A girl walks
into a bar.
But before that,
a girl walks out of a house at the first break of daylight. She’s spent the
night with her eyes scared open, only shutting them to pretend sleep, when he re-enters
the room to stand over her. He is silhouetted against the sliver of light that
pierces through the half-opened door. He stands over her, no longer breathing
heavily, no longer filled with rage but still very much a threat.
When he turns to
leave, she allows the air back into her chest. She waits for morning, when she will
walk out, never to return but carrying away the memory of his angry body as he
pins her down. His palms red-hot with violence, nailing her wrists to the bed
as she abandons her body in panic. She hovers above it all, waiting for it to
end.
She returns
home, scrubs herself clean and retreats under 2 layers of blanket. She does not
move for the next three days. When she gets up again, she is frozen. No one
will touch her again, is all she knows.
Two years later,
a girl walks into a woman’s office. The woman talks little and mostly listens.
Sometimes, she makes the girl stand up from her chair and close her eyes. She places her hands, firmly, on the girl’s shoulders. She asks the girl to lean in to her strength. The woman will hold up
the girl for as long as it is needed. But who will hold you up? the girl asks.
Generations of women before us, says the woman through her warm palms. Every
woman you’ve ever known – your mother, her mother and her mother before that,
going back as far as you can stretch your memory. Soon the room is filled with the spirit of these women, each holding the other up with warm palms, all leading back to the girl. As they radiate and penetrate through her, she begins to
understand what letting go might mean. But it will take time.
Five years on, a
girl walks into a bar with her friends. She knows there’s no such thing as
complete healing but there’s something about this evening that makes her laugh
from her belly and that’s alright for now.
So, even though
he’s a complete stranger and she’s inside a Hollywood cliché, something about
him makes her smile. After they’ve swapped essential stories, he will ask her
out with cautious charm. She will defer her decision until she’s sober. Until her answer comes then,
he will place his hand on the small of her back and she will let it remain
there. Later, she won’t remember how close he pulled her or how far she leaned
in. But she will relive the gentle heat of his palm on her back, staying not
leaving. Not propping her up either, because for the first time in a long while,
she is strong enough to hold herself up.
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Read Nandita Saikia on What I've Learnt From Violence
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Read Nandita Saikia on What I've Learnt From Violence
