A Necessary Death

A Necessary Death By Bissme S

I really believed, to save my marriage and my sanity, Jhanvi must die. There was no two ways about it. Her death was a necessity. So I planned a perfect murder. Everyone including my husband and the authority believed her death was a tragedy.

******
Truly, our marriage was a happy one till Jhanvi walked into our lives. I really cannot comprehend my husband's obsession for Jhanvi.
Jhanvi had a face that was so revolting. But in his eyes, Jhanvi was beautiful…. Jhanvi was perfect. She was his number one priority. Everything and everyone including me, his wife, came second.
He took two jobs just to make sure Jhanvi had the best things that money could buy. His two jobs took most of his time and he rarely had any free time. When he had free time to spare, he spent every moment with Jhanvi.
I was feeling neglected and ignored. For the longest time, I just bite my tongue and suffered silently. Then came a day I can't take it anymore.
"Parvathy, try to understand, Jhanvi needs me more than you, " he justified his action.
It was an intense argument where I ended with tears and it was not our last argument about Jhanvi.
"You are letting Jhanvi to kill our relationship," I said.
"She has taken over our lives and our marriage."
With each argument, my hatred for Jhanvi increased. I was convinced as long as Jhanvi was alive, my husband and I would not be happy.
Before Jhanvi, I was everything to him. But now, everything changes. Jhanvi was everything and I was nothing.
But I was determined to change that. I was not going to be a second fiddle to Jhanvi, anymore. I was going to win my husband back at any cost, even if I had to kill Jhanvi.
My first strategy was painting a fake picture that I really cared about Jhanvi. Naturally my husband was happy with my change of attitude. He really believed my emotions for Jhanvi was real. Men are so easy to fool.
"I love you and I will do anything to make our marriage work," I lied.
I did not want him suspecting that I had anything to do with her death.

******
My plan to kill her came months ago when I bumped into a snake charmer in a funfair. I offered him a lot of money to kill Jhanvi.
When Jhanvi was fast sleep and my husband was away at his job, I let the snake charmer into my house. He went to Jhanvi’s room and let one of his snakes to bite her.
The following morning, the maid found Jhanvi dead and screamed her heads off. The ambulance was called. So was the police.
They all came to conclusion that a snake had roamed into our house and bitten her. My husband became a broken man. He became depressed, lost all hope for life. For months, he would only stay in bed without shaving.
It was during this time, I played a dutiful wife, trying to be understanding, patience and ultimately, giving him the motivation to continue living.
"Jhanvi is not really dead," I said to him.
"She is up there in heaven. And when she looks down and see you in this pathetic condition, she will be utterly sad."
Those words were enough to spark him out of his depression. He can't have his precious Jhanvi shedding tears of misery, at any cost. He made every effort to be happy. He made every effort to live life again.
It has been two years since Jhanvi left us. As I had predicted, her death was a blessing disguise. We were happier.
He no longer had to hold two jobs. He had more time to spend with me. We were also better off, financially. There was no Jhanvi to take care of.
He was flourishing where his career was concerned. He didn't have Jhanvi to distract his attention. He was awarded as the Best Insurance Sales Man. In his award accepting speech, he sang high praise of me.
"Parvathy, you are the best wife that any man can have," he said.
If only he knew the truth of what I have done, he would hate me and most likely, end our marriage. Frankly speaking I would not blame him. His action would be justified. Which man could love the woman who murdered their daughter?

*****
Oh yes, Jhanvi was his daughter and also mine. I remembered we were jumping with joy when we first learned that I was pregnant. We were so eager to become parents.
Like all parents, we expected a healthy baby. But that was not written in our fate. Jhanvi was born as a retard. Our heart sank when we learnt this.
With time, my husband learnt to accept the fact and came to love her, regardless her condition. But I had a hard time accepting my flawed baby.
Jhanvi was not an easy task. When she was a toddler, she would cry her hearts out and it would take me hours to calm her down. Her wailing would drive me nuts.
Surprisingly, my husband had more patience with her. Then as she grew older, her tantrums stopped. No more wailing. Finally, I thought the good times are here.
But I was deadly wrong. Things became more difficult. Things became more complicated. It was then, the reality hit me - Jhanvi would never get better.
She would be a vegetable for the rest of her life. She would be a burden for my husband and me and we had to look after her for the rest of our lives.
The most dreadful experience was going out with Jhanvi in public places. She would attract unwanted attention. Her head was bigger that her body. She looked like a freak that just step out from a horror film.
Her state of mind made her unconscious to the stares and the attention around her. But I didn't have her state of mind. A big dose of embarrassment enveloped me. Silently, I was furious at God for giving me, Jhanvi. I remember what the priest told me when I had expressed my disappointment.
"Whatever God had given us, we should accept as a gift," the priest expressed his words of wisdom.
"God loved everyone unconditionally and we should strive to be like him."
That was easy for the priest to say. Day in and day out, he didn’t have to live with her. He didn’t have to walk beside her. But I had to. What kind gift God had given me? Well I was not happy with the gift and I wanted to return the gift back to God.
So I planned a perfect murder. She was hardly 12 when she died. Initially, my guilt bugged me. My inner conscious reminded me that being her mother, I should love her, unconditionally.
Instead, heartlessly, I murdered her. It made my stomach churned inside- out. Guilt danced in my soul. I had disturbing nightmares about thousand snakes was chasing after me.
Then slowly, I justified myself that Jhanvi was in a better place … she was in heaven … she was with God who could love everyone unconditionally. I could not love her so I have sent her to a place where she would be loved. This fact was enough to drive away all my guilt. Slowly, the nightmares where thousand snakes were chasing after me also stopped. In the end, I learned that sometimes to be truly happy, one needs to be a little selfish.

