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

[usaiha2]

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I crushed the envelop in my fist and pressed it on my bosom. Silent drops of tears rolled down from the corner of my eyes.

I lay on the bed and gently rubbed my womb. I felt the tiny bump to move inside my body. I smiled and enjoyed those lovely tingling sensation that my unborn baby was giving to me. In my mind there was a strange feeling running then. My baby’s movement in my womb and infinite vacuum inside my chest. After sometime, those movements overcame my vacuum.

I kept quiet for a long, long time.

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When Babu returned, he observed me in a very different mood.

ChotoMa returned from her school as usual. I gave a faint painful smile at her, as I prepared the tea for Babu and ChotoMa. They were sitting on the dining table.

ChotoMa observed my unusual calmness and asked---“What happened ShonaMa? Has Himadri told you something?”

Her question, forced a huge stream of blood from my heart to race to my brain and soul.

I kept the tray on the dining table and placed the crumbled envelop on the tray. Babu took the crumbled paper and straightened it. He looked at me and then handed the piece of paper to ChotoMa.

Babu’s jaws clenched and ChotoMa gave a bewildered look as if she knows nothing. I could not tolerate the sight of ChotoMa; I spoke in a calm and deep voice.

---“What is this ChotoMa?”

She gave a blank look at the envelope and said to me---“I don’t know Paree.”

I clutched the handle of the chair and said to her in a stone cold voice---“You know everything, ChotoMa. This is his thirty-second letter.”

She looked at Babu’s face. Babu’s looked down on the table, his jaws clenched, eyes were burning.

I hissed out---“Why you did this to me? Why?”

ChotoMa got up from her chair kept the envelope in front of me and came near me. I hissed out again---“Don’t touch me. I hate you.”

I removed her hand, which was about to touch my head. Her eyes were glistening with pain.

She sobbed out slowly---“ShonaMa…”

I screamed out---“Your ShonaMa, your Paree has died. You have killed her long ago.”

---“Try to understand.”

I screamed---“WHAT?” My head was spinning and I felt a pain in my abdomen due to all tension and rage.

---“Try to understand my pain also. I have sacrificed my only son.”

---“You have sacrificed your only son only due to your ego and guile values of prestige.”

Babu hissed at me---“Yes… it was our prestige. We could not approve your relation that was our first reaction.”

He calmed down. There was a long silence in the room. Only our sobbing could be heard. My ears were burning.

I spoke---“He wrote me thirty-one letters. Where are all those?”

---“We destroyed all those.”

---“How do you know, that those letters were from Abhimanyu?”

---“All were airmail, from different countries. There is no one who could write letters to you except Abhi. What surprised us, that all the letters were blank, there were nothing inside the envelop.”

I was pouring fire with my sniveled eyes. I asked Babu---“Where all he was, in the past two and half years?”

---“He send you letters from the day he called me once. He send you every month. A white blank envelop and nothing else. From the postage stamp, all we could make out that he was first in Israel, then he went to South Africa and Zambia. Since last six or seven months the postage stamp was of Brazil.”

My tears were uncontrollable; my chest was burning when he was saying those words to me. I sat on the chair and picked up the crumbled envelop from the tray.

I screamed out---“ChotoMa, along with those letters you have burnt several lives.”

Babu went away. ChotoMa sat beside me and looked at my painful face. I was wiping my eyes and nose.

I chewed my words and screamed at her---“I HATE you all. I do not want to stay with you anymore. You have ruined my life. I do not even feel to be here from a second. I want to go back to Dhanbad.”

My heart was filled up with immense pain. I got up somehow and carried myself to my room.

ChotoMa asked me---“Where is Abhi now?” Her voice was shaking.

I answered---“He is currently in Brazil. He is coming back to India next month. I do not know whether he will contact you or not. However, if he contacts you tell him to come back to you. From today, your Paree has died.”

She shrieked---“Paree, don’t close the door. Don’t do anything stupid Paree.”

I slammed the door, leapt on my bed, and clutched the pillow with my chest with all my strength. All I could feel that Abhi was standing in front of me with his outstretched arms and beckoning me with a sweet smile on his face.

I cried out again and again---“Go Away, Go Away. Your Paree has died.”

However, he stood there; he did not move an inch.

I cried for a long time and then I called Maithili.

She heard me sobbing profusely on the phone. For first few seconds I could not utter a single word. I lost my voice as what should I tell her.

---“What happened Paree? Did you have a fight with Himadri?”

I pressed my lips and opened the envelop in front of my sniveled eyes---“Abhimanyu…..” I could not finish my words and cried out my pains.

She screamed from the other end---“What has happened to him? Is he all right? Why are you crying like that?”

I sobbed and sobbed, tried hard to gather words as what to say to her.

---“Tell me what has happened. Is he alright?”

I nodded my head, she could not understand as what I wanted to say as she was on the other end of the phone.

I spoke with much pain in my voice---“He wrote me letters. He wrote me since the day he left India. He is coming back for me Churni. What shall I do, Churni?”

She might have lost her words. She was silent. Only thing I could hear was my own sobbing sounds echoing in the whole room. I bit the pillow as I felt a sharp pain in my lower abdomen. The pain surrounded my hips and reached my navel. I threw the phone and cried my lungs out.

ChotoMa came running to me and asked me---“What happened Paree?”

The pain in my womb was killing me. I clasped the bed-sheet with all my strength and clenched my teeth. I banged my head on the pillow. The pain was unbearable. I felt I was losing myself to death. I was sweating profusely in that November cold. I was breathing very hard. I felt my lower end of my dressing gown drenched with fluids. Sticky fluids were coming out from my nether parts and drenched the bed as well. The pain made me arch like a bow and I clamped the pillow with all my strength.

I cried out---“I am going to die. My womb is going to burst out.”

ChotoMa cried out for Babu to call a cab. All the way to the nursing-home, I clutched ChotoMa hand like anything. She pressed my head on her bosom and tried to console me.

She was very much tensed and was crying---“Nothing will happen to you Paree. I am with you.”

I sobbed out---“I am dying ChotoMa. I don’t want to die.”

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