IT
KEPT on going like this for several years. And then there came the change. A
very old lady was passing by the garden at the centre of the little town, she
was thinking about being young again. That was the bravest moment of one’s life
and it felt awkward for her to think of girlhood as she found it impossible to
get back to where she had once been. When she reached home, it was dark outside
and she, for a long time had fabricated herself into a chain, went to bed much
earlier at daybreak. She did that routinely and stepped in her little bed a
little while after she had reached home. She was used to eat nothing for
dinner. So, she discreetly fell asleep almost after getting off to bed.
When
she woke up, there was utter silence out there. She feared silence a lot. But
now more than normalcy, she grew curious. She looked around and found it dark
out there. She grew agitated at the sight of darkness, blushed and then worried
as if someone might overhear her sweet little insanities. Finding herself
secured, locked up and distant from everyone else, she put on her eye-glass and
felt deadly silence everywhere. She grew afraid and out of curiosity tore off
that fear from mind, denying the old-age trait quite bravely. The room she
lived in had no mirror, no window; the only exception was a ventilator which
was built not for the old lady’s sake but to keep the temperature more balanced
and amicable. A bed, a rocking chair and a very old-cracking door were the
heirloom possessions of that room. But at times a sparrow used to sneak in her
room to which she used to talk without fainting out of fear. The arrival of the
sparrow was a lot more or so unexpected. When she felt like talking to it, the
sparrow didn’t show up. But when she cherished to keep apart from every living
creature and got furious enough to thresh the flies, cockroaches and the ants
that regularly strolled on the floor in search of leftover corns, the sparrow
showed up. She, using all her forces and capacities, tried to grab the little
creature and thresh it, too. She had failed for several times, so she grudged the
little bird and ran after it and cursed it. The sparrow, too, perhaps responded
to that by marvelous chirping and at one point by flying out through the
ventilator leaving her nuts. She, once more, got lonesome and loved to hymn
whatever songs she had learnt once and fragments of which had been stored in
her numbskull.
She
had a son living in that very apartment, happily married and busy with his own
school of adults. He cared for anything but the old lady and remained gaily
happy with what he had believed of his own; age. But the old lady found age
almost a marvelous wound; being old meant angry and annoyed, palsy and feeble,
lacking any physical charm. Her world was solitude and silence. She feared them
both. Actually she was scared of being old, lonesome with nobody to talk with. Astoundingly,
she wasn’t fond of having friends either. From the very beginning of her old
age still now, she cherished the dream of being young again.
The
urge she felt was years old and it was to look her reflection in the mirror.
She, at first, grew ashy and surprised. Age took all the charms she had had
once and now all she had were bones and crumpled skin. She lived her life for
so long a time that had she known to keep account of that, it might very well have
crossed four score. But luckily she wasn’t an academician and was aware about
nothing of aging. So, she couldn’t say no to the urges and in search of a
mirror, she blindly walked out of her room scrawling down touching her bed,
floor and the wall where the switch of the light existed. But she failed to
locate it.
She
knew the feelings very well. That’s what made her happy, curious and fond of
proving her assumptions right. Had she been proven wrong, had it all been a
mirage; would her instinct lie to her? She felt stronger and fresh, better than
ever, she took off her glass and rid her of the stick. She glanced at the door.
A shimmering light was visible from a little distance which she took for the
door. Right she was and thus believed with joy that she had just stepped out of
her little wreckage.
Everyone
called her Molly when she was young and she was beautiful. So beautiful that
her most important task was to stand in front of the mirror, look at herself
and comb her hair. She blushed at the sight of herself, felt proud and hymned
love songs celebrating her beauty. She did it with lots of care and affection,
took a lot of time in garnishing herself. She put on her favorite necklace,
earrings and bangles, all with deep love and considerations. She was terribly
in love with herself. That got into her blood so deeply that in those years of
her life not even a single day had passed when she didn’t stare at herself
through the mirror and got amazed. What she didn’t like to do was to put on red
dress. The common prejudice she had was that. She neither liked to walk outdoor
for she feared losing her charms nor she liked to make love with man which
would take away her virginity. She stayed at home for so long a time that
people upon hearing her fame, especially those young bachelors, crowded her
window with curious and lustrous eyes. They wanted to charm her like this, each
one of them. But she didn’t show up and showed no interest in them. Eventually
she grew scared, wearied at this and her parents tried amusing her with words
which failed to calm her down. People got the news of her beauty and wanted to
have a glance at her at any cost. She became a miracle overnight with men proposing
her in so many weird ways that she secretly started enjoying that.
