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I’m bored mom, I shouted from the love seat right outside the changing room in Nordstrom while my mother tried the dozen clothes that she had taken inside after spending literally an hour searching in the section that had tacky neon and electric pink posters with Sale printed in curly fonts.

I was an 8 year old and an impatient one at that. My mom walked out and handed me a ten dollar bill on which Alexander Hamilton looked away, smiling (more like smirking)

“You can go to the bookstore next door on one condition” she said

“Don’t loiter around, stay in the section for kids” I mimicked in my mother’s accent” (I had finally perfected it).

She smiled at me instead of shouting at me for misbehaving in public, that’s what shopping does to her.

I entered the bookstore, bewildered as ever. One of the women who helped there who remembered me from my previous excursions came to me with a wide, white-toothed smile.

“How can I help you?” she asked sweetly

“Can I go to the kids section?” I said

“Of course love” she replied, catching hold of my hand and guiding me to one of the back aisles.

She took a seat at a corner while I rummaged through fairytales and picture books, graphic novels and comics, mysteries and encyclopedias.

I had a daughter, who looked just like you; she had deep, dark grey eyes, a forever-plastered smile, a crow-like nose, and wavy blonde hair, just like yours. 4 years ago, when she was 7, I was driving her to school. It was just like any other day, my ex-husband called up and shouted, “You’re over Meredith, your happiness is soon going to be taken away and then you can drink as much as you want, drink away to glory.” I retorted, “Shut up you drunkard, go and immerse yourself in your work and bottles of whiskey.” the line was long dead. I cut his call and looked up, staring into the bloodshot eyes of an obviously drunk truck driver.

SMASHHHHHH.KABOOOOOOM

My car had been split into two vertical pieces. The part where I had been was intact but the part where my daughter had been sitting was in such a bad shape. I could see her hand reaching out to me from underneath the door, I tried to reach out but before I could make a call or save her, her hand went limp.

I ran out of the bookstore on seeing the woman crying, I ran to my mother, crawled inside from underneath the stall and howled like I used to when I was 4.

My mother shrieked first but realizing that it was I, she looked at me, patted my back and pulling me close to her said, “How many times have I  told you to stay away from those horror stories, look at yourself, you looked so messed up sweetie.”

I didn’t say a word, just hugged her frail frame and hid my face in her pink fluffy shirt, which had a price tag hanging off the shoulder.

On goodbyes, or maybe have a good life till we meet again?

‘‘I won’t let people in again. NEVER’’

 This was the way my brain processed after fights with friends whom I thought were forever, being lied to, bitched about, isolated to fend for myself ALONE.

I swore that my walls would always be up. High. Impossible for anybody to break, crack or fire at with a canon. I’d become the secluded princess, forever alone, away from the manipulative world but, there’s always a but.

But I still hoped that someday, somebody would come-my knight in shining armour or maybe a friend who would hold my hand and teach me to walk again? 

Patience does pay off, doesn’t it?

I met you. 

I was scared to commit at first but slowly I embraced having you in my life, slowly you became my life line, my speed dial and you brought me the happiness which I once knew cause I had known somebody remotely like you a long time ago.

You’re leaving now, for good. 

I’m trying to accept the fact that you won’t be around to be my emotional support but somewhere on the inside, it’s still a joke to me, hasn’t struck me yet or probably I’m not ready to open my eyes and face reality.

I’ve been a sucker at goodbyes, so it won’t be a goodbye. It will just be a you’ll be missed so come back soon my friend. We have history to make.

 

Take care.

Farewell.

 

The Disappearence of Scarface

Ziya had grown up as an outcast.She had always been the black sheep in her family.no one cared about her and her house was a living hell but this did not stop the mysteriously scarred girl from becoming a bully in school.She could eat from anybody’s tiffin box,swear at anyone and steal anyone’s money without being threatened because everybody felt like a coward in her presence. She had an undefinable aura and her face was proof that she had suffered much. There was only one person who could stand up to her without blinking an eye , and that was her ‘so called’ friend Aayan.

And then one day, out of the blue Ziya disappeared.No one knew where she was.Her forever drunk father had been out since 3 weeks and hadn’t returned. Her careless mother had left the house, saying that she was going out with friends for the weekend but that was 5 days ago, and when Ziya didn’t show up in school for 4 days in a row Aayan got tensed up and suspicious. Moreover, Ziya wasn’t even picking up her phone. So, Aayan decided to pay the Shah house a visit.

