Lavender and Dust

Zyris woke to the rustle of paper and the sterile hum of the fan blade.

Morning light filtered through the hospital window.

His eyes opened slowly, not from pain or grogginess, but from calculation.

The events of the previous day sat clean and sharp in his mind.

And if the system worked as predictably as it always had, the head-lady's mask was about to fall off.

He turned his head.

No one was in the room now.

The officer had left last night, defeated,not with a confession or even a shred of proof. He had made sure of that.

He had spoken too calmly,confidently and innocently. The officer had nothing to hold him on.

There were no injuries that suggested he had fought back.

There was no cause of death that made sense.

He had also smiled,perfectly,at the right time.

The blame should shift elsewhere.

To the one person it always should have,the woman who made a career out of cruelty.

He sat up and removed the IV needle from his arm without flinching even a little and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

When the nurse finally came in with a clipboard and a surprised blink, he was already sitting, waiting, perfectly still.

"You're awake?",she said.

"I recover quickly."

She frowned,"They are sending someone to take you back to the orphanage."

Zyris raised an eyebrow,"Really? That is interesting".

He didnt ask who.

If the head-lady had been arrested, the staff structure would already be shifting. Someone else would come.

That someone turned out to be a woman in her thirties with a plain cotton salwar and a cheerful, open expression.

She was waiting outside the hospital gates when Zyris stepped out in borrowed clothes,khaki trousers and a loose school-issued shirt.

She smiled brightly and opened the back door of a small grey hatchback.

"Hello, Zyris. I'm Mrs. Anya. I have come to take you back."

Zyris got in without a word.

The drive was short. Sector 19 in Noida wasn't far. But the silence between them was thick.

The orphanage appeared on the horizon like a dull bruise,a crumbling two-story structure with iron gates and a drying playground.The same dogs barked from the same corners. The same layers of dust coated the walls.

But something was different.

Zyris stepped out of the car and walked through the gate without a word. No one greeted him. No children peered around corners. The air was still.

Inside, all the children were in the main hall.the only hall, really,with rows of narrow beds lined up like hospital cots.

Some kids sat, some lay down, others just stared blankly at the ceiling fans.

A thin tension hung in the air, not fear exactly, but uncertainty.

Ms. Anya followed him in, her sandals quiet against the cement floor. Her cheerful presence was a strange contrast to the mood, but it wasn't forced. She moved like someone who believed things could get better.

"You're not the head-lady", he said, turning to look at her.

She gave a warm smile.

"No,she won't be returning."

Zyris tilted his head.

"For how long?"

"Permanently."

So it worked.

"Death sentence?"

"They are deliberating."

He nodded once, taking that in.

He felt no grief,no satisfaction,just confirmation.

"I've been transferred here to take over",Mrs. Anya said.

"I'll be managing things from now on."

Zyris stared at her.

"Voluntarily?"

She laughed lightly.

"Yes."

Her tone was honest and cheerful.

She didn't wear the hardened mask of someone used to breaking others.

She carried the air of someone who believed children were worth protecting.

She motioned toward the back.

"Come. You've been assigned a bed."

The walk through the orphanage was revealing.

Everything was quieter. The fear that usually hung like smoke in the corridors was gone. But it hadnt been replaced by warmth,just confusion.

The other children looked at him from behind cracked doors and frayed curtains. Some with curiosity.

Some with fear.

No one said a word.

"Where is everyone?" he asked.

"Some are still being questioned," she replied.

"About me?"

"About everything."

She led him to a bed near the far end of the hall. Like all the others, it was thin and metallic, with a folded blanket and a shelf beside it. He sat down. She smiled once more, gave a small nod, and walked away.

The hall had no locks,just eyes.

Zyris sat still for several minutes, listening to the new rhythm of the place. Different footsteps.

New voices.

There was a new scent in the air,of lavender and sanitizer, not sweat and cheap alcohol.

He laid back, staring at the ceiling.

Something inside him was changing.

It had started sometime ago, in that silence after Ramit's death.

But now he could feel it more distinctly,it felt as if his mind, his conscience, had grown in volume,not louder,not clearer,just bigger.

It was like a shadow stretching slightly longer at sunset.

He concentrated, letting his thoughts fan out over the smallest possible details,the hum of the ceiling fan, the slow breath of a sleeping boy across the hall, the faint ticking of a bug crawling inside the mattress.

It was unmistakable.

It was roughly 4.5 percent bigger.

It hadnt grown metaphorically or emotionally,but cognitively.

He could feel and process more.

It was a subtle expansion.

He stared upward,utterly still.

Something new had begun.

And he would understand it.

He had time.