Swan's Labyrinth

Mirrored Versions

Mirrors always daunted me;

The sight of an abhorring reflection plastered onto glass always unnerved me;

And while I speak of mirrors, I speak of all the different kinds of mirrors there are-

The mirror of my room:

A tall-standing, proud and smug length of glass attached to my cupboard.

This one reflects a lean figure, tall and slim, setting and meeting a stereotypical standard;

This one reflects bony hands but fleshy legs, dark and unattractive elbows and knees, tiny strings of hair at sporadic places but quite perceptible.

I had learned since the details of my body that collate into forming a human exterior with which possibly keeping company by a boy would be deemed uncomfortable.

Then there is the mirror I bought on a family trip a few years back:

Square and pocket-sized, enhanced further with a silhouette painting of Coco Chanel on its cover.

This one reflects a bare face that is pale with birthmarks lying sporadically in uncanny areas, ink marks on my cheeks after I wrote some words on paper down hastily- all these I’d obscure behind a filter;

This one reflects the eyes that are downturned and heavily bagged for I stayed up late reading or watching television, eyes that can’t hold the gaze of someone enticing for long enough and are of a run-of-the-mill hickory shade of brown.

I had learned since the mundanity of my face with its repellent features and bred detest every-day slowly till it let every ounce of my self-morale drown.

Then there is, of course, the mirrors of the fancy mall bathrooms:

Polished and gleaming, with bulbs set atop at equal distances.

This one reflects a face almost too good to be true, you’d be tempted to dig out your phone from your pocket and click that one picture every single person would double tap and comment on with a heart-eyed emoji along with flooding overwhelming direct messages;

This one also reflects the outfits that would be the last ones that a hipster teen would buy on a shopping spree for they are just as substandard and infantile as the ones they discarded the previous year.

I had learned since that trend-setting was a talent that I would fantasize day and night about and envy every girl possessing it when- all the while- I’d feel small and inferior.

But then one day as I entered the elevator of my housing-building,

There stood a woman with a girl barely any more than six.

We stood silent for a few minutes until the woman bent to the girl’s height as she whispered into her mother’s ear.

The woman smiled at me as she told me with the jolliest voice I had ever heard that her daughter thought I was pretty.

While I thanked the girl- with the heartiest tone I could use to mask my wonder, she buried her face abashedly into her mother’s dress.

And there it was- the silver lining;

The best mirror in all the universes that could exist:

The doe-eyes of a six-year-old girl;

The ones that reflect not the infinitesimal details that the critical world would discern and skepticize but the purest of the hearts would empathize with words that find beauty in the simple,

The ones that reflect the width of my waist, the texture of my skin, the style of my outfits and all other self-deemed flaws of mine in one beautifully unique miscellany.

I have learned since that a slab of glass does not determine my beauty or- for that matter- my worth. It is in the eyes of that innocent beholder- my silver lining- that I found beauty in my ordinary.

You will find your silver lining too. ❤

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: Don’t we all see different versions of ourselves in all the different kinds of reflections that certain mirrors exhibit? How about we start accepting all of them and stop criticizing the little “imperfections” the implausibly high beauty standards have termed “unattractive”, once and for all?

Polarities

1. Distress

A kaccha-house in the midst of a bustling row of slums;

Reeking of rotten fish and the pungent scent of stagnating sewage water;

A boy of age barely more that thirteen cowers in fear against the wall in the corner of his home; he’s a docile animal awaiting his slaughter;

School-books passed on to his little sister, paintings shredded to bits, comic books set ablaze, hope and dreams broken into infinitesimal crumbs.

He chokes out a sigh as he stares out an open window at night as his sister clings to him and weeps silently,

He whispers promises in her ear until she dozes back to sleep and he stays awake till his soul is wrenched out by the night sky;

At dawn, he’ll be shoved off his family and discarded on the threshold of an upscale mansion stridently;

He’ll bleed, suffocate, sob, bruise, feel queasy and beg for release but he’ll learn the hard way soon with a livid, repulsive black-eye.

