tales of Suchita

The silence was in three parts. First was the absence of humans and the noises they inevitably make while shuffling in the house, going about their daily business, knocking into things, knocking over things, announcing their presence at various intervals to ensure the household did not forget.

The second was the ambient silence. Where usually the cars and the buses, horns, children singing, could be heard wafting through the open windows, it was now all silent – like someone had turned down the volume.

The third was the internal silence, one of the body shutting down as the blood seeped out from the open femoral artery and the second from the person sitting a little away from the body, a knife in hand, watching as that blood stain increased. When it had become a game for her she did not know. Look the stain has now covered the black stone but will it reach the white…oh it has but surely it cannot reach the blue…

It fascinated her, how the blood was racing towards where she was sitting on the floor with a stillness that none of the years of yoga or meditation had helped her achieve. Could the blood feel the nearby presence of a warm body? Was this what they meant when they said life always finds a way? Was life in the form of that all important fuel – blood – trying to reach her so it could live once again but this time in her veins?

She looked at the knife, a cleaver, she had picked up from the kitchen. It was a bold knife. A sharp one. Kept there on the kitchen counter, it had looked angry, like it was asking, what am I doing in a kitchen? I was made to hack through bones, not be used to cut vegetables.

So she had listened to the cleaver. She had helped it fulfill its purpose. It had been so easy…she was surprised these things were just available in the market. What surprised her even more though was how had so few people turned into killers? With the number and kinds of weapons available, how did people resist the urge?

She raised the knife, about to hack into his foot but she paused for a moment thinking of the racket it would create, the effort it would take, the silence it would break. After all wasn’t that the reason she had killed her husband? Because she had wanted some peace and quiet so she could finish writing her book. Well now she had it. Should she really be wasting this hard earned silence?

Smiling serenely, she kept the cleaver softly on the floor. Let’s see if you can reach that, she silently challenged the blood whose forward movement had lost some of its steam. She got up and went back to her pen and paper. She closed her eyes, the three part silence enveloping her like a cocoon. She began to write.