The window was open wide. It was the 7th of December again.
As the fierce gusts of wind chapped my skin, a painful excerpt from the past struck me like a thorny icicle. The chill of the Kolkata winter was already piercing through my only ragged, decayed cardigan. I was wearing it for the first time that year. The otherwise busy and jubilant street below seemed empty and desolate, a strange silence consuming the air.
Another 7th December had come by but no one was still batting an eyelid; maybe except me. To me, the months of winter had become deadlier and queerer since then, since the year of the tragedy; the tragedy that has been haunting me dutifully, down the years, in the helplessness of the night; the tragedy that has changed the course of my life; the tragedy that left me pale and devoid of the ability to dream high.
As my gaze remained fixed on the yellowish dingy street below with the beams of crisscrossing light from the light-post ahead; made prominent by the smog, thoughts like these crossed my mind.
Introspection is the deadliest when it strikes in solitude. And if it does, I assure you, the ramifications are not pleasant to bear.
I was soon shaken off my rumination by something on the street below...
A middle-aged couple was walking down the street. They seemed to be in their late thirties and were in a hurry, as could be seen from their anxious dispositions. It looked as if their legs betrayed them in the hour of need. The limping gait of the two outlined and justified the failure of their earnest efforts to reach their destination on time.
I stood there transfixed, clenching the iron rods guarding the window. They felt anomalously colder than usual, cold...like death itself.
For a moment, I thought it was THEM. It was like a déjà vu from a mysteriously, tragic nightmare – the entire setup. It occurred to me that probably I had travelled back in time and had landed exactly ten years ago to that day. Or, I thought it was only my hallucination, triggered by some sudden remembrance of the heart-wrenching past. Everything appeared identical to the tragic night of the 7th of December, 2004, at least in the way I had visualized it as a result of the compilation of the various versions of the tale told by numerous people; the scene that had never refrained from haunting me in my sleep.
The wind swishing past the closed windows, occasionally peeping in through the cracks in the panes and darting through the ventilators of closed rooms, whistling, while an eight-year-old chubby kid lay in his bed, all alone in his room, struggling for air, as urgent beads of sweat trickled down his sideburns.
The déjà vu was not left unmatched.
I could hear the man yelling in a comforting tone over his cell phone, “Tui dara. Amra aschi. Chinta korish na. Amra ekkhuni aschi.” (Wait, we’ll be there soon. Don’t be tense. We’re almost there.)
In the darkness of the room above, I was sweating profusely, hunting for my inhaler. The air seemed immensely dense. Unable to breathe, it felt as if death was looming low on me. I rummaged for the inhaler in my trousers and in my last cardigan but in vain. I scrambled to the table, at the end of the room to pick up the receiver, and dialled the Father’s number. He must have been sleeping downstairs.
Instead of the sound of the phone ringing, from within the receiver, I heard the robotically modified and faintly audible comforting yells of my father. “Aamra..aa.. aaschi... chhi...ee.. Chinta...korishhhna... naa..aa…(Hold on, wait, we are coming, don’t worry) were some faint reverberating words I could make out before the pitch dark world whirled around me and I collapsed on the floor, the receiver striking with a thud against the table, and then dangling low with its intricately wound cord straightening due to the weight.
The screeching sound of tyres outside, in the street below.
The unheard duet of anguish.
Then. Black.
To my horror and relief, I opened my eyes and sat up in my bed. The darkness of the dormitory in the Northland Orphanage appeared even darker, ghastlier, gnawing me from every corner. The air had thickened even more. As the others lay there in an undisturbed sleep amid the otherwise serene winter of Kolkata, I remained wide awake observing, remembering, recounting every pressing detail of the night of the 7th of December, 2014.
The Nightmare had waged a war on my Sleep, yet again.
PS: This piece was mused and scribbled by the author as a 16-year-old and was rediscovered some 6 years later and it inevitably ignited old memories with this again.
As the fierce gusts of wind chapped my skin, a painful excerpt from the past struck me like a thorny icicle. The chill of the Kolkata winter was already piercing through my only ragged, decayed cardigan. I was wearing it for the first time that year. The otherwise busy and jubilant street below seemed empty and desolate, a strange silence consuming the air.
Another 7th December had come by but no one was still batting an eyelid; maybe except me. To me, the months of winter had become deadlier and queerer since then, since the year of the tragedy; the tragedy that has been haunting me dutifully, down the years, in the helplessness of the night; the tragedy that has changed the course of my life; the tragedy that left me pale and devoid of the ability to dream high.
As my gaze remained fixed on the yellowish dingy street below with the beams of crisscrossing light from the light-post ahead; made prominent by the smog, thoughts like these crossed my mind.
Introspection is the deadliest when it strikes in solitude. And if it does, I assure you, the ramifications are not pleasant to bear.
I was soon shaken off my rumination by something on the street below...
I stood there transfixed, clenching the iron rods guarding the window. They felt anomalously colder than usual, cold...like death itself.
For a moment, I thought it was THEM. It was like a déjà vu from a mysteriously, tragic nightmare – the entire setup. It occurred to me that probably I had travelled back in time and had landed exactly ten years ago to that day. Or, I thought it was only my hallucination, triggered by some sudden remembrance of the heart-wrenching past. Everything appeared identical to the tragic night of the 7th of December, 2004, at least in the way I had visualized it as a result of the compilation of the various versions of the tale told by numerous people; the scene that had never refrained from haunting me in my sleep.
The wind swishing past the closed windows, occasionally peeping in through the cracks in the panes and darting through the ventilators of closed rooms, whistling, while an eight-year-old chubby kid lay in his bed, all alone in his room, struggling for air, as urgent beads of sweat trickled down his sideburns.
The déjà vu was not left unmatched.
I could hear the man yelling in a comforting tone over his cell phone, “Tui dara. Amra aschi. Chinta korish na. Amra ekkhuni aschi.” (Wait, we’ll be there soon. Don’t be tense. We’re almost there.)
In the darkness of the room above, I was sweating profusely, hunting for my inhaler. The air seemed immensely dense. Unable to breathe, it felt as if death was looming low on me. I rummaged for the inhaler in my trousers and in my last cardigan but in vain. I scrambled to the table, at the end of the room to pick up the receiver, and dialled the Father’s number. He must have been sleeping downstairs.
Instead of the sound of the phone ringing, from within the receiver, I heard the robotically modified and faintly audible comforting yells of my father. “Aamra..aa.. aaschi... chhi...ee.. Chinta...korishhhna... naa..aa…(Hold on, wait, we are coming, don’t worry) were some faint reverberating words I could make out before the pitch dark world whirled around me and I collapsed on the floor, the receiver striking with a thud against the table, and then dangling low with its intricately wound cord straightening due to the weight.
The screeching sound of tyres outside, in the street below.
The unheard duet of anguish.
Then. Black.
To my horror and relief, I opened my eyes and sat up in my bed. The darkness of the dormitory in the Northland Orphanage appeared even darker, ghastlier, gnawing me from every corner. The air had thickened even more. As the others lay there in an undisturbed sleep amid the otherwise serene winter of Kolkata, I remained wide awake observing, remembering, recounting every pressing detail of the night of the 7th of December, 2014.
The Nightmare had waged a war on my Sleep, yet again.
PS: This piece was mused and scribbled by the author as a 16-year-old and was rediscovered some 6 years later and it inevitably ignited old memories with this again.