2. Lethargy

A mansion in the midst of an open, grassy landscape;

A colossal chandelier, carpets of Persia, stairwells of marble with balustrades that seem to lead to the moon, and wall paintings that seem to narrate age-long stories of ancient Greek history;

A boy of age barely more than thirteen gazes out the window of his private library eyeing the trickles of rain with droopy eyes, mouth slightly agape;

His days stretch as long as decades but when the night falls, he is an unfettered bird- if only for a few hours- as he runs clandestine marathons across his territory.

The books on his table lie haphazardly and he has spilled his juice on the carpet accidentally;

The clutter is taken care of very soon as a woman replaces the wasted juice with another and walks away in quick pace with her head hanging low;

He grimaces on the lethargy inculcated in him; it has persisted from an age quite early, Whatever the reason might be, the world to him was forever an undulated stretch of marshland: thriving for some but mostly shallow.

3. Defiance

He watches as a boy roughly of his age- wearing raggedy pieces of clothes, hair a mound of complete hazard, and a missing slipper- collapses on the threshold and is taken for a slave by his caretaker a minute later, He contemplates on the words written in bold in a copy of parable he holds in his hands with dewy eyes:

“All of us, in the Universe of God, are born equal. (Important)”

It was as if on impulse does he crumple and meticulously blades- out of the book- the thin paper,

And stacks it on the pile of his selection of invalid thoughts and preaches of this month next to a matchbox, anticipating nightfall for their demise.

~ to be continued~

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: Economic disparity implied.

Dreamscapes of Her

My phone buzzed with a hundred missed calls and messages that day.

The sink was rancid with the scent of a heap of dirty, unwashed dishes lying in disarray,

A slender bolt of light peeked through the fridge illuminating the dark kitchen, slightly.

A wood cutting board with partly diced tomatoes and a chef’s knife on the kitchen counter, spurned, lay.

The sticky notes affixed on the microwave read ‘I loved us’; handwriting so unsightly.

Last Christmas, i choked on the cake she made, the icing just a little too fancy, the sugar amount just a little too mild,

Tolerated enough the midnight birthday wishes and butterfly kisses on my cheeks,

The dearth of sanguinity and passion in me, I’d rather have myself banished by her or exiled.

Tolerated enough the gratuitous goodbye hugs and secret notes of love poems in tiffin boxes, finding herself no reciprocal of the affection that she seeks.

Tolerate, tolerate, tolerate, tolerate.

Transitory be as love often may, she grieved truth as I did her loss in the end.

Tainted with splattered blood of hope, the walls of this opulent chasm she called home rattled with rage,

Tables turned, but didn’t in a way; I missed my tolerance and her desperation for the lost love to mend.

She said, perhaps in another lifetime, “You kill, I kill. You die, I die.”

We aren’t equal though,

While tolerance twisted and pretzeled my soul in ghastly ways,

She let it take her life on spot with her skull cracked open and her heart covertly ablaze.

(Maybe the gift box enclosing her heart, in the kitchen was just for show then)

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: Literally wrote this in like half an hour but ok

Sacred Simple Home

Home.

My home is here

In the ink etched onto the ochre pages of a coming-of-age novel;

One that I would read covertly beneath the bedsheets through the light of my phone;

One that I would cry a napkin to a pulp over because the story might just wound up on the lovers’ lachrymose argument while one of the two buckles into a grovel;

One that I’d put at the top of my recommendation list and place at a distinguished area in my bookshelf, as though on a throne.

My home.

My home lies in the morning radio show;

One that plays precisely my favourite songs and artists;

One that mitigates every lonesome emotion that inadvertently surges in me and retrieves my heart from the isolation it got so well acquainted with somehow;

One that resembles the saccharine voices of river streams and rainforests;

One that, after shedding bitter tears of heartache, makes me have faith in love and renders it as sacred as a vow;

This is my home.

