Title - Delusion of Illusions


A tiny freckle hid in the boundary of her cracked lips. She frowned at the remnant of her burgundy lipstick, congregated in cracks of chapped terrain. She pursed her lips to smoothen them. She could never ignore mirrors, never pass one without spending a minute to study her appearance, the face that looked back always appears strange—never matching the image she had in her mind. It’s like she was a different person wearing a cocoon. She often forgets the face of this cocoon, but once a day when she would pass the gleaming mirror, the cocooned self would stare back. And she would try to find herself in the image and the image fails to match the one in her mind. So, all she could do was assess the stranger. It’s not that the face is unfamiliar. It’s the same one she has been staring at for as long as she can remember. There was a time when she used to hide from the image. When she was too dark, too ugly, too pimpled, so she would hide from every reflecting surface, pass them in a blur. Now she has gotten into the nasty habit of staring at herself. Maybe it’s because she now found herself not so ugly. She wasn’t sure if she was pretty but with time, she had stopped shying away from mirrors and photos a little, her confidence lived from one compliment to another. One good look in a nicely lit frame and the day would pass in happiness, a stare or smile would be interpreted as a compliment instead of mockery. It was amazing how the face in the mirror changed every day without changing at all. She could not come to a single conclusion. Was she pretty or not? Did she get pretty with time or did her mind get used to her appearance and it is all a cognitive bias? The thought took more of her brain space than warrented, especially now with a bloody corpse in front of her and blood splattered on the mirror.

The large clock dial announced the arrival of midnight. Tarun would be back in an hour. She had to be quick. She started running to the store room when she remembered that they had cleared it in last Diwali's cleaning. There was a purple bedsheet which was used to tie all old clothes. So, this Diwali they finally donated them all but she couldn't remember what she did with the bedsheet.

She started rummaging through her cupboard, her hands shaking occasionally as she would hear someone walk past her door. She took a breath and pulled all the clothes from the cupboard. It has to be here. Why are things so readily available when you don't need them, but when there is an emergency they become the champion of hide and seek? The floorboard creaked again. Her heartbeat quickened for a millisecond and then her eyes fell on the coarse fabric under her red Banarsi saree.

The body was already cold. She dragged the heavy carcass of a man who was miserable in life and now a burden in death. He was wearing a white and blue checkered shirt or at least he was before she carefully removed it and bundled it in the polytene along with his other clothes and belongings, to be burned in a dumpster fire. She has always hated that shirt so it would give her some relief to finally burn it. Of course, it would have been better if she didn't have to burn the man wearing it as well but small victories.

The shirt belonged to Tarun before it found its way to him via the paint spill incident of 2015, ideated and orchestrated with the ingenuity of a diamond heist by her and Sapna, the house help. Sadly all the efforts were to no avail because the next morning the shirt reappeared in her life through Sanju, the driver. Tarun was a little too kind to the servants.

Another white SUV zooms past their colonial-style six-bedroom house, its headlights briefly illuminating the darkness of the suburban street. What were the odds of arousing suspicion if anyone were to catch sight of her, hauling a garbage bag twice her size? In her hooded jacket and black slacks, she hoped to be inconspicuous. Her lips pursed in a grimace at the irony—she who spent a lifetime hoping for a moment of attention finding comfort in the shadows. To crave attention without ever excluding the want was her fate. To be labeled as someone who wants attention and ridiculed for it seemed like a fate worse than death to her teen self. Life in the teen world was a conundrum—a labyrinth of unspoken rules and wild ambition. While maturity is the sobering realization that those were the best days life had to offer.

The loud buzz of the doorbell awakened her from her sad stupor, her gaze involuntarily falling on the spotless white marble floor. The bell rang again, quickening her heartbeat with each loud bang.

"Open the door, Amrita!" Tarun's annoyed, muffled grumble through the thick wooden door finally made her feet move to the entrance. She mechanically punched the code, allowing the manual lock to slide and the tired frame in the Brioni coat to pass through the well-lit foyer. He walked past her, she again a ghost in her bright red saree, his eyes looking straight ahead and hers glued to his tired back. She imagined touching those broad shoulders and kneading all his troubles away. She could almost hear his sigh of relief.

