Separation

* This story is totally fiction.

Separation By Bissme S

When I wanted to separate from my brother, my mother was not happy. She was convinced my decision would bring nothing good except extreme sadness into our lives.

She begged me to change my mind. For the first time in my life, I never listened to my mother. I broke her heart. I wanted the separation at any cost.

I was tired of living in my brother's shadow. I wanted to have my own identity. I wanted to have my own space. I have wanted to my own voice.

As long as my brother and I are together, I will never have my dreams come true. With my brother, only his opinions mattered. He always has the last say.

For years I have allowed my brother to walk all over me. I have allowed my brother to bully me. I have kept quiet. I have suppressed my frustrations.

But now I wanted my freedom. I didn't want my brother to dominate my life any more. Seeing my mother's grief, my brother didn’t want us to separate, too. 

He promised that he would change. He would become a better man. He would become a better brother. But I was not convinced.
”A leopard can change its spots but not my brother,” I said to him.

In the end I had my way. The separation took place. I thought I would have enjoyed my freedom. I thought I would finally have happiness.

But I was extremely wrong. My mother prediction became a reality. Our separation had a sad ending. Indeed it was a sad ending that was beyond my imagination.

Our separation killed our mother. The stress of our separation was too much for her to bear.  In the end, she suffered a heart attack and died
immediately.

My brother was furious beyond words. He held me responsible for my mother’s death.
"You wanted the separation so badly and now our mother is dead because of it," my brother shouted at me.
"I can never forgive you. You are dead for me. We are no longer brothers. I will never see you again. We will be separated forever. "

My brother just disappeared from my life. For many years I have written countless letters to my brother asking him to forgive me ... asking him to forget the past... asking us to be brothers again ... asking for a reunion.

He never answered any of my letters.

*****

Twenty years later, out of the blue, finally my brother   wrote a letter to me, agreeing to have a reunion…agreeing to let bygones be bygones… agreeing to forgive and forget.

I was jumping with joy. I prepared all his favourite dishes. I thought we are going to have feast and remember the good old days. But what my heart desired didn't come true.

My brother didn't turn up for our reunion.  A few days later he wrote me a long rambling letter telling me that he can't forget the past…He can’t
bring himself to forgive me.

"Mahatma Ghandi said that the weak can never forgive," my brother wrote in his letter
"Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. But I am not strong enough to forgive you. I am not strong enough to forget the past. May be you are right when you said a leopard can change its spot but not your brother.”

His letter broke my heart. Now I am certain our reunion will never take place... we will never meet again... we will never be brothers again.

*****
Indeed separating me from my brother was not an easy task. There was a possibility one of us could have die. There is always a danger in separating twins that are joined.

Instead the operation went smoothly. We survived. But our mother didn't. In the waiting room our mother was worried to death about our safety on the operation table. The fear that one of us could die was dancing heavily in her heart

After the operation was completed, the nurse arrived at the waiting room to deliver the good news to my mother. But she was no longer alive.
She was found dead in her chair. She suffered a heart attack. Her worries killed her. Her fears killed her.

When my brother and I first heard her death, we had a hard time digesting the news. She was only 50 when she passed away. Indeed too young to die.

When my mother first gave birth to us, she cried her heart out.  She was totally disappointed and dishearten. No mothers wanted freaks like us as
children and my mother was no different.  It took her weeks before she laid eyes on us.

Once she held us in her arm, her heart melted and she stopped hating us. We became the joy of her life. She never allowed any surgery to perform on us.  She was afraid that one of us would die on the operation table.
"I cannot afford to lose any of my sons," she said to the doctor.

My mother was happy with she had. My mother was grateful with what God have given her. But my mom was not in my shoes. She cannot feel the misery I felt. She cannot feel the frustration I felt.

She didn’t have to endure the weird stares I got whenever my brother and I were out in the public. Joined twins always attract unwanted attention. I felt like a circus clown.  

She didn’t have a domineering brother who will not allow her to have her own voices.  In the end I broke my mother’s heart to pursue my own happiness. I would rather take the risk of dying on the operation table than enduring a life full of sadness… a life full of frustrations.

But happiness didn’t come the way I had imagined. If I have known the end will be like this, I would not have agreed to have the operation. I didn’t want my mother to die. I didn’t want to be separated from my brother forever

I would remain glued to my brother and suffered in silence.  Sometimes silent suffering is necessary. It can be a key to happiness. 