My home,

Which also lies in nature;

One that offers me varied fragrances of frangipani, periwinkle, bluebell and daisy;

One that plays the morning chirps of goldcrests and siskins, fading out every blaring horn of a car;

One that crashes the waves of its ocean with the obsidians, and paints the sky hazy;

One that rains harmonically while the neighbour’s daughter sits on the balcony playing her guitar.

In fact,

My home is the hustle and bustle of Kolkata City.

One that’s pervaded with the giggles of school children carrying mutton chops and fish fries home, wrapped in Ananda Bazar Patrika newspapers;

One that pops billboards of Mamata Banerjee every now then on flyovers while I travel from the airport to Dida and Dadu’r Badi and my father tries really hard to suppress his smile;

One that coaxes my grandparents to stuff the last bite of roshogolla, kheer kadam and malai chomchom into my mouth because my mother had reiterated time and again about my sweet tooth in casual banters;

One that bids me goodbye every vacation with a wistfulness that overspreads the sky like Durga Pujo’s dhunuchi, echoing tunes of the songs of Rabindranath I learnt as a toddler, all the while.

And finally,

My home lies also in the embrace of those I love;

One that could be instantaneous when my eyes swell and my cheeks stain with dried stripes of tears;

One that could last longer than forever and sustain as a memory in my mind till another lifetime;

One that could well my heart with so much warmth, I’ll hop in their arms laughing away indecorously, disregarding all my petty fears;

One that could speak all the words that they and I’d rather not have spoken, words that could be about anything but, perhaps sublime.

My home lies in simplicity,

Simple things tethered with strings of sacredness and divinity.

~Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: Typical diary entry but make it poetic 😛

The Dripping Navy of Cordelia

Cordelia my dearest,

The azure of your eyes, vivacious like the ultramarine waves of the oceans bespangled with golden speckles as the amber of the sun rays plunge themselves into your iris’,

Your saccharin, honeysuckle melody cascading into ears of sea creatures rendering them sanguine, jaunty adorbs.

The streaks of desiccated carmine on your arm glint like the bright scarlet and chartreuse of blended valour and amiability, igniting enamours like virus’.

Unyielding and flamboyant undeniably so you are, your heart is still porcelain fragile with pelting rancid rancour of locutions but still, beating amiably with tainted hope like budding patches of forbs.

Cordelia my dearest,

Your satin monofin flapping like wings of exuding ambrosia sapphire, taming the water till it claims you its proprietor.

You wrap all your creatures around your finger laying kisses atop their heads akin to weightless, ivory feathers brushing across from one to another.

The ivory of your hair, embellished with cyanic edges pirouettes in the breeze while you lay asleep on glowing obsidians; observing you would render the world a little quieter.

Most perceptibly in an ultramarine stretch of water dappled with the diamonds of ivory, glinting stars, you’re a fulminating supernova of turquoise and sapphire.

Cordelia, oh my dearest of all,

Must you transfer sears of the agonies of love to the pumping organ in my chest, entangling my heartstrings only to end up throttling itself as it bleeds out all blood till I’m deemed a congealed, stone of a corpse?

Must you command my quavering fingers to writhe as they pine to run through the ivory of your hair and the pearl of your skin, and the fuchsia of your lips till they claim them as theirs?

Must you cram my agonizing heart between the longing for a taste of your fuchsia lips and the smudges of the bleeding sham of it all? Exhaustion, exhaustion, exhaustion! Alas, my organ warps.

Oh Cordelia, the lovely daughter of the sea,

Too late was I too to realize that you were just a cacophony of words from my air-castle musings deviating me to mania as they promised to smear cobalt on my bloodstained, pierced soul?

Shame!

In the end you’re always a guide to sorcery inked in cobalt that an amber page of age-long witchcraft books still bears.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: This poem was written in collaboration with one of my friends wherein she created an artwork based on my OC- Shamrock and I, a poem on hers- Cordelia. Do check out her Instagram profile via the link: https://www.instagram.com/theothergirls.art/

Salutations of Grief

We strummed the guitar strings till our fingers bled,

Sang our favourite songs at night when mom and brother were asleep,

You let me use the majority half of the blanket and shivered yourself to sleep,

And now I’m alone gaping at our dingy music room; “I’ll always be by your side,” you had said.

