A Withered Story

He,
He would enter the room quietly, like silence itself, sounding no steps and rousing no lights. He would move softly, almost in a manner that made one feel he feared hurting the breeze. He would never miss his footing. He knew the road better than the back of his hand for at the end of it was where his whole hands made sport of quiet murder. He was skilled in this art; quiet murder. With the first knock on her door while she played in her room, he'd created a fatal pause. The one that transpires before the response;

"Who's there?"

Maybe even better because he'd made the pause last longer than usual, deepening and deepening, into a kind of stop. At first, his palm folded over her mouth while he scratched his ravenous itch with her womanhood; but he found not too long after that he didn't need to bother. She had gone mute.

She wasn't angry. If at first it pained her and made her sore, all that had gone now. She was rather lost; like a faithful student, who'd been paying faithful attention, who gets lost by some fantastic moves the teacher suddenly makes. For her shock though, her mouth didn't hang open. Her heart did; opening a hole that gaped and yawned and hollowed.

These days she even waits for him; before he even wakes when the night has put on nightwears and gone to bed. She waits; palm on her lap, playing idly and quietly, letting her fingers falls like his briefs. She didn't know what he was doing and why he always wore that silly balloon over his pole. But despite his skill, there was this taut air that made it seem like he knew he shouldn't be doing what he was doing. But for long she'd given up asking anyone. Why can't they just see and tell her why she feels so 'wrong'. Then she began to lose faith and trust in people. They were all complicit; hence their silence. So she became the girl who trusted and spoke to nobody; even herself. For as she grew older, she began to understand and decided that somehow, herself betrayed her. Whether it made sense or not was unnecessary .....

She had long ceased to see any sense in her world. So today, when she speaks, you hear the hate in her voice, like alcohol in the breath of a drunk. When she hisses at men, they feel its extra bile and do not wait to be told to stay away. But sometimes, even 'she' let's up, and decides to get comfortable a bit. And after the first smooches and touches at hot places, Mr. Romantic rises to roll the evil balloon over his pole. And she watches him do it quietly, like he was afraid to hurt mother silence. Then she would see the look in his eyes; not quite like her father's but something essentially similar; and in that moment, he would become her father. And a strange cold would come over her, like she'd suddenly plunged into the pacific on the stroke of an icy night.

Then Mr. Romantic in his skill too would begin; but only be acting scenes with her body; scenes she'd watched time and again in her head while tears fell from her eyes; scenes she hated passionately without even knowing why.

Then suddenly she would tell him to stop; and in her affected voice, he would think he was doing something right. And she would say stop; again and he would smile to himself. Then her voice would grow firmer.

"No stop. I really mean it, stop."

He would hear the distress note, coated in an ugly rancour but he would choose to ignore it. Then she would go wild on him, screaming and beating and all; all the time acting scenes she'd perfected for her father in her mind. And Mr. Romantic, scared and stunned to anger would leave her for longer than even forever.

But she would still be acting those scenes in her head. One day, just one day, she would have hoped, she would play the script with the real actors it was meant for; and the part where she'd punctured his body way down to his soul with a jackknife was where she loved most. There it was, finally, a thing she loved to do. But the other actor had died since.

Nothing ever made sense anymore.
.
.
.
Nothing....