The sun shone bright on the village of Malaskovhana. It was Sunday of the last week of the ongoing month.
The day of Sunday brought immense joy to the lives of the people of Malaskovhana, for they celebrated this day of the week like there's no tomorrow! The village committee which counted Martha's father as one of its members would look after the Sunday gathering.
They would come up with different events in every gathering to engage the people of Malaskovhana into one or other recreational activities. It was Queen Katherine's order long ago that every resident of the village shall take a day out to participate in some recreational activities.
She believed that doing daily chores continuously for days in a week and spending one day doing absolutely nothing at all flushes out all the excitement from one's life.
That is why she came up with this idea of Sunday gathering. She cared for nothing more than the welfare of her people.
So she wanted her people to remain healthy in all aspects of life, be it physical or mental or emotional.
Apparently, the best way she could figure out to achieve her purpose is by holding a gathering every Sunday.
This gathering should be all about cheering one's spirit up by playing games, singing and dancing, savoring the delicacies that every household would prepare. This, the Queen at that time thought, would enliven the people of the village and bring about a sense of camaraderie throughout the village.
The villagers too liked this idea as in some or the other way, it seemed to have a positive effect on their lifestyles. One thing that cannot be stressed enough – Everyone knew everyone.
The village life was presumably led by nothing but qualities like empathy, togetherness and of course faith in the words of the queen.
Martha, just like everyone else in the village, waited eagerly for Sunday to come so she could catch up with all her friends and make the most out of the day. More than anything, the thing she liked the most about this day is to catch up with her friends. She believed that Sunday gathering is the best time to catch up with old friends with whom she had lost touch in the past few days or so.
Nothing mattered to her more than her closed ones. This notion of her might change a bit now since Matthew has introduced himself in her life.
Therefore, Martha wouldn't mind extending the communication gap with her friends for another couple of weeks.
Hence, she had planned this Sunday gathering to spend the whole day with the new love of her life.
The light from the Sun pierced through the slight gaps of the curtain only to land on the face of Martha, flickering from her eyes to her lips and then to her cheeks as the breeze kept disturbing the stationary positions of the curtain causing the light to flicker through the curtains.
Martha mildly opened her eyes as she noticed the movement of the light on her face. She looked towards the window where the light had found its way to tease her face. "Am I not being teased enough by Matthew that even the mornings have begun to do his duty?" told Martha to herself.
She turned to the left side of the bed where the clock was placed. She wanted to know what time it is.
The clock showed 6'O Clock. "Hmm I still have an hour left to add to my sleep" thought Martha. She raised her blanket up till her forehead so as to avoid the light constantly teasing her and dozed off to complete her sleep.
She had set an alarm for 7 Clock so to ensure she doesn't get late to the gathering.
Much about how Martha had planned to wake up once the alarm rings, she had woken up before the supposed time.
Not that she woke up by her own will but rather, she was woken up by some fainted sounds that kept growing louder as the seconds passed. She was woken up by these sounds when in her subconscious mind, she could make out the sounds were of someone quarreling.
After gaining her full senses and being full awake, she figured out that those fainted sounds were coming from the hall where her father and mother would be supposedly sitting, or might be quarreling as the circumstances seemed. Martha couldn't believe her parents were quarreling since the last time they did, it was almost a year ago on the ground that they do not visit Cindy's grandmother quite often.
As far as Martha's grandparents are concerned, she lost both of her paternal grandparents to natural death at the time she was 6.
Leave alone remembering the mere moments she had spent with the two, she only came to know they both had died when she turned twelve.
Such was her bond with her paternal grandparents. Speaking of the maternal side, she used to visit her grandparents every summer vacation for at least 15 days. She also made frequent visits to them with her parents round the year.
Moreover, her grandparents too made visits to her home so long as her grandfather remained alive.
Two years ago, her grandfather died in a car accident when her grandmother was also present in the car but she somehow survived.
Ever since then, she was dependent mostly on medications. Since the visits were now possible from only Martha's family's end, they had to make more visits than ever to fill the stock of medications and thereby spend time with her to escape the loneliness from her life.
As the last quarrel about her granny Martha was referring to upon distantly hearing the anguish of her parents, she vividly remember the scene when her mother kept her father pestering about how infrequent they've become in making visits to her mother.
She was then quite worried because they hadn't visited her in the last couple of months at that time.
Martha's father, Benjamin, silently listened to her demands since everything she spoke was utmost true and he too realized that her mother was not just Cindy's responsibility but Benjamin had to make equal efforts to ensure the well being of her mother.