So, this is grief.

The kind that seizures your body till your heart throbs inordinately and mutilates slowly.

The kind that greets you while you stand gawking at the mirror and lays its head on your shoulder till your knees buckle and your tears cascade profusely.

The kind that lets your coffee run cold on a dazzling, sunny day and wilts the petals of the dainty flowers from your backyard garden cruelly.

The kind that spoons you in bed and sings ballads of painstaking memories to you only to make sure your salty tears stain your cheeks and you stay awake till they stab a million holes in your heart, hastily.

We’re blasting songs on the radio again,

~“Although loneliness has always been a friend of mine
I’m leavin’ my life in your hands”~

What a shame I’m standing alone watching the winds blow the curtains

And picturing your attempts at pirouetting along the room again.

Who’s going to pet my head and tousle my hair again

When I am home with an accolade once more?

Who’s going to reprimand me for my wrongdoings again?

Who’s going to give me advice on girls again

When I botch-up my attempts at proposals once more?

Who’s going to take me to late night drives

When I’m ladened with work again?

Who do I talk to now?

How am I supposed to find you again?

So yes,

This is grief.

Grief with its two arms blanketing my soul assuring me that I’m not alone.

Grief with its two ears listening earnestly while I ramble about memories foregone.

Grief with its two eyes giving me company at eyeing old pictures and videos archived in my phone.

Grief with its two lips parting to duet with me as the special star in the night sky shone.

This

Grief.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: This was inspired by a real incident when one of my sister’s friends lost his father.

Vivian’s Vengeance

I was once a cannonball swerving past every soul to try and annihilate the one that I held dear.

What was the point, one may ask?

I don’t know.

Maybe I feared the way she ignited the waning flame in me.

The one that permeated the warmth of joy.

The one that could thaw the frost of pain.

Vivian.

She was life, peace, love and all of that conflated into perfection. The good kind of perfection.

Maybe, I feared that.

So much so that I could not endure the tenderness of her presence and I snuffed her flame.

Yes.

I did that.

But her absence elevated my fatality.

I alleviate the pangs in my chest and my head with the demise of the extraordinarily ordinary.

Like the one before me today.

Her hair blowing gently with the summer breeze slowly congealing into slaps of vigorous wind currents.

Her eyes fixated on me as her lips parted in wonder.

She’s the ambience of a cavernous, ancient, dark, ominous library with shelves and a stairway of bronze and paintings of Greek Gods and Goddesses, the antique books on witchcraft and court romance, and a shimmering chandelier lighting the room.

She makes me want to lose my mind and read her like she’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ written in pirouetting calligraphy.

She’s a treasure trove of words so consequential and worthwhile.

But one must be on the vehement quest to hear them.

She’s the perfect dupe for my fall from grace.

But must I slither around her neck and lacerate her flesh for blood when she embodies Vivian flawlessly?

She emanates the same aura as hers.

Must I peculate the blood of a soul so congenial and make a pulp out of her throbbing organ so warm as Vivian’s?

Until her frame stood in front of my eyes.

I watch as she recoils in amazement upon eyeing the pigment of my iris.

What do I do when she stands there at a standstill and I face a dilemma?

Walk into joy’s horizon with her or lead her to my cavern of death?

Fool.

She follows me for I told her too.

Fool. Fool. Fool.

Mad, insane, lunatic, crazy, deranged, mental, bedlamite.

Bedlamite.

Vivian.

She asks my name. Why? Why?

Her voice sounds just as I imagined- an archaic fireplace with logs of wood burning with cracks and sizzles so euphonic and a grand, antique piano playing the Fur Elise.

She makes me want to lose my mind and listen to her like she’s Mozart’s 40th Symphony playing frivolously on my rainy days.

But I don’t.

I don’t because I’m meant to lacerate flesh like hers.

Oh, but must she have to remind of Vivian in each step?

I observe every detail of hers.

