Leap of Faith

Her eye lids drooped faintly, the dark shadows under her eyes crying out for sleep. The rain had been harsh against the window panes, the chill crawling up the glass, engulfing it with a smoky mist. The TV mutely played shadows in the room, showcasing the usual set of cinematic lies, the bright shades of color occasionally waking her.

The half healed scars on the side of her face betrayed the pain she’d been hiding. He, her husband pushed her here, to this moment of clarity, that she could survive on her own. They weren’t short of blessings, she’d wonder in those lone moments after he’d abused her. The wedding had been like those lovely showers on winter morning, calm, fresh and beautiful, where a girl’s dreams are handed over to someone who shares it with her, along with his own.

“You have a facebook account? “, he’d asked her that evening and that started the first row, when she’d expected ‘welcome home’. “Where’s the rest of the dowry? Your father promised I’d get it today” He enquired while they were in bed with a blatantly harrowing tone, when she was expecting a hug. Was she just sold to the highest bidder, her dreams a wasteful pile she had held on to for the last 22 years? She wondered, a tear drop wetting her pillow.

She had known what it meant to love, once. But men always just get what they want. She had watched him leave, heartbroken, trodden with guilt for having loved him. She tried to quench down the urge to scream, yet now, this was her new life. My husband is my ‘everything’. Succumbing to the pain in her body and her heart, she fell asleep.

She woke with a start. “That is what is expected from a wife” She heard her husband bellow through the phone to someone. She was ill, her body was hot, the room stifling, pain filling in her joints and muscles as she moved. She forced herself to bath in the cold water, like a million needles piercing her body. She managed to show up at the kitchen, still shivering from the chill. She felt a tight slap right across her face and she remembered no more.

Weeks passed, the rows only grew louder. They knew she couldn’t fight back. They needed her money and that was what was expected on her. She would be beaten for trivial reasons as talking to a 10 year old boy who would come sit by her side in the afternoons where they would watch the birds in the courtyard.

Her roles didn’t end, her sacrifices & dreams never ended. There was still life left in this labyrinth. She had chosen to walk away… A distant lightning seemed to disturb the power lines outside. The TV powered off, plunging the room into a moment of darkness.

“Some things you just have to take on faith”, she told herself, braving a smile.