Eggshells and Sunshine

Neeti woke up with a start, the same nightmare again. As she groped for the switch, her hand brushed Madhur. He opened one eye and smiled sleepily at her, extending his arms to welcome her back to sleep. She pushed his arm away as an impotent rage momentarily surged within her at everything- the nightmare, her helplessness, his calm peaceful expression as he continued to sleep his dreamless sleep. His placidity suddenly seemed like an affront. Just as it came, the rage subsided, to be replaced by guilt, which she mentally swatted away. How could he know? She’d all but shut him out, too drained to be able to explain anything to him. Not that any of it made sense to her either. All too suddenly, another emotion crept up on her, a vague unease clouded her senses, a tight knot formed in her stomach and gradually pulled her organs inwards, twisted her insides upon themselves, her heart pounded a frantic rhythm of blind panic, her body racked with uncontrollable chills, her mind was overwhelmed by an unknowable, undefinable horror. She tried to scream but couldn’t and clawed at her throat as if trying to force her voice out with the frenzied actions of her fingers.  Her mind exploded, each of its jagged fragment taunted her, tried to pull her into its own chaos and madness. She erupted in a cold sweat as momentarily, the fear of death overtook her. She was lost, adrift, tossed around by waves of terror which threatened to submerge her. She struggled to calm herself, to find an anchor that would bring her back to the present, and she saw it as a faint glimmer of a memory, a tiny shard of sanity, a dancing vision of windswept meadows and riotous mobs of flowers and undying Sun. She held on to it for dear life and hauled herself back to reality, knowing full well that the nightmare wouldn’t end with the end of sleep.

It was still dark. She didn’t want to check the time because if she did, she would just keep calculating how much time she had till daybreak and then she would never be able to fall asleep. Not that sleep would come easily anyway. She had a fair idea of the time- it would be around 4 a.m. She had been getting up like this for several nights now; the same nightmare, the same nameless fear. She desperately tried to recall details but all that she could conjure was a blurred form and then, a sudden sharp pain. There was an improvement though. Even this much recall was significant. She tried to sift through the haze of memories to recollect any details, any tiny object of significance that would give her a clue as to what haunted her. As usual, she drew a blank. With mounting frustration, she buried her head under the pillow and tried to will herself to sleep.

The darkness slowly receded as a faint sliver of sunlight broke through a tiny gap in the curtains. She sat on the edge of the bed, tired and grumpy from not having slept. Vestiges of the nightmare lingered in her memory, haunted her vision. Madhur was already in the shower and the sound of his cheerful offkey rendition of “Isn’t it Lovely” set her nerves on the edge. She didn’t feel guilty this time. How could he stay unruffled, unaffected, asleep, when her nights were tormented, and her days besieged by the demons of the night? Does he even care? His relentless chirpiness was just another of his many annoying habits and qualities, like using the bathroom with the door slightly ajar or playing with his hair while reading or chit chatting with every person  he encountered, however vague their acquaintance might be or. . . or whatever! It seemed to her sometimes that he did all this just to annoy her. Maybe it was to get back at her for her nagging. But he wouldn’t do anything till he was nagged. Oh dear! Did she nag him because he annoyed her, or did he annoy her because she nagged? Which came first? The chicken or the egg? She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to empty her mind of this farrago of thoughts and images and dreams and suddenly the egg shattered into a million little droplets of yolk and the yellow droplets coalesced into a blurry image and the shards of the eggshell pierced her with a sharp pain and the thought, the image, the dream was lost and she cried in despair as she desperately tried to make out the outline of the form that had been lurking at the fringes of her consciousness, at once familiar and remote, soothing and disturbing.