Mirrors & Hearts

Poem.

Mirrors & Hearts - By Bissme S

If a mirror
Breaks now
All of us
Could hear

But if a heart
Breaks now
None of us
Could hear

I can’t help asking myself
Why the suffering of
A broken heart
Is always silent.

A Beast With Talent

a poem from me.

A Beast With Talent - By Bissme S

In a room of many mirrors
Dance a ballerina
In front of a invisible audience

God was kind enough
To plant the talent
To dance beautifully
In her soul

With God's gift
And her hard work
She managed
To rise to the top
In the world of ballet
Then God and society played
A cruel sad joke with her

She was involved in a car crash
Where she loses her beauty
Where her beautiful face had turn
Into a scary looking beast
Heartlessly, the world of ballet
Close their door to the poor soul
For they know the audience
Only want to see
A beauty with a talent
Performing on a stage
Not a beast with talent
On stage.

Born To Be Fathers

A Poem from me

Born To Be Fathers By Bissme S

Some men are born
To be fathers.
Sad to say
His dad is not
One of them.

He was scarcely
In his teens
When his dad abandoned
Him and his mother
For a younger woman.

His mom had to
Work hard
Day in
Day out,
To support her four children.
Her job takes
Most of her time.
She scarcely has time
For her children.

In many ways,
He lost his mother too
He hunger for
His mother and father's love
If his dad had played dad,
This would not had happened.
But then again,
Some men are not
Born to be fathers.

To Be His Lover

This short story has been translated in Bahasa Malaysia under the title Aku Ingin Menjadi Kekasihnya and has been featured in Aweks KL, anthology of short stories and poems.A big thank you to Ruhayat X for accepting this story and taking the trouble to translate the work into Bahasa Malaysia. Here is the original and english version of the story


To Be His Lover- By Bissme S

It was said that we can never be lovers. But I was determined to change this. I was obsessed with being his lover. I really believed I was destined to love him and no one else.
I have tried to love other men, but all the relationships failed to work out. The more I dissected my failed relationships, the clearer the picture became – at any circumstances and at any price, I had to be his lover. There was no two ways about it.
As long as I was not his lover, I would never find any peace. Sadness will always hang over my life like dark clouds. I am tired of dark clouds. I yearn for a rainbow. Only he can give me the rainbow that I want so desperately.
There are many nights when I cry myself to sleep, knowing the fact that we can never share a bed together. I am tired of crying. I want so badly to be happy. Only he can give me the happiness I search for.
Interestingly, I barely recall our first meeting. But as I got older, I developed an insane fascination for him. At first, I thought it was just a crush. With time, I thought it will melt away and I will find someone nearer to my age.
But I never got over him. As the years passed by, the fascination for him just grew. He had loved me. That I cannot deny. But he never loved me like a lover… like Romeo would love his Juliet.
I wanted him to love me as passionately and intensely as he had loved his dead wife. I wanted him to take me in his arms and utter sweet loving words into my ears.
I never met his wife. I had only seen at her photos. She died when I was born. At certain angles, I do resemble her. But still he didn’t loves me the way he had loved her.
Sometimes I can’t help feeling jealous of his late wife. Her fingers had gone through all his intimate places. She had felt his warmth, tasted his lust and carried his child. I wanted badly to be in her shoes.
But then, if his wife were alive, most likely, there would be some detachment between him and me. Perhaps I would not feel for him the way I do now. I believe I would have been more concerned about her feelings.
With my old face and given name, there is no way he would take me as his lover. So I changed everything about me; my face, my name and myself. I adopted a total different identity.
I still remember what the plastic surgeon told me when I wanted him to alter every single feature on my face.
“I never had a beautiful woman walk into my office and ask me to change her entire face,” said the surgeon .
The surgeon did a perfect job. I barely recognised myself when I looked into the mirror. I felt like a stranger was staring back.
Prior to my surgery, I staged my own death. To the world, I died when my car skidded and plunged into the river. My body was never found.
A year after my “presumed” funeral, I returned to my hometown with a new name and a new face. From Phallavi, I became Pooja. No one recognised me, not even him.
They all believed me when I said I was a copywriter attached to a well known advertising agency, who was tired of the city and looking for a quiet life, far from the madding crowd.
I expressed a keen interest in taking up piano lessons which I abandoned years ago as a child. Naturally I was introduced to him. He was a well known pianist.
I pretended to know nothing about an instrument that I had played since I was five years old. Ironically, he was my piano tutor then.
The piano lessons were just a charade to be reintroduced to him and slowly win his heart.
I knew him so well; the right subjects to be bring up during our conversation. We got along famously. We laughed a lot. I knew exactly the right things to say to make him laugh.
Soon enough, love was blossoming between us. A dream came true for me. For once, I had his love the way I dreamt of.
Initially he was not comfortable with the difference in our ages. I was 25 while he was 50. It took sometime for me to convince him that love breaks through barriers of race, religion and age.
In less than two years since we met, he proposed and I accepted with joy. Finally I was becoming more than his lover. I was becoming his wife.
******This year marks four years we have been together as husband and wife. Truly, it had been the happiest years of my life. Finally happiness has entered my life and sadness has disappeared into the thin air.
He is still in the dark about my true identity. He has no clue that we have met long before our first piano lessons.
He really believes that fate had brought us together. But in reality, I had manipulated my way into his heart. It was a manipulation at the highest degree.
I hope he never finds out the truth. He will have a hard time digesting the facts. There will be regret, remorse and grief over what transpired between us.
Like many, he would regard what we had done as not right. As for me, I am not bothered about what is right and what is wrong. I have no regrets at all.
I was tired of living a life of misery. I was tired at not getting what my heart desired. I was tired of living by the law that was written centuries ago.
So I did what my heart craved for without bothering about the consequences. When the time comes, I will be ready to face God’s wrath, his punishment and his hell .`Looking back now, I feel it was not entirely my fault. I never asked to be born as his daughter. More than his daughter, I wanted to be his lover.

