She cannot bear writing anymore. The question that has haunted her all along, through everything, now acts as the tipping point for a breakdown she has stalled for years through hastily shed tears in the bathroom, silent screams in her room, and breakdowns by the pooja room when alone at home. She rushes out of her writing room and collapses by the hearth where a warm fire burns. Hands wrapping around her knees, she rocks herself on the carpeted floor as the rotten tears yearning for release finally find it. Her body quivers with the intensity of each sob, and she curls into herself further.

The chasm between them is mapped by the warped demons of her mother's psyche playing cartographer on the tapestry of her, moulding her every smile into the precursor of tears and anguish. Like a raw stone handed over to an artisan to chisel, she is somebody who never realised she had inadvertently given herself to it, being the eldest daughter and child as she was. It hadn't begun like that, though. There was a time when the distance between her and Rama had been purely due to circumstances - when she was raised by her grandparents because her mother couldn't afford to leave her job, and her father was in another city, both trying to make two ends meet. She knows those were the times that have left a deep-seated guilt within her mother. She has, after all, soothed her through many such times when that gorge in her brought about a vulnerability Rama couldn't keep away from seeking forgiveness for in her arms.

No, things had been way better when they were in situations that were actually bleak.

The problems, the tempest, had begun in the calm of a settled life. True, they weren't together as a family, with her father abroad and her mother, sister, and her in India, but they had been in a better life condition. So she couldn't exactly gauge why her mother's behaviour towards her had seemingly altered. The scoldings for mundane things became harsher, the period of anger that remained became longer.
Suddenly her every mistake, small or big, brought her a barrage of cruel words and taunts. Suddenly, the hugs that came after scoldings to let her cry her heart out, began decreasing, leaving her with none at the later years of her college life.
_

The piece of pumpkin she had brought the previous day lies on the kitchen counter by the sink, its quantity half a kilogram more than what was asked to be brought.  Muttering under her breath, her mother angrily chops at a piece of  vegetable she is chopping to prepare upma. She walks up to the counter nervously, picking up a steel container to heat the milk as is her routine duty in the morning, despite not wanting to be anywhere near her mother.

As soon as she stands next to her mother, which she unfortunately has to given the need of the scissors and sink for her job, she hears her mother utter, plain anger evident in her voice

"I think I mentioned specifically how much quantity of the pumpkin was needed, didn't I?"

"I know Maa, I told him exactly how much you had mentioned but when he was cutting, he ended up doing in a way that gave an extra half kilogram to the piece. He told me so and I thought it was okay...."

"So tomorrow he'll tell you to sell yourself out on the street, will you go naked?"

She does not understand what in the present situation triggered that from her mother's mouth but the hurt prevails like a poisoned dagger to her chest, which only digs in deeper the longer her mother goes on and on, raw toxicity spitting from her mouth. Her cheeks color in rage and shame, her eyes fill up and as if what has been uttered  maligning her dignity isn't enough, she is grabbed by the hair and pushed to the floor even as the tirade continues.

Her eyes close as this particular memory comes haunting into her weakened psyche. Years have passed since that day but she has never been able to forgive and forget those words that still perforate her nightmares. She can never forget the vile words, the name-calling that slaughtered every bit of her self-respect, the hurt that traversed through an already trodden expanse, adding a gaping wound on it. She can never forget that all of this had been unleashed on her, by her own mother, just for bringing half a kilogram extra of a sodding pumpkin!

Her heart twists in her chest, her breaths a heave after all the sobbing, but her chest is still not empty. The burden has still not worn off. It is still a long way to that destination. At the present though, she drowns in her tears, a human with the affinity of a mermaid to the saline ocean of her tears!

The embers burning in the hearth crackle, providing the warmth her cold, sore bones rattle for against the countless shattered pieces of her inner prism, even as she slowly drifts to an exhaustion induced slumber, right where she is, her arms around her but still seeking peace!
____________________________________

Love,
Pratyusha