The First Giggle

There's a constant beeping. It’s muffled but hard to ignore. She’s standing at the window, smoking a slim cigarette. The sun is pelting down and her light blue kurta clings to her because of a humidity that never leaves. The fan is on at its lowest setting. It can’t go any faster, always moving like the e

cho of a past action. Her back turned to the room, she leans against the sill, staring at the life outside.

There’s a tree precisely in her line of vision. It has a tall, thin trunk with a small spurt of leaves at the top, like a skinny boy with a full, curly head of hair. Through the gash on the top, she knows that its growth has been barbarically stunted, like that boy, full of energy, being slapped repeatedly, into submission, silence, into quieting his mind.

She had noticed that tree the first time she had walked down the path that soon became her regular route. Each time she walked past that tree, she inched a little bit closer to it. One day she had grazed her fingers against it. And then one day a while later, she had hugged the tree. They knew each other now. 

As she stands there inhaling the smoke, a few beads of sweat trickle down her spine. 

The day bleeds on. It feels much like yesterday, and tomorrow, she knows, will be the same. 

She often stood at the window and looked outside.

Today she started at  the smelly gutters with sewage flowing freely along the sides of roads. A young girl was squatting on the footpath, filtering the sewage through her fingers, to catch a little fish floating along. In her other hand the girl had a half-cut plastic bottle filled with brown water to scoop the fish into. She imagined the girl catching the fish and then caring for her newly acquired pet. Her face would turn upward as she laughed. Perhaps she would float that bottle on the water, along with a paper boat, to replicate the sea for her fish. Does the fish know this isn’t the sea?

The sea had come to her in a dream. She was somewhere in the middle of it, only water stretching out all around her. The waves were gentle. But when she tried to swim, the water became rough. The waves slapped her furiously, filling her mouth and nose, making her sputter and heave. But once she settled down, it did too. She’d eventually stopped moving, embracing the comfort of the familiar. Suddenly his face was floating next to hers, and she’d started swimming, frantically fighting the water, warring her way through it. She was then standing at a shore, with only sand and hills stretching endlessly behind her. The water felt a safe way away. A sudden wave rolled over, reaching her knees. She had looked up in time to see another wave fast progressing. This one stood tall, at least three times her height. There wasn’t enough time to decide if she wanted to continue fighting. The wave crashed. She gave herself up to its thrashing, let herself be thrown around. There was such a vastness to the water, her body moved far and free in every direction. There was also a silence in that water like she had never experienced before. She had found the rhythm of that storm. And then she was floating, the big wave carrying her. She hadn’t expected to make a friend of the water. It sat her by the side of a cliff, and she crawled over to rest under the shade of a large, tilted tree. It was old and she felt protected, like a wise well-wisher looking over her. 

As she finished her cigarette and stepped back into her room, she moved in a daze. She didn’t know what to think of. 

It was uncomfortable when her mind didn’t have a place to go. She was forced to focus on the nothingness of the moment. It rustled the curtain behind which lay the nothingness of her life.

She didn’t want to face that. Her mind was tired. It sought to always retreat into the world it had patiently built on the inside. She knew her mind was hiding. She let it. 

Quiet Moments of Scheduled Nothingness. It was the title of an art exhibit, she remembered; feeling slight relief at being back in her mind. She liked the idea that nothingness could be short and structured. Planned.

This led her to the memory of another installation she had seen. The blinking had pierced itself into her mind. It was a small, dark room, with black walls. Three were bare, while the fourth wall had three shelves. On each shelf was a small, old-fashioned, boxy television. Their screens were blank except for a small line of text on the top left corner of the screen. It showed no more than three or four words being typed out; selected, which made it look like it had been highlighted; and then deleted. The artist was saying a lot of things in this manner.. In that cold, dark, quiet room, standing close enough to the television to feel its static, seeing the words being quickly typed out and erased even faster, she had been entranced. She thought she felt the artist’s voice, its smallness, and courage, at actually saying those things that were hard to say. She kept reading, over and over. Slowly her consciousness retreated; yet she continued to stare, unblinking, still reading although not registering the words any longer. She waited for some of those words to jump out at her. Only two had. She wanted more but by then her unblinking eyes had started watering. She blinked to stop a tear from falling and instantly, rudely, that water snapped her out of her bubble. She felt conscious, there were other people in the room now. She hadn’t liked being pulled out of that world.

Now remembering that afternoon, she exhaled heavily and felt a sudden anger within her. It took its time, swirling slowly in her chest, building up. Her breathing felt laboured, and she exhaled with some force, like she was trying to get some of that anger out before it clawed so deeply into her that it was lodged there forever. She didn’t know what to do.

And then her mind wailed. It didn’t make a sound and nothing immediately made itself felt. But her head tilted downward because inside, she was buckling. A wave of loneliness was thrashing around her chest. It filled her. The realisation of her loneliness was all that she felt. She looked around blindly for a few seconds. Her loneliness thrashed against her insides, trying to break free. It had grown too big for her frame to contain. It lasted only a few seconds but when she looked up, one would, if there was anyone there to see her, have found fear in her eyes.

