.

"The scar." I corrected, "A wound is supposed to hurt; a scar doesn't."

The wound hadn't hurt, ever since she touched it with her warmth. Everything had fallen in the right place. Everything made the perfect sense. As if she had been sent from the skies just for me, because I needed to be saved.

"Does it still hurt?" she frowned, her eyebrows forming a net of worries on her forehead.

"Not anymore." I pulled her hair gently to bring her face to mine and kissed her.

"I feel home." I said matter-of-factly after a couple of minutes' silence.

I must have sounded totally out of context.

"Home! Look at this place! It's not worth being called a home!" she said, glancing at the broken window-pane and running her fingers through my hair affectionately, "Thank God you are shifting to a new place soon! Hopefully that's more comfortable for you."

"I wasn't talking about that."
"Then what?"

"This-" I said, letting her hair fall around my face, "Is my home. You are my home!"

High Walls and No Window

"Can I take up a job, please?" she asked him one more time.

He gave her an exasperated look.
"Why do you need a job!" he asked shaking his head, "Tell me if the money I provide you is not enough! I can give you more. You may even go and shop for whatever you wish to!"

She sighed.
"It's not about money! I feel useless at home. I don't want to be a housewife!" she muttered in a low but defiant voice.

He put his palms on her shoulders softly. "We are a rich and well known family. You doing a job is something Mother and Father wouldn't like. Besides, with this family business, you don't need to! You take care of our house, you know, that's a huge responsibility." With each of his words, the grip on her shoulders became more authoritative.

She stood there wordlessly.

"And yes, by the way," he continued, "Could you please return that dress you bought the other day? I would like you to wear a Saree on Friday's function at my office. Wear that red one I gifted you last week. You look lovely in that!"

She had opened her mouth to say something in protest before he silenced her with a kiss on her forehead.

"Now could you keep my breakfast and coffee ready while I take a bath?"
She saw him leaving hurriedly, his sugar-coated, disguised command ringing in her ears.

She looked around at her magnificent house. Rich silk purple drapes, antique mirrors adorning peach walls, sleek white floor reflecting the tiny golden lights on the false ceiling.

No window though. She could do with some fresh air.
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"Tell me something that I don't know already!" She told her friend.

"Fine! Let me see." her friend replied drawing indecipherable charts on her notebook, "umm.. It seems that you will get a really rich husband. He will be from a prestigious family and you will have all kinds of riches. Hmm... And oh! You will have a palace-like home." her friend said observing the strange charts she had drawn, tracing her fingers over the numbers she had written in a square.

"Tell me something more!" she demanded, rolling her eyes. She couldn't deny that her friend's words had pleased her; she smiled to herself wishing she were true.

"Well," her friend said with an air of a learned scholar, "If I am not wrong, and I hope I am, you have Bandhan Yog in your horoscope." she finished quite dramatically.

She gave her a puzzled look demanding an explanation.

"It indicates that you might have to spend a long time in a prison. Captivity, basically."

She snickered skeptically and her friend gave her a little reproachful look.

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Now she knows that the Prison is not the only prison.

Some prisons may even have purple silk curtains, peach walls and sleek white floor.

Icecream

"How is it?" he asked her impatiently, looking at her expectantly.

"Mmm." she said thoughtfully, as if savouring the flavour of the icecream, "It's good, it's good."

"Don't lie," he said with mock anger giving her a suspicious look. "It's my favourite flavour! How come you don't like it! You didn't like it at all, did you?" he said, shaking his head in disappointment.

"Actually I really didn't like it. This milk and mint combination is very weird!" she said smiling, biting her tongue, "I like the color though. It's unique."

Fresh mint green with tiny chocolate grains embedded in the cream. Interesting indeed.

She planted a swift cold kiss on his cheek and his face lit up.

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"Which one do you want??" someone in the group asked.

"Milk Mint Chocolate." she said quietly pronouncing each word clearly as though the words were flavoured, the coldness in the icecream shop slightly seeping into her heart.

"What the hell is that!" she heard someone say, "You and your weird choices!"

She quietly scooped up a small portion from her cup and tasted it. The coolness of the mint tingled her tongue and the warmth of the tears, her eyes.

Slate

"Mommy... My slate wouldn't clean." her daughter stretched out her tiny hands holding the slate.

Graffiti of the white oil pastel strokes filled the black shiney surface of the slate. She stared at her daughter who cowered in fear like a timid lamb.

She rubbed the slate hard with her palm wordlessly, sprinkled some water on the surface and wiped it rigorously.

A couple of hot tears fell on the surface, almost unknowningly while she tried to scratch the wax off the slate with all the might she had as if she didn't realise the futility of her efforts.

"Go and study in your room." she whispered in a low voice to her daughter who scurried out hastily.

She continued wiping the slate with tears stinging her eyes.

She sobbed noiselessly, covering her mouth, just as she did when her husband had bouts of angry outbursts every other day because the curry she made had a little more salt than he preffered or because he didn't have a good day at his office or simply because her voice was a little more audible than the level he expected from her.

Full sleeves, high necks, layers of make-up and scarves to hide her scars from the world... A forceful smile to put up a show of normalcy... But she knew her daughter was now old enough. The way some unknown fear peeped through her daughter's eyes these days... The way her tiny body flinched in her sleep.

She kept looking at the face of a monster her daughter had tried to draw on the slate. The slate wouldn't clean.