Le reve

Adwitiya Bhattacharya

When I look her into the eyes, I sense the colour that reflects. I see it as dark brown tinged with black in the middle just like a cherry adorning the top of a cake. By the brown I taste chocolate as I lick the upper of my lip. Through the ajar window beside, I smell the fragrance of Queen of night brought by the bouts of shivering wind. It is the last few blasts of winter wind before spring takes over, and cuckoos rear my head by their incessant twittering. To me it is one of the most annoying noises, because these birds keep their monotonous call on till the wet monsoons. I even hear them sing at silent calm nights of autumn. They do not have the knowledge to stop and that is one of the many reasons why I don’t really fancy them. As I stare, I drown deeper and deeper into the depths of unknown blackness, as if the once prolific stars have now blasted their fires and lost their only light. I see the blood within, which flows into an ocean in a land of unfulfilled yearnings; where Moses never made his way through the hues of velvet seas. Those indigo veins I notice crawl like the roots of an old tree, digging through the mud in search of water. I hear voices inside from times lost long ago, where I hear my mother say, “You little brat, you don’t eat anything, do you?” I try hard to remember how old she was, but everything becomes so blurry, as if an engine ran breaking through a curtain of heavy shower and the wet windows made the lush green fields outside to melt into the blueness of the sky at a distance. I feel her eyes watering up, turning into the colour of roses, blossoming very slowly. The thorns pricking behind her eyes and the pain, the unbearable pain that reflects onto the world outside. Suddenly tasting blood, I find her black hair falling over her pale skin one may morning, and grasp in wonder when the golden streaks caress her hair and it shimmer like tiny maroon diamonds. She does not talk. Quietly she runs her fingers through that glow and tilts her head back to inhale the sun. Her nose like the blade of knife as she turns, and through the gaps of her glistening hair, her eyes covered under shades lock on mine, she gently puts it down from her eyes letting the sunrays to smoke them, and there I see fury. I ask her, “Why?” with trembling lips. But she then looks to the other side giving me a glance that I know I will never forget.
As I stand in front of her, I hear she screams back at me. Shrieking like a mad woman, breaking glasses and cracking walls. I shiver in utter fear. A fear; which I see in her too, a fear which strikes like lightning without thunder. And while I stand imagining the last day of my living, I watch her break and collapse into tiny little pieces. So astonished, I cannot move my shivering limbs, I cannot collect her with both of my hands, and put her together again, like a puzzle. I step closer to her and I hear, “What have you done to me?” I see her standing in black water, her reflection trembling now and then. And slowly, the noise mutes. I stand there seeing her yell at me, but hear nothing. She then falls to the ground and I watch drops of her tears dripping on the water beneath her, turning it sapphire.
Again, into her eyes I see her naked in the arms of a man; swaying gently, both of them. I cannot say I know who he is. She with her hands grabs the back of his hair and twists it. I hear a faint music playing at the background. Before biting the lip of that man, she laughs, squinting her eyes. Her hair much shorter now. The amber surrounding wraps the two of them as she nudges her nose behind his ears. Now and then I hear her laughter echoing, piercing through the mild music. I see the glass window beside them, whose glasses are painted indigo, which appear green under that light. The ashtray kept upon the window pane, from where smoke rose, someone must have rested a lit cigar there, I thought. I saw the bones at her back rising as she turned. She looks happy, she looks she is in love. Is she? I questioned myself. Just then kissing his shoulders she sees me across his right ear. Staring at me for a while, with a ghost of smile on her swollen lips she asks, “What have you done to me?”
She runs like a hungry wolf chasing her prey. She has not eaten for like a week. She leaps and falls, but runs. The broken branches scratch at her hands, scarring her cheeks and her toes. Blood oozes and wets the edgy stones underneath her steps. She leaves a trail of her with her own blood. She gasps now and then. As if she managed somehow to make her way in a ‘no man’s land’, where cannon balls fall, she breaks her way through the shower of bullets, blood and mud. At times she loses her breath, but that does not stop her from fleeing. Running faster than a storm blows, ripping apart the twigs and the branches on her way. She jumps. But never stops. Not even to catch her breath that’s running out as well. It seems there is no ending to her incessant escape. “But what are you running from?” “Tell me, do not keep me in this darkness, please God!” “Tell me!” She doesn’t look back for once, she keeps on and on. Her every step hitting the soil and making me tremble. I see her stand still far away. She turns to look at me, right at my eyes. And through that misty darkness I know what she’ll say, I knew all along. The disgust on her face felt as if someone has put a sword into my heart and is keeping on twisting it. I knew, I knew, that is why when I finnd her smiling, I close my eyes. I shriek and when I open my eyes I saw her going away, further into the greyness of the night. I hear her waiting; I hear she waited for ages. She, weeping her eyes out. Without a noise, without a word. Then, her laughter, her pure, contagious laughter cracking from all my surrounding. But there she goes, like a tiny fly ready to vanish into the night sky, from where she’ll never ever return, she’ll be lost blaming me for all these and I’ll know nothing. She’ll run away, painting the moon and the stars with her colours of insanity. She’ll flee.
I see her young, a little girl with unkempt hair and a smile crafty as ever. Wearing a light blue shirt and a pair of white yet untidy trousers, she walks with her tiny little feet and sits on the edge of her bed and looks at me. She squints her eyes to recognize me, then her smile broadens and I gently ask her “Who were you running from?” Smiling, she shakes her head and looks, “It’s...”
Then I blink, hearing the gate of my lawn screech open, I move away from in front of my mirror to answer the door.