Her mind calmed down then. It sat in silence for a while. Then it made its way to a better place. It was a place with calm water, where the sun shone unobtrusively. Leaves would frolic on naughty winds,  always blowing in the right direction, making her hair flow prettily behind her instead of seemingly fighting a war on her face. She would smile as she walked down clean roads and up beautiful bridges. There, everything was well-contained, even her sadness. 

I need to lie down.

She was used to being exhausted. She just needed to lie down for a minute. And then her mind would get up again.

As sleep guided her toward darkness, remnants of distorted thoughts flashed around her mind. ‘Life doesn’t have to be this hard,’ a voiceless thought echoed in her mind. She knew who it was. A kind lady. And she thought of the kind lady’s smile as she drifted.

Sleep worked hard to heal her, quieting everything inside her, giving her mind some silence.

She woke up with hope.

Her mind thought again of the kind lady. Her soft hands had gently patted her head, her bangles clinking playfully against each-other. She giggled as she relived that moment.

The sound of that giggle, having mischievously slipped through her lips, filled the room. It twirled around and bounced playfully against the walls. Not finding any company, it swirled through the air, stretching itself, settling into the room, a slight glimmer awaiting friends.

Light green eyes floated in front of her, instantly quieting that seed of happiness.

They led her back to the dingy house with the leaking roof. 

The first time she had looked into those eyes, they were a warm brown, mischievous and loving. And the house stood bright and strong, its air energetic, elation whiffing out of the bathroom pot and kitchen dustbin. Then those eyes started losing its vigour. The elation mixed with a stench that would settle permanently into their nose. The rooms became dull. He turned from husband to man she cooked for, cleaned after, and made body available for. He went from smart young man full of potential to unfortunate man, full of mistakes. Regret aged him. The walls wrapped shadows around themselves. Instead of spacious, the whites started feeling like a lack of colour, they were emptiness. The roof leaked and water dripped on the kitchen’s cracked marble tiles. The elation was disgruntled; it left with a decided permanence, vengefully taking with it any memory of ever having been there. The stench soured, rotted, and finally, matched his lifeless, empty green eyes. He went from unfortunate man full of mistakes to wretched man full of alcohol. Every day he observed the tiles get duller, inhaled the stench that got fouler, felt a rise in the amount of dripping water, and every day he got angrier. After he had had his fill of everything else, he turned his eyes on her. 

In that house, she had often remembered the first time he had coloured the centre of her hairline with the sacred red powder. Everything around her had revolved, the earth had wobbled in a blush, but she had stayed calm, still, her head slightly bowed in reverence of the powder’s weight.

He still coloured her red after his eyes turned green. But then he did it by splitting open her skin and making her blood shine through. 

She remembered the last time. He had asked for warm milk but there was none left. She’d used it to make paneer for dinner. 

“Bitch,” he’d growled. 

She was able to stay silent now; he didn’t like when cries escaped her. He had punched her on the left side of her face and she’d stumbled down from the force. He kicked her curved stomach and a few times as her body contorted, shielding itself from more. He had exhaled heavily and sunk down on their sofa. They stayed in silence for a few moments, her lying curled up on the floor, him slouched against cushions. Then he had looked down at her and the anger had come hurling back, like a punch on his chest. He got up and left, disgusted, slamming the door behind him.

She’d walked herself to the washroom then. Each step was a stressful calculation in finding enough energy so that she didn’t fall over. She blinked her eyes repeatedly, making them focus, using her vision to steady herself. Slowly she reached the washroom and turned the light on. She ran water on her palms and softly lay the left one against her cheek, patting it wet and cleaning some of the blood. Standing was hard. She knew he wouldn’t be back until the early hours of the morning. She didn’t have to worry about him needing to use the washroom. She took a few steps, moving to the centre of the washroom, and lay down on the cold, dry floor. The floor feels nice. Most of the blood had gathered into her hair. Its stickiness was familiar. She touched the strands near her temple and stared at the blood on her fingertips. The floor feels nice. By the time she had enough energy to wash her hair, it would be tomorrow. The blood will have dried into her hair and become harder to wash out. It would have been easier if she’d oiled her hair.  She wanted to be the little girl again, who sat happily on a cool floor as her grandmother lovingly massaged oil into her hair, leaving generations of ancient love in those roots. The floor feels nice. The kind lady had come in with a first aid box. She checked in each time she heard their door slam and heard him storm out. She came into the washroom and locked the door. That’s nice. Laying on the floor, her body relaxed a fraction as she looked at the strong lock, holding the door tightly in place. It wasn’t an easy lock to break through. The kind lady tended to her and then sat down on the floor besides her, gently patting her head, her bangles clinking against each other. This time, instead of launching into her usual speech, the kind lady had only said, ‘Life doesn’t have to be this hard.’

As she lay there in the silence, a little voice inside her told her to leave. She loves him, a strong conviction roared back. The little voice smirked at the ease with which it had bothered such a deep belief. And so they had conversed. The little voice had grown and the roar faltered, eventually laying down to rest. And she had left.

Her skin had healed now. She was far away from him. But she didn’t know why it was the right thing. She closed her eyes, willing the green ones to leave her, and took a deep breath that entered her like a shudder, spreading like a chill and settling in her bosom, lining it thicker, making her hunch a little from the effort of sitting upright. 

She looked around at the life she had now, of staring out that window and finding patterns in walls. This room was her home. And she had decorated it with her first giggle. 

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Published here.