Storieo

Author: Ananya Saha

  • In DARK

    In DARK

    I felt it again tonight. Why is it that I am not repelled of a touch that feels anything but humane? Why is it that I wish never to lose the feeling of being touched by a dark, gloomy sensation that haunts me every night? I let him haunt me. I wish he haunts me for eternity.

    Maybe it’s not unknown, maybe I know who it is. Of course I do know it is him. Within that cold unrelenting embrace that almost brings me to the verge of death every day, there is something heart wrenchingly beautiful about it all! He comes back every day to me for me, he crosses the realm of the dead for me. Everything that seems impossible, he does, for me. Is it my imagination that he comes back or is it the phantom of my guilt that washes over me everytime I wake up in the morning? I wish I knew the answer to all that.

     I opened my eyes to let the brightness of the new day sink in. I hate the sun nowadays. It brought me back to the mundane reality which I hated more than my own reflection in the mirror. It’s been a month since my ex died. To be honest he was never simply an ex, he was my everything, he was my first love. We were both orphans of the same orphanage. It was like we were destined to be together. I loved him naturally, our relationship was out of the world. It seemed like the world conspired against us because we were so perfect.you see nothing beautiful and pure in this world remained the way it is. It is tainted, may it be blood or sorrow, darkness brings the end of purity, sprouting experience within. I was blind in my love for him. I had faith that was unmatched. I worshipped him. He was a senior, around two years older than me. My love was of a maniac kind. I wished to be with him every moment. It felt hard to breathe whenever he wasn’t with me. 

    He graduated high school before me and left for college and moved out of the orphanage. I tried to be supportive and cheered him on. He was indeed a great and bright student of sorts. I wished the best for him but I hated the fact that he left me alone in the school. I slowly fell into a delirium of doubts and suspicion. One day I called him and I heard whispers in the background, female ones. I calmly talked and went back home. That was the day I started keeping tabs on him. Whatever he did, wherever he went,I wished to know it all. 

    He was a clueless one indeed. He didn’t notice me at all. I skipped school to follow him around. Just being in his presence felt nice. Until one day, I saw him go into an infamous love hotel with a girl. He looked smug and was smiling. My idea of him was shattered. I wished I could tell him how hurt I felt. I stood there for awhile and moved. He had to be punished for his infidelity. I confronted him that day and broke things off with him. He was beyond ashamed but I didn’t back down. He left without even saying goodbye. The problem with him was that he never really gave me his whole heart.

    I had always wished for it. He thought he had cut things off with me but you see, he had unleashed something far worse. In a few days of time just like a reformed rake he came back to me begging for forgiveness. This time, I wished for him to stay. This time,forever. So I took him to my bedroom and asked for his phone. He simple mindedly handed it over to me. I had made my bedroom in a fortress by then. I locked the door behind me and watched him bang on the door for hours. He screamed a lot. Called for help and opened the window which had been shut by wooden plaques, it only came out as a muffled cry which could easily be discarded as a cat. A few people called me inquiring about him and I said he had left long ago. Days passed. I planted alibis on his usual path so that the police can never doubt an innocent girl like me. In this world, you can even buy alibis with money. Soon a search began..

    As we had broken up a few months and three alibis had told the officials that I was with them during the time. I wasn’t at home at all. They just called me in for a routine interrogation after someone filed a missing complaint and let me off. Of course the man was promiscuous and had many women alongside me. I came back home satisfied, thinking that I owned him.I was pleased, my mania was pleased. This went on for a month. I did not bring him food. I wished to punish him thoroughly. One day, I heard nothing more than silence from that room. I opened to see a sickly lifeless body, lying with eyes wide open. He had died. I kept the body in. I preserved it in ice and had it stored away. Now his body rested in a trunk inside my bed. I needed a better way to preserve him. Only ice wouldn’t do.

    It was a calming feeling. I embalmed him myself, and preserved him in honey. It cost me a fortune but yes, I had him inside my bed. Every night now, he came back to me,crawling up from inside and placing his hand on me. It’s a dark cold touch which I can’t break free from. I wish not to. My life goes on as I have stopped going outside. I wish to stay in this room, where time seems to have stopped and Thanatos seems to have taken over. I wish for his touch to be eternal. I wish it to kill me someday, so we can rot away together like we were destined to be. I wish for this to stay forever. I wish to walk alone in my bedroom and remember the good times we had on that bed under which he rests. I laugh as that dark entity brings its hand around my neck again. I laugh as it adores me at a chokehold. I laugh as all light leaves my body.

