#SpecialPost After many many months, I could finally write this out. Due to so many distracting problems in my life, I was finding it difficult to read books or write. I know I can write better than this, but I hope this is not that bad either :) Criticism is welcomed ^_^ After having eaten The Forbidden Fruit... Ely could smell lavender and thyme when she entered her room. She could see the perfectly furnished wooden flooring and the soft muslin textured coverings over her bed which was below the window. She slowly crawled on it and settled herself comfortably looking over the giant window. She could see the waves slowly swooshing through the sand making shapes over the vast lining of the island. She could hear a distant laughter of her daughter and nephew downstairs. A small boy, Indian she presumed was walking, slowly cribbing on his nail of first finger. His clothes were rugged and torn from the corners of his shoulders. It looked as if he was mal-nourished and hadn’t eaten since days. She could make out even in the dark that he had some knee injury on his left leg. His face had specs of sad and dust and his skin was beach tanned. He slowly emerged himself into the water and started going deep inside. She could see that he could not swim and still he didn’t stop himself. A quick bell rang in her mind and she knew what he was attempting to do. She blocked her mind from such thoughts and shut her window close, hugging herself on the bed, she rested her head on the pillow to look at the ceiling. She should not care, she told herself continuously. For few long seconds she stood like that, still. “Evaaaaaan!!” she heard her daughter shout. In full speed she swirled by the circular marble-white staircase and paced through the expensive floorings of her hall to reach outside. She saw her nephew Evan was into the waters and was helping the boy to get out. She held Susan close to herself was Evan came out. Teens these days always want to be the hero of the moments, she thought. “lets go and get a blanket and something to eat for him. He is so scared and cold” said Evan and let him sit outside on the chair at the verandah. Susan followed him inside. Ely was highly irritated by this scene as it was bringing back certain memories. The ones she didn’t wish to remember, the ones that had changed her to that extent that she had forgotten her good self and became what she was now. Heartless. She stood where she was and just closely observed the small boy. He was shivering now, tumbling. Just as he made himself comfortable on the chair, she could see him dozing off. She could sense his tiredness. How could such a tiny body handle so much stress after all?, she thought and pushed aside the faded memories of her own. Evan bought some hot chocolate in a mug and cookies in a plate. Before anyone could react he drank it in seconds and ran off the shore. Evan and Susan made odd faces and went inside. Ely could not understand such a reaction so, in her night gown, she treaded behind him. He was walking faster and faster with two cookies in his hand but didn’t eat any. The faint glint of smile was visible behind the agony of his ill face. She could sense the same type of feelings inside him the way she once had felt. He was so close to bring up the buried memories from the coffin of her childhood. He took a turn into a very narrow lane. It smelled of what we call mixture of dirt, decaying mouse and sweat. He was walking bare foot and didn’t once hesitate to keep going further. She remembered this squalidness, the grimy route to her small one room house which was her only possession. She now clearly remembered what being poor was like. She knew, that he already knew that she was following him. But that didn’t make any difference. After proceeding and taking many turns, she could feel that the lanes were getting narrow and narrower. She could see very poor people, naked children and filthy paths just how she lived once. The boy stopped outside one small room where there was only one broken cheap wooden bed where an old lady was sleeping. She seemed ill, very ill and her clothes were rugged too. A very small boy was crying on stool just near the lady and there was no space for anyone else to enter or move. There was no door either. She saw the boy give the cookie to the lady who ate it as if she had not been fed for months. Then he gave the other one to the kid who was hardly three years old and very poor in health. A drop of tear ran down her cheeks as she felt utterly sad and depressed. Her heart was heavy with pain and her knees were shaking in numbness. The boy was hungry and he could have eaten it all by himself. Still he chose to share it with his family. She saw so much of love and concern in his eyes. Poverty ridden once, Ely lived in a very poor family of three. She hated her life and to get rid of it, she had tried to attempt suicide but was saved by a good-hearted man few years ago. After a lot of hard work and struggle she had reached to where she was. But the hatred of being poor had made her cruel and heartless. Instead of hating poverty she had started to hate poor people. She could not bear the wounds of pain that poverty had given her. The wounds of watching mother die due to illness and brother in jail due to theft. The wounds of not being able to survive or work due to illness. The wounds of finding courage to kill self but yet being saved and the complimentary gift of loneliness in the vast busy world. Realizing her change and the cause of it, she could empathize with the boy and felt like saving him, protecting him and breaking him apart from the sorrows. She looked quickly removed her band of emerald and diamond from her fingers and placed it on the cloth in the corner of the room and went away. She realized how much money can change people. How much past can affect one’s life. How one little change perspective at things can make the person be someone they never thought they would be. How can little things like hatred, sorrow and anger can change a person from feeling great things like love, happiness and acceptance. When she didn’t have money, she ‘needed’ it to strive in this expensive world. Now that she had money she ‘wanted’ it to satisfy her extra comforts. Her whole perspective of need and survival changed to want and greed. One must know where they stand and be on ground even if they have wings. Because even after flying for hours, the bird has to land down swiftly. The more the bird flies, the faster it lands on the ground. Our values, morals and ethics must not be forgotten after eating the forbidden fruit due to greed, jealousy, hatred or anger. -Aditi Gandhi
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 17:14:56 +0000