"The truth of the world is as vast as the ocean. It also gets darker as you venture deeper into it. The ever increasing forces try and crumble you. Its upto you to take a deeper breath from the start..."
A few days stuck at home can be a small, after dinner topic for some, but reality has many faces, and some of these faces are grim. People judge others on the very basic feature, "Appearances", they treat each other as they wish or they simply ignore.
Home is a place where one seeks peace of mind. One feels safe, comfortable and insured, insured that he/she can lie anywhere, do as they wish, be merry with family members. It is also the place where one knits dreams. Dreams of the world beyond, dream of his/her prosperity, dream of being part of something big. You might feel relevant, to talk of home, dream and something that lies beyond, but what if all this is talk of dream, home and family was nothing but a lie.
What would you do if your whole life was concealed in four walls of sorrow and a roof of despair? You would cry and keep crying obviously and what if someone came into your life as a tissue, to wipe your tears? You would accept that someone with no if's or but's. But what if society regards your actions as treachery, and sees you as a criminal? This story is about that person who went through hell with a devil, escaped from there, just to hear judgment from another devil, for this. This is how "SOCIETY" is. It's deliberately unfair, cruel and knowingly ignorant of the truth.
It was one of those autumn days where you could realize how beautiful a bunch of trees with no leaves can be. On such a day I saw her through the window of her home. She was standing there without any motion, just staring at the trees outside in her garden. She was a gorgeous looking girl with a beautiful flock of hairs, and the wind made her even more irresistible. When my first sight fell on this staggering scene I was overly inclined to talk to her.
Without hesitation I approached her by saying," Aren't they beautiful, you can't really stop watching them." She did or did not hear me and turned in a revelation, as she turned, I saw a cut on the left side of her face. She looked at me for a moment and then closed the window and went inside as though she saw a ghost. In that moment when she looked at me I noticed her face show, she was afraid of something. I was confused but I didn't lose hope. From the next day I started to reach her home and wave out to her with a smile. But everyday she would look at me and then close the window and go inside. All this did not make me falter in my efforts.
It took a long time, but it was worth it. On one day she smiled while looking at me. She did give me a slight smile.
On another day she flinged a paper at me. To my surprise it was a number.
That day I called her. I was pretty nervous but it played out well. We talked over the phone for a long time. Then unconsciously I asked her about the scar on her face, she didn't say a word. I understood she didn't want to discuss, so I said to her she could not tell me if she didn't want to. There was silence on the phone but after a few moments she told me that the scars were given by her uncle, who treated her as badly as one could. After her father's death and her mother got badly ill, he turned cruel towards her. She had been in that house from her childhood, she had only seen the world through that window.
She was telling me about her uncle when there was a noise, her uncle was home and he was beating her, asking who she was talking to. I was scared for her when there was a loud sound of a gun, it was a shotgun. The phone call ended. I didn't know what to do. I was naive then. I called the cops and gave them the house details. That night I couldn't sleep. The next day, it was in the newspaper. Her uncle had been killed and she was found on his corpse laughing like a maniac. She was arrested and was given life long prison even though he was told the situation in which the scene had taken place and motive behind, just because the judge was paid in full by a friend of the dead.I was in great anger but there was not much I could do.
Next day I went to meet her in the prison. She came out to meet me. She was looking down, she didn't have any expression on her face. It was blank. Then she sat in front of me. Her head finally moved up after a few moments. She saw me and gave a smile. For a time it was vague, that smile wasn't expected. Then she said thank you. It was vague too. At that moment I noticed she had whip marks all over her body, and on her hands were burnt marks. We didn't talk a lot, just understood each other's emotions by looking, and then the time was up.
She got up to leave. We bid goodbyes, and then I saw there was a mark on her ankle, something was tied there, that sort of mark. I couldn't stop thinking about her. I found myself guilty for her situation. There are many questions that arise like was it my fault she ended up there? Were her actions correct that night? Was her decision to kill justified by? It's tough to tell. But now when I come to think about it at the time when this world wide lockdown has enveloped us, I come to a conclusion that it was better for her in prison than at her home with that monster. As for being locked up, for her it was always a lockdown.