Hallucinations

There was a flutter in her heart. She knew what she was thinking about. Nothing else could have brought the same depth of emotion. She wished she could reminisce without being haunted; she wished for life to be the servant, not the served.

Laila yearned for escape. Not as much from her surroundings as much from herself. She wondered whether she would always be a prisoner of her past, guarded by her mind- the cell keeper. Despite the eight months that separated her past from the present, she had not learnt to befriend the night. Each hour that she had spent facing the dark reality of life, she had contemplated the imprisonment of her being- her body as also of her soul.

Tonight she could feel her anxiety surging towards higher skies- the aboard of unfriendly angels. She knew that what served as the catalyst was her knowledge about the direction in which her emotions were being consumed. She acknowledged the abyss towards which she was being shoved.

Embracing her legs within the protection of her arms, she cuddled into a petite bundle of lose fitting, shabby remnants of cloth. Everything was coming back, the good times and the bad. The only difference was that the bad times could not draw away her love for the good ones, they could not swathe her from the longing that had gripped every inch of her flesh, pinching every tatter of her injured soul.

Past was not the only thing that was returning to her tonight, it had brought with it, the accomplice whom she most dreaded- the ghosts from the future.

In the two hundred and forty four days, she had just about managed to look up into the eyes of her past which was manifest in her being despite the distant feeling that was attached with it.

“Life is more unforgiving than it is cruel.”

The words echoed in her mind as she gasped for breath. She felt a salty tear enter the tunnel that she wished would serve as an outlet for the wails that were bringing down the walls of her weakened heart. Opening her mouth in a vain attempt at rescuing herself she realized that she was incapable of even a slight whimper because her mind had already served as the tombstone of her sorrows.

When flashes from an intangible future presented themselves, she gave up the slightest hope that might have dwelled in the receded caves of her mind. The cold floor was no longer the reason why she shuddered; she was in awe of everything that she was now a part of. Enraptured in the world of nightmares, she was merely a puppet. She knew that she was hallucinating about things that were not and might never be, but the intensity of emotions which her past had brought forth was much stronger than the will to escape.

Fighting was not an option, since the enemy was still lurking behind the recess of her own being, protected by the fragility of her emotions. Laila tried to make an attempt at getting up, of shaking herself out of the cataclysm that was emanating from her insides. As she supported her left hand on the wall she figured that she could only manage to sit on her folded legs. She tried to wipe her face in order to stop the sequence of events that were chewing away her sanity. What she found instead were her hands wet with tears and self-pity approaching to traumatize all that was left. In absence of any form of life, in want of a comforting feel, she threw her chest on her thighs and drew her arms as a resting plinth. A fresh pool of tears escaped her eyes and she found herself begging the infinite space where the existence of God was highly improbable.

As if to present a gift from one in whose existence she had no faith in, she found a blade lying next to her. Probably it too had been discarded on the street after being used, much in the same way like her. While extending her hand in its direction acknowledging the fate that tied them both she thought about what she might lose and that which she might not gain. Inadvertently the absence of loss was sufficient excuse as against the absence of gain.