Are we bad parents? Where did we go wrong? Thousands of such questions were coming to our minds as we walked through the doorways of Loony Bin Psychiatric Hospital, which was soon going to be our only daughter’s new home. It all started 1 year ago. Our daughter Ersa was in the final year of her high school, we were a happy family of three living in a cozy small town called Bayeux. Ersa had a group of seven close friends, and she would always hang out with them, she was happy. One day a new family shifted into our neighborhood. They also had a daughter of Ersa’s age, her name was Luna. Ersa and Luna became friends and Luna soon become a part of Ersa’s group. Things were going pretty well until one day Ersa fainted in school, we rushed her to the hospital, the doctors told us that Ersa had a physically weak heart. Ersa had to quit going to school and stay at home for most of the time. Ersa’s friends were pretty supportive and helped her with her studies and projects, but as time passed by Ersa started realizing that her friends were ignoring her and their main focus had become Luna. Ersa was completely pushed aside in no time, Luna had snatched all her friends. Looking at the situation we decided to shift, though Ersa was reluctant to leave. But we were working parents and had less time for Ersa, so we decided to get her a home theater. Our plan worked and Ersa was happy again she again got connected with her friends and would talk with them all the time. We thought things came back to normal, until one night almost nearly 2 am, we heard Ersa talking with a group of people. We rushed into her room to see the most horrific sight. We saw our daughter talking with her school friends, residing inside the T.V. When we asked her what was going on, Ersa replied with a smile “They are my best friends and we’re planning a picnic” I hurriedly turned off the T.V to which Ersa replied with screams and physical attack and later fainting . When we took Ersa to Psychiatric ward , it was detected that Ersa had turned insane and had forgotten the reality. She is to be kept in Psychiatric ward for unknown time, left alone.

Published in Short Story on

Responses

  1. Pratiksha Sharma

    Review :-
    Left alone by Tanaya Guralwar is like a rollercoaster ride for me.Intially when I started reading the story I thought it would be something about bad parenting where the child is spoit and they leave their parents and the parents are the ones who are left alone but boom there’s a big twist to this ,the child is left alone.With the story unfolding further i thought it might be a normal story where a girl lost her friends and is introvert and can’t make new friends etc and now gets insecure from that new girl , develops feeling of hatred towards her and all that kind of stuff but no this is not the case .I loved the way how the storyline is unpredictable till the end and engages readers into it .Its full of emotions .Firstly you feel sad for the girl who is left alone then you also feel happy when she gets the home theatre making us think she’s getting back to normal life but then again the twist and here honesty i got a bit scared at that 2 am scene ,i literally held my phone a little backwards .I think the parents here are to be blamed a little like when you see your child they may seem perfectly fine but you never know what they are going through , parents always think children are young what problems will they have but no that’s not the truth children have their small small problems which become very big if not sorted out at time like what happened in this story ,I really appreciate the writer for highlighting such a important message from this story and would love to read new and exciting stories from you .