That
mystery made her the talk of the town both in good and bad ways. Gradually it
reached her ear, shaking off the glooms she grew happier and thus kept on
taking care of her physical charms which she believed to be the core of her
life and thus forgot her scared situation. But suddenly a very rich man visited
her family. She, too, co-incidentally was undergoing a crisis situation. Her
parents failed to bear her expenses and she grew miserable. She was worried of
losing her beauty, charms that kept on amazing her for so many days, months and
years which she didn’t know to count down. She almost committed suicide unless
the rich man had shown up. He thus became a savior and earned respect from both
Molly and her parents.
The
whole town got shocked when Molly left the town forever with that rich man and might
never show up again. What was miserable about her was that she knew her world
too well and thus the new world turned hostile towards her, she never had been
in need to adopt and thus turned peevish, grumpy and silent. Yet she had the
mirror to look at, to comb, and then to love herself. Thus time went by. She
had three kids by that rich man whom she didn’t seem to believe to be her own
kid. The rich man loved her blindly, so he took care of the kids and allowed
her freedom to take care of her beauty and also provided her with what she
loved most; solitude. She regained her happiness gradually and then one day
suddenly the rich man died.
She
remembered everything quite well. She was happy after all. She left her in-laws
and settled once again in her parents’ apartment. She had no sibling which turned
out to be a great deal of fortune. But there had been a rumor about her, almost
apt to truth. Nobody blamed her anyway. She, therefore, spent her life in great
joys and her parents took all the responsibilities of her kids.
But
a terrible thing occurred once in an evening. Her eldest offspring, a baby-boy
of five then, knew his mother. He called her from behind the door. “Mom, I want
to sleep with you.” That was shocking for her. She couldn’t just share her
solitude with someone else.
She,
then, failed to recollect the rest of that incident. “Was that terrible? … What
was that I was thinking about?” But
despite of being agitated, she felt like aroused. “Is that nausea or a trauma,
or a dream?” she asked herself. All her life she had been scapegoat to time.
And now, it came to an end! “Ridiculous!” she shouted, “It must be a mirage!
But I can see through the corridor. Had I not grown younger, it mustn’t have
happened. Time can’t wind backward. That’s crazy.” She blushed once again.
She,
now, knew what to do but wasn’t actually aware of where the mirror might have
been. Her son Robin just forced her out of the room when her parents died. They
died like a flying bird dispreading its wings. Robin was married then and his
wife needed the mirror just like Molly. So, he shifted Molly out of her room
and compelled her into that tiny little room. At first she felt like shaken at
this, but time was a marvelous wound which gave her plenty when it was her time
and now it started to retake what it had provided once.
Being
marveled at what was happening, she stood stunningly for a long time just to
accept it. She chided her lips for being dried up, rotten and surprisingly felt
her teeth once again those were long gone, she wanted to feel her breasts, too,
which she failed to do for being extraordinarily shy. She blushed followed by
an awkward smile. She resisted herself from going down to the room at this hour
of the night which she thought to be crazy. But the second thought that stormed
through didn’t allow her that delay. She just needed a mirror to look at and
thus would be able to make sure of the fact that she had grown young once more!
She
felt shy, feeble to inner intrusion and thus had decided to wait no longer. Her
son would never mind at her intrusion, he loved her a lot. If not, he’d respect
her at least and never hurt her. She just step by step walked ahead and felt
relieved, fresh and a lot more stronger. All she had to do was to have a sight
at her in the mirror.
She
entered the room, found the mirror which was clean and large, larger than she had
been expecting. She felt happy as she finally managed to come across the
mirror. She remembered her beauty box which she used for so many ages. She
blushed once again and smiled, and then she laughed and continued doing so for
a long period of time; she blushed, smiled and then laughed again and again.
When she calmed herself down and tried having a glance at herself through the
mirror, she failed. That was touchy, but she didn’t give up yet. So, she kept on
trying and all the time she ended up without succeeding.
That
was hard for her part to accept this, she still felt her teeth and angrily
managed to touch her breast and somehow felt her nipples alive! That was a
pitiful situation, she felt young and had the urge to carry on with the old
habit; she needed to see herself in the mirror which she couldn’t!
When
in the morning Robin’s eldest son got up and walked out to the corridor, he
screamed like hell out of terror. Robin and his wife rushed out, afraid.
“What
happened, son?”
“There’s
a witch out there…” the boy stammered out of fear.
They
looked through the corridor in the dimming morning light. There’s a fresh and
cold breeze blowing. It felt unearthly when they heard an old voice murmuring
which sounded like an alien language to them. They looked carefully and were
afraid to step ahead lest it should be a witch.
Robin
was the first person to identify Molly. She was fallen, weak and fatigued by
the cold wintry wind.
