Autumn of '81

“By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire”, she began narrating her story to her children. It was her story. Her story from that indelible autumn of ’81 that turned her life around. That autumn when the leaves seemed to be ablaze in wild and bold colors of heroic orange and raging red. The sky was awash in hues of angry autumnal brick shades. The violent gusts of wind seemed seething and she was fuming too. She had had enough.

-------

She frowned woefully. It shone back at her as the portent sun dove into the faraway horizon and a menacing merlot hue emanated from it throughout the abyss of the sky covering distances surpassing one’s visual field. It wasn’t warm enough to be summer nor chillingly cold to say winter had fell. Crunchy leaves of brown, mahogany and bronze flooded the ground below. It was September of 1975 and she was turning 11.

Chunks of soil heaped up under her unkempt nails as she dug into the earth till the depth of the hollow space would suffice. It had belonged to her mother and now it was her treasure. She looked at it daily. It brought upon many waves of varying emotions. Sorrow, anger, hopelessness, fear, nostalgia and pity. The list would never cease to end much like her perpetual pain. She had decided to place it in a time capsule on her 11^th birthday. Today was the day and this was the only occurrence that made her feel like it was a different day than the mundane, dejected usual. Placing it in an antique, wooden box, she remembered to bury it mindfully, ensuring no one would ever unearth it by chance. One last pat and there was no sign of it on earth anymore. She tardily looked down at her watch and was shaken back to conscious thinking. Her weekly 10 minutes of freedom in the gated backyard was over and she ran back inside.

Her life in confinement was all she knew. A life of tumultuous torture since she was seven.

The abuse would start early everyday. He would assertively walk into her room every morning before he went to work. Trepidation assumed her being the whole night before, in a frenzy of sleeplessness, anxiety and apprehension. Her frail body trembled no less than the previous day every time it happened. She couldn’t escape. He had been her foster father since she could remember. All he fostered in her was fear, sorrow and helplessness. The person who was supposed to nurture her, nestle her instead terrorized and damaged her. Her mother’s last sign, the only thing that she could hold onto to remember her was the only thing that kept her alive amidst all the torment. The suffering that seemed never-ending. He raped her almost every day and on the blessed days that he came home late from work and was too tired to do so, she thanked her lucky stars and prayed for more days as such. The first few weeks of molestation were ghastly days of horror, an unfamiliar pain and incommodious confusion stirred by an alien form of touch. She was too naïve and young to comprehend what was happening. As the dark days of thinking it was only temporary passed, this had become the new norm for her. This was the life she would be compelled to live from now on. She saw no hope of breaking free. She was his slave, subject to beatings and orders as per his mercurial temperament.

The summer sun never effulged hope into her life. The winters were bleak and she was meek against the relentless ice cold weather and her abuser. The flowers blooming anew in spring were never a sign of a new beginning; it was just another start to the same old cruel cycle of pain, silent tears and fright. Autumn was no different.

Till the misty autumn breeze of ’81 rustled the trees in the backyard and the wind whistled something in her ear.

As the blustery gale tore apart the leaves from their branches and blew the tress from hither to thither, she decided she couldn’t bear this punishment of a life one more season.

He was resting in his bedroom lazing his day off away. Thankfully, it was a day off from his torture for her as well but she had afflicting plans of her own that fateful day. All these years she was too afraid to break free - chained to his control, shackled to her silence. Today was different. She wanted to take control. She wanted to speak up. As loud as the gusts of aggressive autumnal wind knocking on the only window of her tiny, dilapidating room; the only place she had known for far too many seasons now.

Tiptoeing out of her pitiful room, she moved deftly so as to not awaken the capricious curmudgeon who seemed gregarious and courteous to everyone but her. Only she knew the monster in him and it was time she retaliated. She walked carefully into his room, a harrowing silence eerily hovered through the air. The creaky, corroded door cracked open and there he lay in his lounge chair, snoring defiantly. His mouth was wide open and his massive head was tilting out of the headrest as if it would fall crashing to the floor any second. Sauntering slowly through the room, she reached his bookshelf. She had overheard a conversation one day and knew where she would find what she needed. Third drawer from the top under a pile of old cheque books. She opened the drawer ever so gently; even one faint sound would upraise a thunderous aftermath. There it was. Fatal, loaded, polished and ready to go. Her hands quivered furiously as she picked up the gun, her eyes sparked with a ferocious gleam as she shook off any last minute hesitations. She aimed it at the back of his head and waited for what felt like an eternity filled with self-doubt but lasted a few fleeting seconds. A single shot was fired and the bullet pierced through his right ear. The keys to the main door lay on the study table near his bedroom door and she remembered to grab them before she dashed out of the room. Fumbling to unlock the door, she breathed heavily and her heart beat as fast as autumn turned to winter. The key turned in the lock and the door opened to a world completely new to her. The warm sunlight fell on her face and her bare feet treaded a carpet of red and gold. The sky was cloudless and she ran as free as a migrating bird changing homes as seasons turned. She heard the birds sing for the first time in ages, the hum of almost invisible insects and a constant row of flowers of every tint crowded the street sides. The leaves on the trees seemed to be on fire- a bright, fearless orange.

Mother Nature seemed to be applauding her immense might and mettle. She had a newfound spirit that would be grueling to shatter.

She had left behind the life of captivity she had known and built one of courage, conquering challenges and cherished optimism. A life she had longed for incessantly. The life she never believed could be hers.

Her persecutor had died while in custody, serving his sentence. After years had passed she went back to that backyard, back to revisit her old life. It was time to dig up her treasure. She used to look at it every day and so did her mother before her.

She smiled proudly and her mother’s pocket mirror shone back at her as the sanguine sun arose dauntlessly behind her diffusing blinding beams of bumblebee yellow far and near. The rusty red sky was limitless. She was limitless.