A Little Less

A Little Less By Bissme S

When I was 15, my father changed drastically and dramatically. He stopped loving everyone around him including me, his only child. He become almost like a robot, who went through life, without showing any signs of emotion.

To a certain degree, his wife, my mother, was responsible for his radical change. My mother had promised him that they would be together forever. But my mother failed to keep to her promise. My mother left him and my dad couldn't accept this fact.

On the day my mother left, my father shed tears uncontrollably and was raving like a mad man. That was the last time I saw any emotion outburst from my father.
He begged my mother to stay. He prayed that God would change his fate.

But both, God and my mother, disappointed my dad, tremendously. My father had become a broken man...too broken to have love in his heart anymore. He stopped believing in love. He stopped believing in God. He stopped believing in happiness.

Since my mother's departure from our lives, my father and I rarely had intimate moments any more. He left the responsibility of bringing me up in the hands of nannies, maids and tutors. I saw more of them than I saw my own father. He buried himself in his work. He hoped that his work would distract him from remembering the pain in his life... his wife, my mother.

Over the years, my father and I have become more like strangers. Many times I had tried to bring down the barrier between us. But I failed miserably.

After my mother, he was afraid to get too close to anyone…. He was afraid that I might leave him the way my mother did. He was not ready for another disappointment… He was not ready for another heart-break.

My father did everything in his power to forget my mother. He put away anything that reminded him of my mother in the attic including all her pictures and her portraits.

No one was allowed to speak about my mother in his presences. For him, my mother was a forbidden subject to be discussed at any cost. He treated my mother as if she never existed in his life.

But strangely enough, on his dying bed, my father never stopped calling my mother’s name. It was enough to paint a picture that my father has never successfully erased my mother’s memory. It cannot be denied that my father had loved my mother with all his heart.

I remembered my mother once told me: "Simran, I am the luckiest woman alive. I hope that when you grow up, you will be as lucky as me to have a husband to love you as much as your dad loves me."

Still, my mother had left him. I learned the hard way that love is not enough to sustain a relationship. But I cannot fully blamed my mother. If she had her way, she would not have left my dad.

It was fate that, cruelly, separated us. My mother was involved in a car crash and the best doctors failed to save her life . She was hardly 40 when she died For the doctors, she was just another patient that they lost.

But for us, her death changes our lives forever. All the love and happiness in our house and our heart was buried with my mother. Looking back now, I really believed that my mother, my father and I should learned to love each other a little less.

Perhaps then, my mother’s death won't have a drastic consequence on my father and me. Truly, we should learn to love each other, a little less.