We never realized how much we could hurt another human being with so little. They didn’t seem to care, it killed me. Somehow they grew on this power, I hated my self. She didn’t deserve this, it had happened to them before; they had learnt to get over it. Time healed it or something, but there was a part deep inside me that ached, some organ that nobody knew of, no doctor could prescribe for which was there only to pain. I hardly knew her but I had hurt her, I owed her something. All I knew were words, words were too rudimentary for something like this.
Animals had it figured out, sometime way back during the evolution changeover everyone had to fill in a form, humans were the dumb ones who ticked language. Words can hurt so easily and heal so little.
I would like to believe that the moment had pregnant atmosphere about it, as if the entire world stood still for the second the bell was pressed, waiting, anticipating. The building seemed empty, silence filling air with a overwhelming presence. I imagined behind the closed doors people pressed against trying to hear life being lived.
Maybe at this moment I should have paid more attention because she had already opened the door and was standing in front of me.
Then I was at her door, the air felt so heavy and it was too quiet. The bell was pressed and it was too cheerful. It should have been quiet, it should have tolled or rung like a gong, not bingled merrily. Didn’t it understand how wrong it was, everybody was mourning even the door was silent as a tombstone and there it was bingling merrily, didn’t it feel my sadness and the pain of the one who was going to answer it.
She opened it, she wasn’t crying, she wasn’t lying distraught in bed waitng for me to comfort her., the curtains were not billowing and the shade of sunlight wasn’t peach.
She wasn’t wearing white. She wasn’t angry, she just stood there, eyes sunken, hair tied back, slightly hunched, looking into my eyes. I wasn’t afraid of letting her look, maybe she would see me, maybe they would tell her what my screeches would have if we were dolphins, maybe the ocean would have been big enough to just swim away and just be, not live or exist, just be a dolphin.
I wanted to hold her
“Why have you come here”, she said, more a protest than a question.
My eyes had told her nothing; I had stopped talking with them long time ago, a dolphin who never sang. She should have asked me in, I would have told her.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you”, it sounded weaker than it should have, clichés poured through my mind, I felt every one of them, I couldn’t say even one because they will never speak like I wanted them to. A dolphin who knew only nursery rhymes
“But you did”
That was all there was to it. there was everything left to say, but no one said it. Where were all the refereeing uncles and sagely grandfathers, they should have stopped us. I should have stopped me. But nothing was said.
I turned around I left. I felt something leave me; it would be a long time before I find it.
I had hurt Rita. She had said it herself.
Animals had it figured out, sometime way back during the evolution changeover everyone had to fill in a form, humans were the dumb ones who ticked language. Words can hurt so easily and heal so little.
I would like to believe that the moment had pregnant atmosphere about it, as if the entire world stood still for the second the bell was pressed, waiting, anticipating. The building seemed empty, silence filling air with a overwhelming presence. I imagined behind the closed doors people pressed against trying to hear life being lived.
Maybe at this moment I should have paid more attention because she had already opened the door and was standing in front of me.
Then I was at her door, the air felt so heavy and it was too quiet. The bell was pressed and it was too cheerful. It should have been quiet, it should have tolled or rung like a gong, not bingled merrily. Didn’t it understand how wrong it was, everybody was mourning even the door was silent as a tombstone and there it was bingling merrily, didn’t it feel my sadness and the pain of the one who was going to answer it.
She opened it, she wasn’t crying, she wasn’t lying distraught in bed waitng for me to comfort her., the curtains were not billowing and the shade of sunlight wasn’t peach.
She wasn’t wearing white. She wasn’t angry, she just stood there, eyes sunken, hair tied back, slightly hunched, looking into my eyes. I wasn’t afraid of letting her look, maybe she would see me, maybe they would tell her what my screeches would have if we were dolphins, maybe the ocean would have been big enough to just swim away and just be, not live or exist, just be a dolphin.
I wanted to hold her
“Why have you come here”, she said, more a protest than a question.
My eyes had told her nothing; I had stopped talking with them long time ago, a dolphin who never sang. She should have asked me in, I would have told her.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you”, it sounded weaker than it should have, clichés poured through my mind, I felt every one of them, I couldn’t say even one because they will never speak like I wanted them to. A dolphin who knew only nursery rhymes
“But you did”
That was all there was to it. there was everything left to say, but no one said it. Where were all the refereeing uncles and sagely grandfathers, they should have stopped us. I should have stopped me. But nothing was said.
I turned around I left. I felt something leave me; it would be a long time before I find it.
I had hurt Rita. She had said it herself.
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