The way her eyes twitched and beads of sweat on her forehead formed profusely and her lips quivered as I disappeared out of her sight.

The way she hyperventilated and was about to retrace her steps in belief of having been delusional until I dug my canines deep into her neck.

She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t gasp. Doesn’t hiss. Doesn’t shriek. Doesn’t cry for help.

She closes her eyes. Slowly.

And I feel the frost inside of me thaw like how Vivian once did.

Her blood leaks with the hue of my eyes.

Her shamrock blood and my shamrock eyes.

I let go of her as I feel myself choke.

Vivian.

The perfect revenge.

Why must she face a homicide again when a human girl embodying her details could wreak vengeance on me?

I feel myself throttle as I watch the girl fall to the ground, frail and smiling.

And I ignite like the vent of a volcano as I turn into ashes steadily, dying the deserving death of a homicide.

And flashes of Vivian are all I can comprehend as she eyes me with her classic misty eyes, a stellar, cosmic nebulae; tears of stardust and words of my musings.

But it changes in an instant.

She smirks with triumphant eyes and tears of pain and joy to replicate words of my musings.

And I realize.

I could have either walked with her into her blinding, sunlit horizon of forever or faced this retribution.

I fade as she does too.

And left the girl with the memory of my homicide with a young clover as she deceased,

Much like how I nestled Vivian’s frame in my chest.

My body is a pyre of ash but my heart concealing her frame hasn’t, even slightly, creased.

Notes: Part 4 i.e. the FINALE of the ‘Shamrock’ mini series. Yayyy!

Lacerated Flesh and Heart

I will slither around your neck and gnaw at your flesh till I mutilate you.

I will bore my squalid, viridescent canines into your heart and rip out every capillary till i efface the crimson hue.

I love green. It’s a fatal mistake humans find solace in the colour.

Green is venom. It will guzzle your souls till you die a most agonizing death. Green is the hue that will exude from my eyes till you smother.

I am a warped viper.

I will hold you spellbound under the spell of my shamrock eyes.

I will ambush you as I hold you captive in the sequestered dungeons of my life.

I will leave you biting the dust on the filthy ground where the blood of thousands have dried.

I will grow mighty and robust as you rot to death. The more you rot, the more I solidify. But sinks way deeper in my heart, the knife.

I lost her.

The bedlamite that painted the darkest of my skies a lovely red.

She wrote on them the perfect chance at happiness for me. A forever with her. Just me and her.

But my story was written in tragic ink and distorted calligraphy with a begrimed ‘The End.’

Happiness came gratuitously and my mind fell apart in disarray.

So I finished it.

I extinguished it.

The warmth of joy,

I snuffed it.

I killed her.

She’s gone.

She took away with her the happiness she proffered to me.

I killed her.

She took away with her all the goodness she proffered to me

I killed her

She took away with her all the forever she proffered to me

I killed her

killed

her

And now with her gone, what good lies in goodness?

So I quench my remorse with the ballads of death

The death of souls that find joy but never content.

The death of souls that are reserved but never abrasive.

The death of souls who are a bag of emotions but never vent.

The death of souls that survive but never live.

Because with her gone, what good lies in goodness?

I am an incandescent homicide.

I will hold you spellbound under the spell of my shamrock eyes.

I will ambush you as I hold you captive in the sequestered dungeons of my life.

I will leave you biting the dust on the filthy ground where the blood of thousands have dried.

I will grow mighty and robust as you rot to death. The more you rot, the more I solidify. But sinks way deeper in my heart, the knife.

For

Lost

Her.

Notes: Part 3 of the ‘Shamrock’ mini series

Clandestine Propinquity

The tents we built with the kind of fervor and vehemence you see in robots

Fell apart in the storm we inflicted.

We were in fact robots, oblivious to our other halves who pined day and night for our fingers to fit perfectly between theirs.

We were victims of a mondegreen. We misinterpreted our song’s lyrics for love when in fact it was deceit.

The pumping organs in our chest gradually solidify into frost.

