Non-erotic Dawn at Midnight By Pinuram - {Completed}

[usaiha2]

One day I said to them---“ChotoMa, I will repay your debt by doing my duty. I am not your own blood and flesh and even after that, you have done a lot for me. But….”


They both looked at me and asked “What?”

I held my breath for few seconds and then said---“For once, can I go to the room in the second floor? I want the key.”

They were taken aback by my request. They looked at each other’s face.

Babu said to me in his roaring voice---“No. You cannot go to that room. That is locked forever.”

I gave a displeased look at them and said to them---“If you are so adamant in marrying me off, then why are you searching so much? Just get anyone and I will marry.”

I slammed the door behind me. My brain was burning in angst and pain.

I cursed him with all worst words I could think of that day “He is treacherous. He does not have a heart in his chest. He is a lost soul.”

I was awake on my bed, looking outside the window. I was unable to sleep. There was a huge vacuum inside my heart. Nothing was able to fill that vacuum. I rubbed my bosoms, my cleavage to douse the pain. But every time I touched myself, the pain grew stronger.

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It was probably midnight; I heard a soft knock on my door.

I got up, opened the door, and was surprised to see ChotoMa standing at the door.

She handed me the key of his room on the second floor and looked at me with her painful eyes. Her eyes were glistening.

She wiped few drops of tears from the corner of her eyes and said in a low voice---“Go. But I want a positive answer in the morning.”

I nodded my head and took the key from her hand.

I tip-toed to the room in the second floor. I took a deep breath to control a turbulent wave that was brewing inside my chest. I bit my lower lips as I anticipated that when I will open the door he would be standing in front of me. I unlocked the key and pushed open the door. The room was closed for two long years. Not even air was allowed to dwell in that room. The turbulence reached my throat and my chest shook like a candle flame.

There was stench odour in the room. I found a dead rat under the table. There was dust all over his reading table, over his bed. The bed sheet was not changed in last two years. I found lizards and rats goo strewn all over his bed. The side-stands of the bed were covered with the cobwebs.

I pushed opened the windows.

I dusted the chair and sat beside the window. I clenched my fist and bit my fingers between my teeth. My eyes got soaked. I wiped that aqua drop from the corner of my eyes. “I don’t want to cry.” I told to myself. The day before that fateful day, he was painting my portrait. I sat there in that very posture for quiet sometime. I looked inside the room. My eyes tried hard to search him whether he was still sketching my portrait or not. No, he was not there.

I opened the drawer of his table and found a small wooden box. I opened that box and found several small glass marbles in that box.

I looked around the room for one last time, closed the windows. I closed my eyes; a solitary drop of aqua trailed down my left cheek and soaked the tip of my nose. I locked the room. Burying all his reminiscences inside the room, behind me, I climbed down the stairs.

I came down and found that ChotoMa was sitting in the drawing room waiting for me.

I handed her the key and said to her---“I don’t have any choice. Wherever my fate takes me I will accept that.”



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