She walked to the bathroom as if in a daze. The walls were closing in around her. The world appeared dark and sinister. A letter opener on the table seemed to loom suddenly in front of her and she anxiously swatted the image away, yet the fear, that indefinable, intangible fear lurked at the edges of her consciousness, nudging, pushing, toeing the borders with ever more audacity, trying to free itself and manifest in reality. She managed to reach the bathroom and splashed some cold water on her face. She took a good look in the mirror. A pretty heart shaped face with liquid brown eyes and short black curls stared back, yet it didn’t seem to be her somehow.  Who was that stranger with lined skin and so many flecks of grey in the hair? Those eyes appeared tired, mistrusting, hostile, paranoid. That face belonged to a person who was under tremendous strain, someone who was haunted by shadows that were swallowing the light. That stranger in the mirror is me. Now that she thought of it, when was the last time she had slept well or enjoyed her food? Everything seemed to taste funny and she didn’t trust her own cooking anymore. Maybe she should get a maid. But could a maid be trusted? Of course not.  The last maid had put too much spice in the dal for two days in a row. She’d obviously done it out of spite, and that too when Neeti had been nothing but nice to her. Madhur had found nothing odd in the matter, and had sided with the maid, much to her consternation. That conniving maid was summarily dismissed, even as a helpless Madhur watched mutely. For that matter, who could she trust? And when had she stopped trusting and why? She had seen Rekha and Arti laughing at her at Mrs. Chandra’s housewarming party and in that moment, she had felt all alone, so desperately alone and at somehow enlightened with the blazing truth that they weren’t really her friends. Nobody was. She had stopped talking to them, stopped returning their calls, which had thankfully long since stopped. Madhur had in his usual bungling, ineffectual way tried to affect some sort of a compromise by calling them over, but she had simply turned them away at the door without much ceremony or compunction. She felt a grim satisfaction at that memory. They wouldn’t bother her again. Actually, everyone had stopped bothering her. It should have alarmed her, but it didn’t. It reassured her.

The stranger in the mirror beckoned again. A drawn, weary face and haggard, rimmed eyes which somehow carried an urgency in their depths, a hidden message of some sorts. She tried to shut out her reflection, but as she closed her eyes that sudden nebulous fear suddenly zoomed back into focus, this time a little sharper around the edges, beginning to take shape into something more solid and terrifying. It was the dream, she knew it was the dream. She again felt the same sickness in her gut and tried to take large gulps of air to calm herself down. It didn’t work. She decided to try something different. She focused all her energy on to the dream, willing her fear to materialize, to take solid form so that she may destroy it and once and for all free herself of this nameless terror. She sat down gingerly at the edge of the bathtub, her thoughts and emotions completely frayed, her sanity stretched to its breaking point. Focus! Think! You know what haunts you. She had to put a name to her demon, slay it once for all.

And now without warning, sleep overpowered her. Her eyelids felt heavy, her feverish mind finally succumbed to fatigue. Madhur, who was by now used to her complete inattention to him and his needs, had already left. A slight pang of guilt, but she couldn’t let it affect her now. She had to sleep, because she knew that her demon was not yet bold enough to face her in broad daylight but would without doubt, invade her dreams. She staggered back to the bedroom and turned off the lights and sank onto the bed, willingly surrendering herself to her unknown tormentor. A sense of relief washed over her, knowing that today, she would battle her foe. Her tense body unfurled indolently as she snuggled into the covers. Her overwrought mind unwound languidly.  She meandered through snow kissed mountains and the earthy smell of first monsoon showers and the giddy elation of swinging from tyres hung on trees and sunlit beaches strewn with eggshells. She felt at peace with herself and it seemed like all was well with the world.

She woke up with a start, the same nightmare again. As she groped in the dark for the switch, it suddenly all came to her. The same nightmare, the same nameless fear. But she saw clearly now. A pretty oval face with liquid brown eyes and short black curls looking at her with a pained expression. It broke her heart to pieces to even look at that face and the sorrow those eyes held. She so badly wanted to rub her cheeks and hold her close and tell her that everything was going to be alright. Those eyes looked at her with hope, beckoning her, pleading her for succor. She extended her hand towards the face and received an encouraging smile. And all of a sudden, as she tried to brush away that sorrow and absorb that misery she was bitten, bitten by that creature, who in all its terrible beauty looked like her but was someone else entirely, who pretended to be helpless yet sought to harm her, who wanted to make her its own by devouring her entirely.

That’s when she woke up. This time there was no fear. There was no panic, no uncertainty. She smiled, her first real smile in ages. She knew what she had to do now.