The frost we wished we could thaw with our moulding bodies covertly.

But, we were a house of cards,

Oblivious to our other halves who pined for our fingers, dusk and dawn, to fit perfectly between theirs.

We look deep into each other’s eyes and see their reflection flash on our iris’.

We speak nineteen to a dozen then fall asleep nestling their frames in our disintegrating hearts.

We turn a blind eye to our clandestine propinquities perpetually.

We embrace each other because it’s easy.

I see her in you.

You see him in me.

And we shun the clandestine propinquity we have with them and hail our cowardice.

We’re frantic with trepidation in our souls.

We turn a blind eye to our clandestine propinquities perpetually.

We embrace each other because it’s easy.

I see her in you.

You see him in me.

And we shun the clandestine propinquity we have with them and hail our cowardice.

We’re frantic with trepidation in our souls.

We don’t want grapevines and whispers fragmenting to ruin our ego.

We’re fleeing from the countless flourishing roses in our hearts for a clown and a bedlamite.

We’d be a disgrace.

We’d besmirch our eminence.

But, we would wilt slowly like tender leaves who believed they were strong.

And now he’s back.

He’s bellowing your name from rooftops.

He’s not a clown anymore.

He has changed for you.

He wants all of you and you, him.

You flash your misty eyes at me; I let go of your hand from mine; you run for your freedom and there you are disappearing into the blazing sun of joy and forever, with him in your arms.

I stand upright and motionless in a hailstorm, letting the frostbite turn me into a glacier.

I see her reaching out for me, misty-eyed.

She’s a stellar, cosmic nebulae; tears of stardust and words of my musings.

I get lost every fucking time I see her!

I am a stray human dazed with her thoughts.

Her entity solicits mine. Her heart too. Her soul too.

And I almost give in.

For I get lost every fucking time I see her!

She implores me to find happiness with her.

She’s smiling, concealing her dejection.

She’s stretching out her hand for what seems like ages but I am at a standstill.

Because I get lost every fucking time I see her!

And I walk towards her.

I see hope igniting in her eyes.

Her smile dazzles.

Her smile triggers my lips.

They elongate too.

And I realize I haven’t ever smiled before.

And I almost get there.

I almost clasp her palms

Almost…

Almost there…

But she’s innocent.

She’s vulnerable and gullible.

And I watch her earnestly as she descends slowly to her decease, as she slopes gradually down from the rooftop, as the flicker of hope in her eyes vanishes and she closes her eyes and she smiles wider.

She fell for a homicide.

A homicide, she knew would never forget how he lost himself every fucking time he saw her.

I snuffed her but she lives on somehow.

She lives on and she still conquers my mind’s vicinity.

For I nestled her frame deep in the agitating pumping organ in my chest

For I won’t ever want to forget our clandestine propinquity.

Notes: Part 2 of the ‘Shamrock’ mini series, giving a peek into Shamrock’s character background.

Shamrock

Why does he sit alone in the park?

He sits on the bench, head bent low till his nose touches his dingy, little black notebook as he seems to be reading something.

What a strange, strange boy. Only in brief moments in time have I really had the chance to see his face.

A fleeting glimpse. Next to impossible to make out anything distinctive about him.

And yet, he seems so perfect.

He loathes company, they say, of the ordinary. Ordinary? Like me… and my imaginary friend…and my other imaginary friends…and their imaginary friends…all of my delusions.

What kind of extraordinary does he seek?

I wonder…

The leaves whistle. The winds are howling and raging. A strange day in mid-summer. The park is empty, apart from the two of us. A girl born ready to spill zillions of words out of her mouth each day but is forced to bottle them up and a boy with words shrouded by will, too defiant to confide in someone else. Two enigmatic souls tethered by a thin, invisible thread of silence.

Should I talk to him?

A polite remark, idle conversation.

Something about the weather, perhaps?

Perfect reason why I fumble over words while speaking. A boring, uninteresting, monotonous, bland girl. Dry as dust. He obviously won’t budge even in the tiniest bit.