The Lovers

The Lovers By Bissme S


We were tired of keeping our affair a secret. We wanted to abandon our spouses. We wanted to abandon our children. We were willing to take the risk of them hating us, forever. We planned everything carefully. We would migrate to Sydney, Australia. Nobody knows us in Sydney and we could start our life fresh.
But when the time finally came, we didn't have the guts and the hearts to abandon our spouses and our children. They did nothing wrong except to love us with all their heart. They will have a hard time digesting the truth.
In the end, we ended our affair and went back to our family. We decided that was for the best. Deep down our hearts, we knew if we did what we had, years to come, we would regret it and we will not be able to forgive ourselves. We might even blamed each other for the sins we had committed and whatever love we had for each other will vanish.
"I would rather have my heart broken than to break their hearts," Ramesh told me.

*****
Ramesh was my first love and I never had the guts to tell him what I felt. I was afraid of the consequences. I was afraid that he might not feel the same way about me. I was afraid that my confession might drive him away and I would not see him, anymore. I was not willing to lose our friendship. We were best friends since our childhood days.
We were hardly 10 when we first met. His family had just moved into our neighborhood and lived the next door to us. Both of our families immediately created an instant bond. Both of our fathers were crazy about football and that subject alone was enough to get them talking for hours.
Our mothers, on the other hand, were mad about Bollywood movies and shopping. Since our parents were always spending so much time together, we became close too. I can’t really pinpoint the exact time when I began to regard him more than a friend. My feelings for him happen so naturally.
My heart was broken when I received his wedding card. I conjured excuses so I didn’t have to attend his wedding. I can't bring myself to see the man I loved tying knot with someone else ... building a future without me. Since his marriage, I purposely put a distance between him and me. I see less of him.
Whenever he call and asked to meet up, I always find some kind of excuses. I thought the less I see him, the less I would feel hurt. It was a difficult task of avoiding him. He was after all my neighbor. That is not all. We were teaching in the same university.
I, often prayed, that he would move far away from me. Seeing him with his wife makes me very sad… reminding me of the life I will never have with him. God answered my prayers when he got a teaching position in one of the well-known universities in Sydney, Australia. I didn’t go the airport to see them for the last time. I just sent a goodbye card with an expensive present.
I really believed his absence would make me forget him. But I was really wrong. No matter what I did, I can never really forget him. I believe marriage will cure my broken heart and give me new dreams. To a certain degree my marriage and my two young sons had kept me busy but still I have not forgotten the moments I spend with Ramesh. His memories never stopped haunting me.
He never stopped sending letters, presents and cards to me on my birthdays. But I never replied any of his letters; and his presents always end up in the dustbin, un-opened.