How she missed those days when there was a glimmer in those eyes. When the corner of his mouth would refuse to drop in the face of the toughest adversity. When trivial jokes would drive him to a fit of laughter. When those brows weren't arched in distress.

She hated seeing the worrying lines, crowding his forehead. The man full of life has disappeared, leaving a shell of sadness and solitude in his wake. His eyes were still the color of melted chocolate on an amber hue, but the thickness of his lips was now set rigid, a stranger to smiles.

The tiny voice of hope in her heart wouldn't give up. She wished desperately for him to turn. Even if for a split second, to see her. Years of suppressed unsaid emotion will break free at his one gaze, flowing past the barrier of her captivity. She would scream at him for being blind, for robbing them of so much time, and then tightly envelop him in her embrace. Say it to him at last, that he wasn't alone, she was there and would never leave him alone.

He was already her everything; she could be his something too.

But as usual, his preening eyes were lost in an abyss unknown. She felt something hard setting on her heart, crushing the little voice, mocking it with cruelty. He wouldn't turn. He couldn't turn. Because she was not her.

'She' was the epitome of beauty. Amrita was certain that 'she' would have never shied from mirrors. 'She' would have strutted past every reflecting surface from the translucent windowpane to the merciless gym mirrors, like a peacock, draped in colors and style. 'She' was magnificent—the embodiment of his every desire.

Even in distress, as her hooded eyes widened in alarm and her lips whimpered from the pain of the ghastly wound, blood leaking from the tear as she clutched the knife embedded in her stomach, she remained a beauty. She was a damsel in distress of some Shakespearean tragedy, her moist eyes and scrunched nose, melting the hearts of heroes and villains alike. When finally her dainty arms forfeited to the pain and blood gushed out, painting her stomach red, even Amrita couldn't help but feel regret—a waste of such sublime beauty

Those eyes were the first to catch Tarun's attention. Now, they stare at her from every direction. From the mantle on the piano fold, smiling as Tarun playfully tugs her reddish brown locks; or from the wall behind the sofa, where she sat majestically in her huge portrait, gracing the room with her angelic smile. He had captured her every emotion: an intense Zara lost in her books, an animated Zara tearing through the festive wrapping paper covering a tiny blue Tanishq box, an elated Zara clutching a bouquet of peonies while three ladies in fuchsia pink held the long trail of her timeless white dress. A heart-shaped golden pendant peeked from her sweetheart neckline.

There were a dozen more pictures of her, a few with Tarun's adoring gaze and some with the tranquility of a man who has everything in life. Then there were a few where she seemed lost, her eyes unfocused, a tight smile on her lips, minuscule worry lines conspicuous only to those who had spent hours studying the unblemished face.

Tarun lounged on the white sofa, his back to the magnificent portrait of his dead ex-wife.

"How was your day?" Typing some unknown message with one hand while massaging his temple with the other, Tarun inquired as a formality. He was always so kind, so polite. To all his servants

Amrita walked past the photographic shrine of Zara towards the kitchen. "The usual," she replied, shrugging her shoulders. "Grocery shopping and cleaning."

"Oh! That reminds me," she added with a little force to get his attention, "I got into rearranging the storeroom, so don't go in there; it's a total mess."

"I never get why you bother with all this cleaning," she could hear Tarun reply absentmindedly from the other room.

"Everything I do, I do for you." Her whispers were lost amidst the sound of the blender crushing coriander leaves and tomatoes, mixing in lemon juice to make a mossy dark green paste.

The kitchen was always her haven to hide. In her kingdom, only Sapna - her second in command - had little authority to govern, and not without her seal of approval. There was stability here; nothing changed. Never a mutinous flutter from dried leaves or careless rolling of tomatoes left on the platform. As though time froze in her absence, only to resume its flow as her feet crossed the threshold, restoring life to her territory. Every being here catered to her wishes, from the exhaust to the boisterous blender, alienating her senses from the real world.

The sweet floral aroma of cloves, cardamom, and saffron floated around, mingling with the subtle scent of basmati rice. She covered the pan with a steel plate, locking the smell in, barring its escape from the Harbor.

