Re-Defined

She knew that if she spent another minute pondering about it, she would break. And she could not afford to be broken. Not even if every cell of her pained body pleaded her to give up.

She struggled to get up. She failed. She tried again, this time a little more slowly. She tried to move her arm so it could support her broken body. It refused to budge. How was she ever going to live through this? No, I mustn’t give up, she kept telling herself. So she tried again and failed again and tried again and failed again, until her body refused to put up any more with the struggle it had been bearing for a very very long time now. At last she collapsed. Right next to the man she had murdered just a little while ago. Her mind, too burdened with the weight of the vacuum that he had left in her, began to drift. This time, she allowed herself to daze away into the unconscious emptiness that her mind was leading her into.

And so she just stayed. Stayed there for what might have been hours, perhaps even days, she couldn’t say for sure. Time seemed lost on her. 
Finally she woke up. Realization dawned upon her. The weight of her action struck her with such force it shook her up and made her jerk up from her dizziness to face her dead husband.

Only now, as she looked up at this dead man’s body, she felt different. Her emptiness was being slowly replaced by something else. She felt something move inside her. Very slowly, but surely this something was creeping inside her and moving to her heart. She let out a loud gasp! And then it was done. The heaviness, the unsettled feeling, the emptiness and the fear – all of it was gone, just like that. The creepy feeling now made its way up her throat and touched her lips. It made her mouth curl up very slightly. Very slowly it went up to her cheeks, and after a very very long time they showed a glimpse of colour. Finally, it reached her eyes. And it seemed to her that for the first time she actually saw. As if awakening from a deep trance, she realized finally that he was not around anymore. That she didn’t have to be afraid anymore. Saw that the endless cycle of hurt and pain had finally ended. Saw that she was free. 

And then she felt. No, this was not the feeling of guilt for taking a man’s life. It wasn’t the feeling of death. This was something else. It was the feeling of life. It was the feeling of her being her. It was the feeling of finding herself. It was; her redefining.

Un-Defined

She opened her eyes to see him at a short distance from her. Instantly, a cold fear gripped her. She was afraid. Not of this man. Not of what she had done to him. Not of his damaged body that lay lifeless in the dark corner of the house she had called home for the last 11 months. No. It was something else. Something deep enough to unsettle her very being. Something strong enough to weaken her soul to the extent of causing such turmoil in her mind and heart that she could not bear to think about it for even a moment longer. She knew she had killed a man.

And she knew she had done the right thing. She did not fear the consequences of a murder. Yet, she was afraid. Afraid of that unknown fear that gripped her from within and suffocated her in a way that made her feel as if she were drowning. Maybe she was indeed drowning. Was that how it felt to drown? Surely she was unable to find her breath. And her body wasn’t following what her mind was saying. What was her mind saying anyway? That she had murdered the man she once loved. Why was she not crying then? Where werethe tears? How can she feel so numb? Maybe she was dead too. Dead by drowning in fear? Was that possible? Yes, that was it. She was dead. She had been dead for a long time now.

The constant fear of this man had killed her soul long before he could harm her physical being. Fear of those drunken eyes and how they glared down at her. The eyes that once had affection and love floating in them, had gradually given permanent refuge to anger and arrogance – arrogance that turned this caring, affectionate man into a monster. Her body shivered as she looked at the dead eyes that had humiliated her every night, the limp hands that had hit her face with any object they could find around, the broken legs that had not hesitated to kick her in the abdomen on the days she had taken the bottle away from him. How did it matter that her body still had life remaining in it? Her soul was long dead. She had been full of life once. But this man had taken the life from her and replaced it with fear. And when he left, he had taken away this fear along with him, to leave behind emptiness. That was all that she was now. A piece of undefined emptiness…