*****
Five years had passed by and out of the blue, he and his wife Manjula decided to return home. Manjula hated everything about Sydney and wanted desperately to return to Malaysia. He simply complied. He looks a little older but still dashingly handsome. He is a father to a set of twins. He was back as my neighbor again.
By then, both of our parents had passed away. His died on a car crash while mine passed away of old age. I inherited my parent’s home while he inherited his parent’s home. Life is full of ironies. Our parents were neighbors and now we are neighbors. Things got worse when he got his old job back in the university where I was teaching. We became colleagues again.
I asked myself why God has played this cruel joke. Why can't God make him stay in Sydney forever?
He tries his best to resume our friendship. He wanted us to be close again. Strangely enough he doesn't hold any grudges that I didn't reply any of his letters from Australia. I tried my best to give him a cold shoulder, always finding excuses not to spend time with him. But he doesn't seem to get the hints that I didn't want to see him anymore.
It was then I decided that I should tell him the truth, not caring whatever consequences. I should not keep all these feeling bottled up. Perhaps, the revelation will be good for my suffering soul. I would feel a sense of freedom. I feel like a caged bird that desperately wants to be free. I wrote a long letter expressing the feelings I had for him and begged him to stay far away from me.
When I handed him the letter, I said to him: "After reading this letter, I am sure you want nothing to do with me." I walked away without looking back. Within the hour, he called me and said he wanted to see me. He came with his car to pick me up after my classes.
We drove for hours in silence. When the car stopped in deserted area, to my shock, he kissed me, passionately. Only then, I realized he too had the similar feeling for me since his childhood days. Like me, he was too afraid to express his emotion. It was a beginning of our affairs.
We became the sinful lovers. We were smart enough to keep our affair a secret. Nobody suspected a thing. After two years of our affair, we got tired of all that lies, pretending and charades. We wanted some honesty in our relationship. It was then that Ramesh suggested he could ask the college in Sydney if they had any teaching vacancies.
"Our lucks are good. We have jobs waiting for us," Ramesh told me rather excitedly over the phone.
We wanted a fresh beginning in Sydney as a pair of lovers starting a new life together. No more lies, no more pretending and no more charades. But in the end, our conscious got the better of us. We knew we couldn't bring this misery on our spouses and our children.
We can't build our joys and our happiness on their sorrows and their misery. At the same time, we could not continue our affair like before. The lies, the charades and the pretending were taking toll on us. Guilt was killing us slowly. We decided that it was best that we ended our affair.
Ramesh found a teaching job in Singapore and decided to shift there. Distance will put an end to our affair definitely. He sold the house. It was a clear indication; he was not coming back anymore, at least not to my neighborhood.
My heart breaks to see him go. But I had to let him go... for him ... for me... for our wives... for our children ... for all of us. As I reminiscence my love story, I am looking out of the window and see my two sons are playing football. I pray neither of my sons will lead the life I had ... neither of them must feel the way I feel ... neither of them have to make sacrifices I had to make… neither of them must be a homosexual in the closets. They must have a happy ending.

The Wrong Woman

The Wrong Woman By Bissme S

“Only death could give me the peace I wanted so badly.”Those were the only words Prakash had written in his suicide note. He went to a railway track, took out all his clothes and ran towards a moving train.
Everyone was surprised that a vibrant man like Prakash had taken his own life. But not me. I knew his reasons perfectly well.He had fallen in love with the wrong woman. Never once, had he expressed his true feelings to her. He was fearful of her rejection.But being his best friend, he felt he could confide to me about the woman he loved. I tried to make him understand this love story will not have a happy ending. She was all wrong for him.
She was not his perfect match. But he refused to listen.“Arjun, sometimes you can't choose who you loved," he said."Love is just happened."I kept telling him that what he felt for her was merely a crush and with time he will learn to forget her and fall in love with a different woman... a woman less older... a woman that is not wrong for him.
“Arjun,” he retorted, “Only teenagers have crushes, and I am not a teenager anymore!”He was right.
We were not teenagers anymore. Both of us had justturned 25. He just can't forget her. He loved her to the point ofmadness."I can’t tell you the exact moment when I fell in love with her,” he said.
"Maybe I loved her since my last birth. We were lovers in our last life. In this life, fate has cruelly separated us.”Prakash sounded like a character in a bad romance novel. I really believed that time will cure his obsessions and he would learn to forget her. It appeared that I had underestimated his obsession.
I also knew that she wouldn’t have agreed to be his lover. If she had learnt about his love and his obsession, she would have kept her distances. Her heart belonged to a man that she married more than 25 years ago.He died in car crash after ten years of their marriage. They were the most romantic couple I have ever known.
Her friends constantly urged her to get married again."In this lifetime, my heart only belongs to one man,” she replied each time the subject was brought up.She would not let any other man replaced her dead husband's place in her heart. Naturally, Prakash suppressed his true feelings.
He never wanted his love to frighten her... to give her reasons to be angry with him.He preferred to live with the disappointment of not having her as his lover. But in the end, the disappointment was too much for him to bear.
The lady of his dream attended his funeral with tears flooding from her eyes. I can’t deny that she had loved and cared for Prakash. But not in the way Prakash had hoped. Prakash wanted more ... much more.
Like everyone, she was puzzled that Prakash had taken his own life. Days after his funeral, she came to see me. We had intense discussion about Prakash. From me, she hoped she could learn the reason for his suicide, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. So I lied.I pretended to be like all the others and be totally clueless over the reason for his suicide. After all, she had enough grief to bear and I certainly didn’t want to add guilt to her grief.
I really believe the greatest tragedy any parent can face is when their children die before them. And she had been faced with this tragedy. I would not to add more pain to her tragedy.I wouldn’t want her to feel responsible for driving her own son, Prakash, to suicide. Some truths are not meant to be told and some lies are necessary.