And then being the castle in the air, delusional girl that I am

I, mustering up my courage, take slow, steady steps towards him.

He’s a statue. Stoic. A canvas painted with flawless, pristine features.

Every inch of him, perfect. He is beautiful. The most beautiful boy ever.

Yet, I yearn for his voice to be in my earshot. Clear.

It could be husky, deep, raspy, scary

Or what if it’s sweet, gentle, comforting and loving?

I stop on my tracks. Horrified. My heart racing marathons that never seem to end on a finish line.

He looks up.

His eyes. Oh, his eyes. Hot, scorching, blazing flames of crimson in the corners and an odd shade of green.

The kind of green that sweeps you from your feet and submerges you in thick, frothy poison.

The kind of green that would beguile you and drizzle excruciating scraps of lovely pain in your gullible eyes.

I think I will die.

I am floating in clouds and plummeting to the ground all at once.

It’s not a death glare. And yet, it is.

The hypnotic glare of a silent, beautiful boy.

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades, and centuries pass by, and the world stays as still as the rivers in ice, cold winter.

He stands up. I step back. He steps forward.

“Follow me,” is all he says as he shifts his eyes towards the exit of the park.

His voice is everything that I imagined. Deep, raspy, mysterious, and yet so beautifully consuming.

His glare latched his orders onto me. I am tethered to him, and I follow him, unblinking, jaw on the floor.

I must look ludicrous, but I could care about that as much as a starving, stray dog could about the germs on a heap of wasted food in a trash can.

I amble deliriously behind him. Following his trails. Eyes affixed to his back.

His hair is ebony black. A typical hairstyle for a boy.

“What’s your name?” I ask

My voice comes out quivery and I am almost embarrassed, knowing he won’t really be bothered to answer until he responds,

“Shamrock.”

Odd. So very, very odd.

He was named after the colour of his eyes. Yes!

Shamrock, an odd leaf too.

A metaphor for the Christian Holy Trinity.

Young clover.

Perhaps, his family is religious.

I hope he’s not staunch.

Silence devoured us whole for the next few minutes until we finally reached a spot.

Secluded, surreptitious and a colossal parking lot. No cars, bikes, scooters, or any form of vehicle. It’s eerily empty.

I am shivering. Where has he brought me?

He stands ahead of me. Stock-still. Doesn’t twitch even slightly.

My spine has run cold. It’s ice. My hands are trembling. My legs are soggy noodles threatening to buckle.

The boy stands as is. His back facing me. Calm, silent as though he’s asleep.

Then he breathes. Hard. Long. Inhales…. Exhales.

I blink.

He’s gone. Out of sight. My lips are quivering. My eyes are threatening to fall from their sockets. I am hyperventilating. My forehead is forming beads of sweat. “He was a hallucination. Like always, I was delusional,” I convince myself.

And then, just as I was about to turn around, I heard soft breathing near my right ear from my back.

So soft and intoxicating, it’s almost palpable.

He is leaning towards my neck, so steadily, so leisurely. I am sedated. So perfectly stock-still and bewitched, the cold hangs its head in indignation for not having been able to transfer its shivers to me.

And then, in the spur of the moment, at supersonic speed, in a rapid flash, I am being poisoned.

He is biting my skin. Burying his sharp canines into my skin. I don’t scream. I close my eyes as the green of his eyes exudes out of my skin.

His shamrock eyes and my shamrock blood.

I am in a delirium hoping from every depth in my heart to freeze this moment so I could revisit it forever.

I fall to the ground; his teeth are no longer burrowed in my neck.

He is no longer in sight.

He is gone.

Forever.

The green of my blood is no longer seeping out of my skin.

I am healed. (Was I ever hurt?)

But my eyes droop.

My eyelids have almost shut until I feel a soft breeze on my face.

A breeze that brings along with it a leaf. A leaf that falls face-first on my face.

I clasp it in my hand.

It’s a young clover. Shamrock.

And I fall asleep.

Forever.

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: There will be a sequel to this from the opposite perspective.