By Abirami S
Act I: The Quiet Dismantling
CURTAIN.
Scene: A kitchen. Golden sunrays stream through the open window, settling on the gleaming wooden floor. A woman sits at the table, gazing at the cracked wall.
NARRATION:
It began with the forgetting.
Not of names —
but of movement.
She stopped closing the cupboard doors.
Left them slightly ajar,
like her forgotten dreams.
The kettle boiled
but she didn’t move.
The steam curled toward the ceiling
and vanished,
programmed to move on
despite watching her vanish.
She used to hum while slicing fruit.
Now, the knife aches to know
if she has her voice or has become mute.
She peeled an orange in one long strip
and threw the fruit away.
The rind, alone, remained on the plate,
just like her body survived
long after the soul had run away.
The wind moves through the curtains.
It knows more than anyone does.
It still remembers how she twirled
and inhaled it till her chest ballooned with air.
Now, she moves like a lifeless doll.
Dressed up pretty but not seen.
She turns off the kettle
and pours a cup of tea,
not for her, but for someone she once believed.
Entered a man in a suit and a tie —
briefcase on the right and a watch on the left.
He sat with a thud
and answered a call
while his voice faded like fall.
She stood before the cup,
apron torn, fingertips yellow.
Hands gently clasped,
legs stiff, like a soldier’s drill.
He gulped the tea in one go,
and rushed out, still speaking on his phone.
It was as though she was invisible to him,
which seemed to be every day she breathed.
She cleared the table
and washed the dishes carefully,
as if she were washing
someone else’s feet.
The warmth of the water lingered on her skin
longer than her own name did.
At the window,
she watched the laundry dance in the wind
but did not smile,
for such a movement felt unknown now.
The wind moved through her hair,
but she no longer turned toward sensation.
When it began
her body seemed unchanged.
Still whole.
Still waking.
Still rising with the morning.
But the house noticed.
The sound of her footsteps softened.
The stairs no longer creaked beneath her weight.
She moved like someone wading through murky memories.
As years passed,
her cat no longer greeted her.
And the pigeons found a different house to gather.
Even animals and birds could sense the unrooting,
but only the man could notice nothing.
And so,
with no words,
no announcement,
she began to loosen from the world,
thread by thread,
invisible but visibly.
She woke up each morning
with less of herself.
A shoulder,
a knee,
the small resistance of the body against the sheets —
missing.
No blood.
No scream.
Just the slow unthreading
of something once known as a woman.
(Lights dim. Woman closes the window. Then silence.)
CURTAIN.
Act II: Pieces She Left Behind
CURTAIN.
Scene: A drawing room. Dim light. Shadows stretch like limbs. Objects are out of place — keys, a single shoe, a broken statue of Athena. A woman stands still in the middle of the room.
NARRATION (soft, almost whispered):
She placed parts of herself around the house
like offerings to gods who seem to never notice.
A wrist on the windowsill.
Her laugh folded into the laundry.
The shape of her grief in a coffee ring.
No one cared.
Now, not even the house
or the objects which once begged
to be cared for by her touch.
The light changed
but she didn’t notice.
Curtains were drawn
then left that way.
Mugs collected on antique cupboards
stood dusty and unbothered.
Clock ticked,
but her time passed long before.
She began placing objects in odd places:
a fork beneath the couch
covered in crumbs of vanilla cake.
Her wedding ring lived in her mother-in-law's urn,
still full of decade-old ashes
forgotten just like her existence.
No one asked about the rearrangement.
No one came.
No one saw.
For if any item was needed
no one had to look around
as she was there to be commanded.
She sat on the floor of the room for hours.
Not asleep, not awake —
just beneath the weight of existing.
The dust gathered around her
gently, as if she were part of the wooden furniture.
The house adjusted.
A coat that once hung near the door was never worn again.
Photographs faced the wall.
Lightbulbs died and weren’t replaced.
Her hands lost interest in buttons.
Shoelaces.
Zippers.
All things that required neatness and return.
She once read half of a sentence in a book
and set it aside just like she was.
Now, the book remained open beside her,
painfully pleading to be read
despite knowing its fate
just like her mouth froze mid-confession
crying to be heard.
Her body moved slower.
Her shoulders held no urgency.
She wore the same sweater for six days
until it began to carry her shape more clearly than she did.
At night,
she stopped pulling the blanket up.
Stopped turning off the light.
Stopped turning toward warmth.
No one came looking.
And so,
she began leaving pieces of herself
wherever she walked.
Small acts of absence.
(Lights flicker. A low wind begins. The stage is slowly emptied.)
CURTAIN.
Act III: The Room That Forgot Her
CURTAIN.
Scene: The same kitchen. Empty chair. Cold teacup. Curtains motionless.
NARRATION:
By the time she vanished
the house had adjusted.
The floor no longer creaked where she once stood.
The light did not change when she left a room.
Even the walls forgot her blank, hollowed stare.
It began when she brushed her teeth without the mirror.
Avoided her reflection
the way one avoids eye contact with someone grieving.
In the mirror, her outline blurred.
Not from fog or shadow.
But because the mirror had started to forget her, too.
(Light bulb flickers with a faint, clicking noise.)
WOMAN (barely audible, voice only):
I was not made to stay.
That was clear from the beginning.
I was born to be
an echo,
not a chorus.
(Stillness, like breath held.)
A sigh,
not a song.
I do not regret the vanishing.
Only that I did not go
sooner.
If you find me —
it will not be in photographs
or journals.
It will be in the space
between spoons and saucers.
In the silence between footsteps.
The day I forgot how to cry
was the day I stopped being seen.
I peeled oranges
and watched the skin curl
like pages of a book
never meant for me to read.
I stopped answering questions
because no one asked them.
And my voice began to magically go unheard.
I became a presence
mistaken for furniture.
A showpiece to possess,
a decoration required by society
for a man to be respected.
Men in my life called it calm.
They said,
“You’ve grown quieter. It suits you.”
But I was not quiet.
I was dissolving.
And no one knew
how to love a woman
mid-evaporation.
(A pause. Wind blows against the shut windows, causing the glass to rattle. The last light bulb flickers and goes off.)
CURTAIN.