As she left the kitchen, she could sense the shift in the air; something had changed. Maybe it was her still-shaken nerves, or perhaps the room's sudden eerie silence. The silence wasn't uncommon; a house of two is seldom with much commotion besides the polite chatter, but this silence was different.

A sense of anticipation hung in the air. What would someone frightened of change anticipate? But somehow she knew things were about to change. The only question is was she ready for it? Despite all her doubts, her feet glided towards the room. And sure enough, there he was, standing shell-shocked in the middle of the room.

She wasn't surprised. This was the first time he had entered her room, and it had to be today. She still felt oddly calm. Finally, it was time... He was aware of her presence. He had heard her, she was sure, but when he didn't turn, she took it upon herself to break the pregnant pause.

"What are you doing here, sir?" His body audibly flinched, and his back stiffened, "I-I lost my--"

"It doesn't matter." She opened the poorly closed drawer, letting all the secrets out. Carefully taking out the necklace, still not clean, blood splattered in a strange pattern, she was careful not to ruin the pattern of blood. It was his trophy, who was she to rinse off its memories?

"Sanju found it." Her placid demeanor was stark against the naked panic in his eyes.

"S-S-Sanju?" Perspiration covered his forehead; his torso shaking. He was never of a strong stomach. He wasn't a brave man. She still wonders how he ever did it.

"It's not what you think--" His explanation trailed off, his protest weak. Then suddenly as if struck by lightning, "Where is Sanju?" He demanded.

"Don't worry." Finally, his eyes met hers; there was something dark in them, something vulnerable. Such contrasting emotions on a single face. Her voice softened, unknown maternal instincts overtaking her to comfort the scared man in front of her, "He is taken care of."

"Taken care..." A man lost in the fog, coming back with urgency, realizations too wild to believe, making him see the world in a new light, "What. do. you. mean.?" Each syllable spoken as a separate sentence.

"Like you took care of her."

"It's all a misunderstanding--you don't know the entire--" She dragged the chair from the vanity to him, and the loud screech stopped him mid-sentence; his brow creased. She never liked that. She motioned him to sit, and he complied without any resistance.

"I don't know?" The self-mocking tone of her voice, his ordinary maid, was new to him. She was plain, drab, colorless. So why could he not look away from her bright eyes? Why was there suddenly color in her worked-up cheeks, attractive annoyance in her voluptuous lips? They were the same sensible nude-colored, calling him sir, demanding to know his preference of sweetness in dessert, or spiciness in sabzi.

She saw him study her with such rapt attention. "Then why did you?" He gulped to remove the hoarseness from his voice, ironically craving her sweet peach iced tea. "Why not say something?"

"Cause I am just as weak as you are." She waited for him to protest, take offense, but his mouth opened only to close again, lacking any retort. She was a stranger to this new vulnerable Tarun, never imagined him so defenseless, so lacking in command. Not when he lost everything, not when Zara informed him of her decision to leave, breaking his perfect world. Not when he was standing before a pile of his dead wife's belongings. Not when he plunged the knife, Not when he tore the bloodied necklace from 'her' corpse's neck. "You couldn't let 'her' go, and I couldn't let you go."

This was the most truthful she had been to him, all the defenses broken. And he was still here, still looking at her with something very close to respect, maybe admiration as well. But she couldn't ignore a weird nagging feeling.

He took a step towards her, and the butterflies crowded her stomach, fluttering around like drunk uncles at weddings. Then he took another large step, closing the distance between them, and before she knew it, she was in his embrace. This was everything she had ever dreamt of. And it was finally here. She tightened her arms around him, her hands finally around his tensed back. She could feel his tension melting away. He sighed in relief, proof of his trust in her.

She had finally broken the barrier; she was no longer lost in the fog. He was no more just a figment of her dream; he was real and within her reach. She took a deep breath, engulfing herself in his smell. But in her gut, in a small corner without the butterflies, a strange pit was turning, a black hole, engulfing the butterflies and giving rise to a feeling she didn't understand. Or maybe she did but didn't want it to be true.

Disappointment.

He was still hugging her, unaware of her changing emotions. She noticed the purple bedsheet - the one she had been looking for atop her almirah. Of course, it was here when she didn't need it anymore.

Do we realize the value of things once we lose them, or is it that things lose their value once they're finally in our possession?