  • Apathy of Roses

    Apathy of Roses

    Have you ever felt the underwhelming feeling of being a slave your your own mind? I have. It gnaws at you from within with claws that only you can see. I feel it too often. Don’t think I am totally alienating the beauty of the mind. How could I? When mind is made with the framework of the cosmos that predominates the endless void. My opinion is but a matter of ridicule . Never have I ever chosen my heart over my mind. According to my faith, it is the balance of mind and heart that makes a perfect human being but in my case the scales have always been in favour of my mind. I have tried to spontaneous, taking risky decisions, rebelling but at the end of it all my mind stops me as I somehow subconsciously know that i am too tired to face the consequences. I think a lot of us do have the same thing going on until something happened to me, I fell in love with the person. A person that changed me for the better or the worse. Yes I do feel that I did a mistake by falling for him but I am not regretting it at all. It all started when I understood that good old empathy never stood a chance in front of reason. It was a sensitive subjects my mind always gave an answer terrifying enough for me to stop thinking. Whether it was a silly fling with a guy or group fight I always ended with logic and flowers. Life was good and I got by well. One thing about my mind is that it worked aesthetically. I found beauty in everything. The sorrow, the happiness, the agony, the glee, everything was beautiful and I was a romantic for such emotions because maybe deep down i wanted a few. As i grew up people started naming people like me. Apathetic. Was it? I don’t exactly dislike it. My parents passed away when I was 24. It was a sad accident. We had a fight just before it happened. Why did i survive? I was lucky that they protected me. I was lucky I got a job soon enough. It was a miracle as the girl supposed to get the job moved away to Canada.

    Life for me took an unexpected turn when I met him. Tall, dark and handsome, that man was attractive in every aspect towering over me with his broad shoulders. He was my superior at work. Let’s call him X. He was an incredible human being with great sense of humour to him. He helped me out a lot because I was new. Unfortunately he had a girlfriend. His girlfriend lived with him. So for me to ask him out was out of question. I could be in love with anyone but courting a person already in a relationship was definitely irrational. Thus I chose to wait. Wait till they got done with each other. His girlfriend was a ball of sunshine optimist whose smile reached both her ears. A genuine person. Thus something different evoked in me. It was jealousy. It was a foreign feeling. I looked at her, she was a pretty, petite woman with a heartwarming smile. I wished I had it too. I remained impassive to it. The perks of being apathetic is that you can even mask the feelings you actually have. I masked it well, until the day finally came. Don’t get me wrong. I do not like the fact that she broke up with him. Who breaks up with such a perfect person?

    The man was devastated and refused to talk to anyone unless absolutely necessary. I respected that. Soon, I thought to myself but the interesting thing about grief is that it varies from one person to another. Someone needs three days some need months, some years and some need no time at all.

    Then again, no matter how much time one needs , they do move on, not because their agony has subsided but time has waned it to the point it becomes a dull throb of their heartbeat , barely there but always present. At least that’s what I deduced from people in grief.

    Months passed and even my feelings started waning but he did not revert back to his former self. Why wouldn’t he? I have been extremely patient. He just couldn’t. Months turned into years, and his hair turned borderline grey yet there was no sign of moving on from that stupid grief. I chose to confess. The only emotions that had ever evoked in me was by him. So I made up my mind. I dolled up and went straight ahead. It was late in the night and I planned to ask him out for dinner. He was slumped over his desk. He was sleeping, the poor thing! My life changed when I went and tried to wake him up. He wasn’t sleeping, he was not breathing. My eyes widened as I became frantic for the first time in my life. I called for help in a shrill voice, the very voice that I had loathed for years. When help reached, I was frozen . Later that night, I stayed in the bathtub. Soon, the news came in. He died of overdose. His grief took over my whole being. He transferred the grief to me, this time it was him. All those times I ended meaningless things, all those jilted lovers, groups, the girl in Canada that ended in the ocean as ashes, hidden under the smell of flowers. Maybe even my actions of ending their lives too was quite meaningless but I was tired of not feeling anything. I wanted to feel guilt, remorse, disgust but I didn’t. I was the one who tampered with the breaks of my parents’ car because they tried to seek help for me. My logic was justice and flowers were compensation. I let my mind decide because I could never be so impudent to not go by universe’s wishes yet I did my best. Their lives were meaningless to begin with. They deserved it. It wasn’t easy, luring them into a parking lot in the middle of the night, doing the thing and sending their ashes to the ocean. Burning them alive was satisfying, making them disappear forever was even better. Enough chit-chat. I think my mind is asking for it again. This grief tells me his ex took me away from him. I’d never let this happen to him. Someone had to pay the price. It was her. I sent her a message ,

    “I have evidence who killed your ex. I know, you have been crying from the moment you heard. If you want to know, come to XX parking lot, Z Street.”

    “Who is this?”

    “Why don’t you find out? He trusted me.”

    “Why in the night?”

    “I am their next target. I am in hiding. Not in a good shape. Before something happens to me, come here alone.”

    “Why not the police?”

    “They are also involved”

    She waited a bit.

    “Im on my way.”

    Of course you are. I start the engine myself. See you all later. My apathy is back, so are my merciful Roses.