SILENT WHISPERS

It’s her death-anniversary today.

Funny-thing.

Anniversary.

When I was young, I thought “anniversary” always meant some good occasion. Some event to celebrate.

Haha. Come to think of it, this is indeed an occasion to celebrate! I hope she’s celebrating it wherever she is right now. I am sure of this.

She must be happy. Her death-anniversary on earth must be her birthday in the heavens. So she must be celebrating. A celebration of rebirth; good riddance from me.

No. I am not angry with her celebrating the great event of getting rid from me.

That is not a cause of concern.

You know what a cause of concern looks like?

When you write in your daily journal as if you’re talking to yourself, that my friend, is a cause of concern. HAHA!

Birthday in the heavens.

I know she must’ve been inducted easily in heaven. She had the qualities – a good student (university topper), a good daughter and a good wife. She totally deserves a place there.

May she rest in peace.

Ahh. A beauty of what? Thirty-two maybe? Or even less? Huh. I don’t remember.

A year junior to me in the university. That would make her………………………wait…what’s my age?

I don’t remember. When was the last time I celebrated my birthday? Seems like yesterday that she made a nice cake for me on my birthday. But if today’s her death-anniversary, then I’m sure it didn’t happen yesterday. Haha. At least one-and-a-half year back, probably.

She was a nice woman I tell you.

I tell YOU? But you’re nothing but a blank sheet of paper! I’m telling it to a white sheet of paper! Haha. “I tell you?!”

What is it the doc tells me I have?

Schizophrenia.

Did I get the spelling correct?

It doesn’t matter but.

But I’m better now; the doc says so.

It’s the spoons, the forks and the plates, and the knives I tell you. (Yes. I tell YOU. You O mighty piece of paper, it’s to YOU that I talk. HAHA!)

Yeah the spoons and the forks.

They keep whispering amongst themselves.

Strange, silent whispers.

That soft giggle here, a little grunt there.

Those conspirational voices.

I was curious. I just wanted to know what they said.

I took them, held them close to my ear, expecting them to talk to me too. But alas! The stone-hearts wouldn’t talk to me.

She would gently take away the spoon or the fork or the knife from my hand and keep it down. She said, it was nothing.

But then, she knew nothing!

Each time she told me ‘it was nothing’ those wretched spoons smiled, the knives shone brightly. They mocked me. I know it’s a bizarre thing to say. But you would know, soon enough. Arggghh…how would YOU know? You’re just a piece of paper!

It was nothing.

What if they hurt her?

Each time I rushed back to home from office fearing what they might do to her in my absence, she frowned at me. Why was it so hard for her to understand my concern? My worries?

True. I did neglect office. But then how could I work living in perpetual fear of a stray knife easing its way inside the soft skin of her stomach? A malicious fork going straight for her eye – landing on the pupil, making her blind forever? How could I work when she was living in a valley of frightening instruments?

And then there – that new intern kept sitting on my desk. Whenever I reminded him it was my place, the damn man left it but not before giving me a long, silent gaze. I always checked the place thoroughly. It’s his eyes – I see in them the same lustre I saw on that knife, spoon and fork. A metallic lustre. I was sure he would hide something in the place. To kill me, to harm me….I can’t say. But there was something going on…something which I haven’t been able to figure out even till now.

As such, how could I attend my office?

I had responsibilities. I had to take care of her. How could I fall prey to that stupid intern?

The doctor said the pills would make it stop. Surprisingly, it did!

So effective were those drugs that I started to share her belief that I was sick, very sick.

It was fake. A sham.

I wasn’t sick. The whisperings started again. This time even more frequent, even more audible. (Even as I write I hear them. Hah. Been unable to harm me. A tough man like me, takes time to give up.)

I tried. I tried a lot. To do something. I guarded her every hour since the first ray of sunshine till the last glimpses of moon. I guarded her.

She thought I was ill. As the doc believed too. She gave me medicines, prescribed by that phoney doctor. (I conveniently rubbed the pills on the spoons; I knew it would make them lethargic).

But the pills were too less.

Death was the only way out.

Have you ever loved someone? I know you are but a collection of blank papers…but still…anyone? A nice pen which smoothly touched your surface some time? A coarse pencil which left a mark on you? Or was it a fellow journal?

No?

NO ONE?

What a pity.

You would never know the feeling of elation of rescuing your beloved from a mortal threat.

Ahh. Why am I lying?

You know what? Even I don’t know that feeling.

But I was so close….soooooooo close……just one step and I would have been a hero!

But no.

The chance eluded me.

As my fingers clasped her throat to rid her of the endless threat of the the whispering monsters I noticed that devious knife.

There it lay. On her stomach. Drenched in her blood. Smiling at me. Mocking me.

They had won. I lost. Badly lost. Ohh..never a loss was as bitter as this one.

She had had enough they say; that she was done with my ‘madness’.

Madness?

Madness?  Haha. Mad logic if there ever was one!

I admit that I lost. This is the worst defeat I have ever experienced. But madness?

The doc understands me. Or so he says.

Haha.

That’s what he says! He takes me for a fool! I know he thinks the same. That my madness killed her!

Fools.

They don’t know.

But she knows.

SHE KNOWS!!!

I’ve already killed that knife. It was the most aggressive amongst the lot. The spoons were comparably easier to kill. Felt like God killing the world of small metallic people!

The forks….ahh….they lie deep inside the sea.

I won!

I won!

And it’s her anniversary! Death-anniversary!

Today is the best day to write an account of my victory!

A victory……………………………

Wait!

Did you hear that?

Ahh. How would YOU hear it…you have no ears!

Sssshhhhh……….again!

Soft whispers….do you hear them?

The pens….it’s the pens…..they’re talking amongst themselves………………………………..

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