The Belt

Getting out of the shower, I was clean. However, I could still feel the blood on my skin, clinging to me for eternity.

As I was heading towards the living room, my knees wobbled and my feet refused to move.

I knew I would not be able to fathom the sight of the body anymore.

I silently sat down in the middle of the bedroom and I looked around.

The bedsheets messy from when I had woken up yesterday. The clothes still in the hamper, waiting to be folded. The dresser, still adorned with the bindis of ma. As if she would come any second, nagging at me, 'don't you know that you have to make the bed when you wake up late?'. Putting up her hair in a bun, she would go to the dresser, having come fresh from a bath, to put on her sindoor and then she would pick a bindi from the mirror of the dresser and adorn her forehead with it.

She would go to the hamper and keep it beside the bed. She would then simultaneously be making the bed and complaining about how everything in the house has to be done by her. Bed made, she would tip the clothes onto it and then start folding each cloth with care.

Then she would scold me for making my hair 'a bird's nest' and then she would sit behind me, oil my hair and braid it.

I could still feel her gentle fingers working their way through my hair and caressing my scalp, massaging it with oil.

I remember complaining about that particular activity. Now I long for her to come and oil my bird nest hair and make it into a beautiful braid.

I long for the the aanchal of her saree to fan my face.

I cannot believe that she is gone.

That I will never heard her voice again.

That I will never get to complain about her cooking again.

That I will never heard her laugh again.

Her dead body flashes before my eyes and I run to the bathroom, emptying my stomach into the comode.

I lie on the bathroom floor, the tiles cool against my heated skin.

I get up and look at myself in the mirror above the sink. Hair all over the place and tears running down my face with red, swollen eyes. I look a mess.

At that exact moment, my stomach growls, voicing it's demand for food. I hear it's plea but my body refuses to cross the border between bedroom and living room. I can do nothing.

Suddenly, there's a loud bang and I realise, I recognise the noise. It's the front door opening. It's the sound of his arrival, exactly like yesterday.

Fear creeps up my throat and my screams are stuck inside my soul as I hear him, stomping and stumbling towards my direction.

For a second I am paralyzed, what does he want now?

The next moment, I'm running from the bathroom to the bedroom and hiding beneath the bed, all in one motion, my body driven by pure fright.

I may be young but yesterday taught me that that man is capable of all things one would consider horrible.

I did not know what exactly he wished from me but I knew it could be nothing good.

All at once the footsteps stopped, and his feet came into view. I could see he had still not changed from the rags and I felt disgust at being related to him.

He called, "Amba, where are you?" It was said in an almost sing song manner, as if all of this was a joke. As if he hadn't just killed his wife and the mother of his child, yesterday.

I could bet he still had her blood on his hands, that dirty bastard.

"Amba, come out right now or I'll have to forcibly pull you out!"

His voice had come too close now. It sounded like it was directly above me.

I felt the bed creak, he was sitting on the bed.

I prayed to every god I knew, that he would just leave. I had started crying without my own notice, the terror too great.

Suddenly, I was pulled out of my thoughts by something.

It was almost unnoticeable, a guest of air tickling my bare feet. Something about it was off though, it was too gentle to be from outside and a bit warm.

Shaking with fear, I turned around and without my will, a scream escaped my throat. He was looking at me from behind having leaned down from the bed.

I quickly tried to scramble away but he caught my feet in a grip. I kicked at his hands as hard as I could and was successful.

I crawled out and ran with all I had in me.

I could hear him following, his steps heavy due to his greater weight.

I ran through the living room, past my ma's body, past the kitchen and I had reached the middle of the hallway, just a little more and I would be out of here.

I did not know what I would do once I was out but I knew that I had to go to a police station.

I was at the entryway, and all of a sudden I felt myself going down, hitting the ground full force. I looked at what had made me fall and realised that I had stumbled upon his shoes.

My knees were bruised but I didn't care, I had to go out. I quickly got up and opened the door, I had one foot out the door when someone grabbed my shoulder and yanked me inside. I was thrown on the floor and it took me a while to catch my breath and try to get up from the hard, cold floor.

As I was getting up, he kicked me in the stomach.

"I told you to come out nicely but you just had to be stubborn, just like your ma isn't it?"

Another kick.

"I said I'd pull you out, but looks like I had to pull you in, funny right?"

He squished my face in his hands.

"Answer me, you stupid girl!"

A slap.

"Laugh, it's funny."

Another slap.

"Ha, ha, ha. Laugh, I said."

Another slap.

"Still so stubborn, just like your stupid dead mother."

He grabbed my hair and started dragging me towards the bedroom. I couldn't help the cries of agony that escaped me.

He dragged me through the pool of blood and now I was stained with the life elixir of my ma once more.

He threw me on the bed and pinned me down.

He started taking off my clothes. I struggled as hard as I could. This was something that I couldn't understand and that scared me even more.

The cold air hit my skin as I was stripped naked.

He then threw me on to the floor and started taking his belt off.

I was completely out of my depth in this situation.

And then came pain that I had never felt before.

He struck my delicate body with the metal buckle of his belt.

"Now, how about laughing?"

He was using his belt as a whip.

"Laugh"

One more bloody line added to the ones on my body.

It felt like time had slowed down and the torture lasted forever.

" Ha, ha, ha", I said feebly, all of my strength had seeped out of me.

He stopped.

"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"

I stayed silent.

"Answer me"

"No, it wasn't." I gritted through my teeth.

My bloody body slipping on the floor.

"You will call me sir, from now on, understood?"

"Yes, sir "

He left me there on the floor, satisfied with his efforts to tame me I suppose.

I breathed through the agony of each movement, as I got up and went to shower.

I thought about the possibility of becoming my everyday and could not supress the shudder that ran through my body.

I entered the bathroom, the cold, still air making goosebumps rise on my tender skin that was now red with blood.

The smell of copper was an assault on my nostrils as I turned on the shower.

The water stung all my wounds and I could see the bruise on my stomach turn an ugly black.

I watched as the water turned red once more but this time from my own blood.

It felt like an odd sort of deja vu and I was once again left crying in the shower as the water washed blood away.