The Shah house looked as though a hurricane had hit it, wrecking havoc. There were pieces of broken glass on the floor, the house was stinking and hadn’t been cleaned in a month. But Ziya’s room was like a contradictory statement to the rest of the house.

It smelled of tube roses, though a bit rotten. The room was very meticulously maintained and had stars painted on the walls which had faded and there were chapped parts which were unsuccessfully hidden. The only oddities about the room were that the contents of the cupboard had been hurriedly messed with and the bedding had creases,and looked as though it hadn’t been made since a week.

These peculiar findings were pointers to the fact that Ziya had left the room in a hurry. Which brought mind-boggling questions to Aayan’s head about Ziya’s sudden disappearance. Had she been abducted? Was she alright? Had she eloped? He shrugged away the last question on realising that Ziya would never do that, she was not a coward. But her being missing suddenly brought tears to his eyes, and he broke down… astonished that he had done that, and that was when he realised that his best friend Ziya completed his life, made him feel secure, made him feel loved.

What Aayan didn’t know was that the very brave Ziya had actually run away, having no other option left. She had discovered a fact that was heartbreaking. She had been lied to, well one wouldn’t if their entire life was a lie, if their existence was a lie.

The very thing that made her an outcast was not a mistake but a very carefully planned plot by her father. The scars that covered her burnt cheeks were not due to the hot tea that she spilled on her face as a kid but had been given to her when her father had tried to murder her alive as a kid by shoving her face into the fireplace.

Ziya was a strong girl and could have handled it because she had always doubted the story about the spilling of tea but the woman whom she had grown up referring to as ‘mother’, was actually her father’s partner in crime. They had together killed Ziya’s real mother because she had refused to kill Ziya, as her father wanted a boy rather than a girl. To show his rage and fury, he had killed Ziya’s real mother.

And reading all this through a well hidden diary in the attic made matters worse. Her brutal father had written it as though he had done a good deed which deserved a reward. The brutal man had made her suffer so much that being dead would have been a better option especially sitting there alive in the creepy darkness of the attic with a single ray of light coming from the torch in her hand.

Ziya had lost all hope, she had lost faith, her life turned into a joke, a very cruel one. Emotions engulfed her and she started weeping, weeping for herself, weeping for her dead mother whom she had never known, weeping at the cruelty of her father, and more than anything else she wept as she was struck by the fact that she did not have a place called home, but just a house.

Then the thought of Aayan, with a perfect family, who loved him and would do anything for him came into her mind and she felt not a pinch of jealousy but remorse. And that was the point of time when she decided that she had lost the little that she had. Ziya then and there made up her mind that she would never return to misery. And then without another thought, she picked up a backpack , stuffed her bag with a few things including her teddy bear. And then she put on her jacket’s hood to face the harsh weather outside. Ziya stepped outside the house, looked up to see the stars twinkling and wondered which one of them her other was, then she ran, ran from life, ran to relive life…. ran… ran… ran never looking back.

On Dreaming BIG

I always wanted to be something in life. Well,who doesn’t? But out of a 100 dreams, how many actually get fulfilled are probably not even a handful. I’ve always  wanted that ‘something which I want’ to be extraordinary. Nothing, like the people surrounding me,nothing like my peers, nothing that is within the reach of every second person.

The first incident I recall of wanting something different dates back to the early days of my first year at school when i was probably 4 or 5 years old.

Everytime I used to walk into the school building, I used to look with wide open-observant eyes at the bulletin board which had pictures of around 15 students. They had been pinned to a background of a ship with around 3-4 floors. On they very top of this ship was the picture of a really pretty girl with blue eyes and a smile that showed the empty spaces where the two incisors should have been but nevertheless the girl looked beautiful.

Well, this incident isn’t about that pretty girl but about the promise that I made to myself. It might sound funny, but that day I pledged that no matter what, how difficult it might be, I would do all it took to replace my photo with her’s at that very spot.

And guess what, I DID make it, to that very spot and was reffered to as the Leader of the Junior School.

I was happy,elated,content and felt like the biggest success story ever. I felt good about myself as an individual having the potential to get what I wished for.

Dreams could turn into reality back then- so why not now?

I’m still the same person at heart and always will be. Thus, nothing is difficult if you put your heart and soul into it.The only thing that you have to do is :

DREAM.DREAMBIG.DREAMBIGGER.,