It was four in the morning, sleep has always had an overwhelming effect on young little Manya. Her mother would always sigh and say how she wishes she could sleep like her daughter, leaving all the worries behind and getting lost into a dream world with an ease that only broke apart at the crack of dawn.
Today was different, today Manya was seated in her little sanctuary made of old dish rags from the rich household nearby where her mother worked. She sat in there, waiting in fear about what harm her father would inflict upon her if she left. At half-past four, after all the shouting and screams of agony died down she gathered all her courage and let her head peek out of her enclosure.
What she saw left her astounded, a woman lying at the far side of the ground of their cowshed, barely breathing. Her face was beyond recognition, the bruises, blood and tears hid all the tiredness and desperation to live underneath it. While Manya wondered who she was, the meek words uttered by the woman sent a shock wave through Manya.
It was her mother’s voice, though it would have been difficult to decipher who it belonged to if her mother would have said anything that was not her name. ‘Manya’ she whispered.
Subconsciously, her brain tuned out what her mother said for the next few seconds, the thought of her mother lying on the ground in this state made her feel weak in the knees, her legs trembled and tears ran down her face. She fought her natural instinct to cry out for help and kept her cries to herself fearing what her gruesome father would do if he heard her.
She took a moment to realize that her mother was muttering something now, unable to hear, Manya without a thought crawled out of her enclosure towards her mother, tears glistening in the faint moonlight like diamonds around a queen’s head.
Manya, still shook by the sight she saw, lowered her head cautiously towards her mother’s mouth. Her mother, with all her strength, let out a small cry “Run, run Manya, run as far away as you can…”, the cry though feeble had enough power to shatter her heart. Her mother, now lifeless and pale as a corpse, reached out her hand towards Manya, which
fell to the ground, her mutterings and small cries of help were now soundless. The agonizing silence now added fuel to the burning fire of hate in Manya’s heart against her father.
Looking at her mother, Manya ran back to her make-belief safety house, stumbling as she ran. She stripped the worn-out rags off the roof and laid them on her mother, believing she would need it when she would awaken from her stupor and cling onto the rags as a reminiscence of her daughter who ran away. Tears spilt with the knowledge of her mother being far away though Manya’s naive heart denied the possibility with utter determination.
Seconds passed, she let out heavy sighs to drown out the cruel silence of the department that her soul was too young to handle.
In the spur of a moment, Manya stood up, regretting it instantly as her legs felt like needles, her arms now numb, dropping sluggishly to her sides, her head felt heavy, her body strained beyond the point of exhaustion with her mouth hung open, lips wide apart gasping for air as she cried silently not sure if it was the pain that caused the dam to break again.
Her facial features contorted, expressing the mix of despair, anger, pain and grief she felt. She clenched her tiny fists, her ragged nails digging into her palms. She had made her decision.
The silence was now filled with her quiet sobbing and chirping of birds, purposely ignoring the angry shouts of her drunk father in the distance questioning where his wife had run off to. The darkness in her eyes was slowly fading with the sun on the horizon rising with the prospect of selfish freedom.
She wiped her snot on the short sleeves of her blouse, shifted her lowly hanging skirt on top of her hips, dug her feet into her worn-out rubber sandals and steadied her stance, determined now, more than ever before.
She would do what was probably the last wish of her mother, she would do what her mother should have done all these years, she would do whatever she needed to do to run away from her wretched father.
She took one step, her heart thumping with anxiety. She snuck a last glance at the lifeless woman on the ground wrapped in rags, with a faint bittersweet smile of departure and happiness of oncoming freedom, she ran
Author - Niyathi Nikkam
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