Entry 8

Word count: 957

The first thing that Ujala realized when she opened her eyes was that it was a beautiful day and there were fresh sunflowers on the dining table. Her eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight that was illuminating the whole room. The blinds were open and she could hear a bird singing outside.

She looked at the sunflowers and wondered who had brought them. In the wake of this thought followed the knowledge of her fateful encounter with her husband. As if to ascertain the reality of the events that came crashing into her consciousness, a pain shot through her body and she felt the soreness in her legs and lower abdomen.

She closed her eyes. She had no idea how long it had been since the whole incident had rocked her world. Revulsion and anger coursed through her veins in her very blood. She took a deep breath and sat up tentatively. The whole world swam and she had to take great gulps of air before she could steady herself. Her whole body still burned from the assault that it had suffered- was it only last night? Ujala had lost all sense of time.

She realized that she had slept on the couch and an afghan was spread over her. Ammar must have carried her to the couch after he was finished with her, and then he must have covered her with the afghan. How ironic for a man who always left her cold to worry about her being cold in her sleep. There were no tears left in her, only a deep, bottomless feeling of emptiness that began at her throat and ended nowhere.

As the feelings of unsteadiness and nausea began to pass, Ujala walked toward the kitchen and felt shaken within her own body. She leaned over the counter and drank a glass of cold water. She looked at the ice crystals in the water, the condensation on the glass, and savored each sip as it moistened her lips, with her eyes closed and her back leaning against the cool marble of the countertop. The glass slipped from her hand as she was startled by a sudden sound upstairs.

Ammar rushed downstairs when he heard the glass breaking. He ran to the kitchen and took in the broken glass on the floor, the ragged look in Ujala’s eyes, and the way she started to shiver uncontrollably when he walked into her line of vision.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She did not reply. Instead, she bent down, and with considerable effort to overcome her pain, she began to pick up the broken glass. Ammar bent next to her and extended his hand to her shoulder. She shrank back in revulsion and fear.
“Don’t pick it up. I’ll clean it,” he said retreating his hand.

Ujala did not say anything. She got up slowly and went back to the couch. Laying back once more, she closed her eyes. She heard him working in the kitchen for a while and ran a hand through her hair. There was a large bump where she had hit the table repeatedly, and it was tender to the touch.

She heard Ammar emerging from the kitchen.
“How long have I been out?” she asked.
“Almost 24 hours. I was concerned. I was about to get you to a doctor,” he said.
“How kind of you,” she said.
“Look, I”
“There is no need.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you? For what? For ruining my life?”
“I lost myself. I’m sorry. Are you hurt? There was blood on the carpet.”
“Did you bleach it out? Did you clean out your sins, too while you were at it?”
“You have a right to be angry.”
“Angry. Right, that’s what I am. You ship me over to a place where I don’t have the first clue of what to do under the pretense of marriage, and then you rape me when you’re drunk out of your mind. Yes, I’d say I’m a little angry, you bastard.”
She started to cry even though she thought she didn’t have it in her to shed any more tears.
“Just please leave me alone. Go away,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Get the hell out. Please, just go.”

Ammar walked out of the house.

Ujala was alone once more, not that his presence accounted for companionship. There is a threshold of pain and adversity that an individual needs to cross before coming to a point where all pain, all suffering, all the wrongs are shunned, closed, buried in one’s own mind in order to stay sane.

Perhaps, such was the nature of Ujala’s consciousness when she purposefully wiped her tears and rose once again from the couch. She went upstairs and ran a bath. For a long time she stayed in the bath dwelling over not what had happened to her life since she had left her parents’ house and become Mrs. Ammar Siddiqui, but over the subject of the villanelle that she was supposed to write for her class. The bath seemed to cleanse her of matters that her mind refused to process or ponder over. Something in her being reached a resolution, and an indefinable strength gave her purpose and drive, and even served the suitable distraction in the form of a poetry assignment to draw her out of her misery.

Her life had not ended 24 hours ago, she knew that. The rest would fall into place and her destiny would reveal itself. All in due course, all in due time, she thought. After her bath, she lit candles all over the house, and ate a sandwich. She proceeded to take a steaming mug of chai to the balcony and penned down her first villanelle.