All about My Father

All about My Father By Bissme S

Love is not enough to keep my mother happy. My father failed to understand that. He was utterly shocked when she wanted to end their marriage.
“Do not leave me…I will change… I will become a better man… I will change… I will change,” my father kept begging my mother.
Truly, there was nothing to change. There was nothing wrong with my father. He had been a great father, a great husband and a great lover. He had showered my mother with love, laughter and happiness.
Most women would die to have a man like my father as their husbands. But my mother was not like most women. She wanted more out of life. Simple happiness is not for everyone.

******
The first time my parents met was in a college. My father was studying to be a chef while my mother was grooming to be a painter. For my father, it was love at first sight. But love had no place in her life.
My mother wanted to be a painter to that is respected, admired and emulated. She wanted to be best in the world of arts. And my mother believes, to be the best, you need to put a total commitment to your craft… You need to make some sacrifices… You cannot have time for love.
She wanted to dedicate her life to arts and nothing must distract her from her goal. Especially love. She had seen thousand women given up their dreams in the name of love. They ended in an apron and making cookies for their husbands and children. My mother determined that she was not going be one of those women.
My mother send back all my father‘s love letters, unopened. All his gifts ended up in a dustbin. All his dinner offers met with rejection. But nothing my mother did could dissuade my father. He was determined to win my mother’s love…he was determined to make her as his wife….he was determined to make her the mother of his children.
My mother found his determination to be appealing, attractive and extremely sexy. In the end, my mother gave in to temptation of love and allowed my father to dance into her heart. It was the biggest mistake my mother did in her life. My mother should have stayed away from my father. My mother should have stayed away love. My mother should have known that some women are not made for love.

*****
My grandmother hated all the men my mother had dated. She never stopped finding faults in them. No one was good enough for her darling daughter. But the scenario was totally different with my father. They immediately shared a close rapport. They can talk for hours. She wanted him as her son-in-law.
“I can see in his eyes, he is madly in love with you,” my grandmother told my mother. “Marry him and you will be very happy. The greatest happiness in life is to love and be loved. ”
Foolishly, my mother trusted her every word. My mother should have learned that mothers are not always right and some women are not made for love.

*****
It cannot be denied my father and I had brought joy into her life. But the joy was not enough to satisfy her. She constantly felt restless like a vampire who has runs out of her blood supply. The mediocrity of our lives was choking her to death. My mother was like a volcano of frustration that was waiting to erupt.
Her career as a painter had not reached to greater heights the way she had hoped for. She was not as famous as she dreamt to be. That has builds a lot of frustrations and disappointment in her. She had won awards. The media had covered her intensively. She had successful art exhibitions. But that was not enough. She had bigger dreams.
She wanted her works to be exhibited in New York art museums. She wanted to be in the covers of foreign art magazine. She wanted to appear in international talk shows. In short and simple, she wanted greatness. And greatness has not come knocking at her door.
“This country doesn’t appreciate talent,” my mother said.
“As long as you have no money, you won’t get anywhere in this stupid country.”
My father had failed to see the frustration dancing in my mother’s soul. Men can’t never fully understand what goes on in a woman’s heart. But I was a woman. And seeing frustration dancing in someone’s soul can be an unpleasant affair.

*****
God was kind to my mother. God didn’t want her to die as a frustrated woman. God send Eliot Gold into my mother’s life. Eliot Gold was my mother’s ticket to the life she wanted, a life of greatness. Eliot Gold was an insurance man who had built a business empire that worth millions.
First, he was attracted to my mother’s art works. But once he met my mother, he loved the painter more. He wanted my mother at all cost. When a rich man goes hunting, he rarely returned home, empty handed.
My mother was not in love at Eliot Gold but his wealth was difficult to resist. She knew Eliot Gold could be the genie that fulfilled all her dreams. And more than anything else in the world, she wanted her dreams.
In all her life, my mother had loved one man and that man happens to be my father. But not all love stories should have a happy ending.

*****

With Eliot Gold’s wealth and powerful connections, my mother left no stones unturned. She used every opportunity to make all her dreams come true. She wanted greatness. She went out there in full force, grabbed greatness by its neck and never let greatness slipped from her hand.
She had several successful art exhibitions in America and all over Europe. She was featured in many prestigious art magazines. She was labeled as the Frida Kahlo of the East. Indeed when you have money and power at your finger tips, you can even make the most ridiculous dreams come true. And my mother dreams were far from ridiculous. She was no longer a volcano of frustration. Life was a bed of roses for my mother.
But it was totally different scenario with my father. My father became a tortured soul. He can’t stop loving my mother. He was obsessed in getting back the wife that he had lost.
“Annabel, I will get back your mum and we will be one big happy family,” he told me.
My father sent countless love letters to my mother, begging her to come back to him. My father had succeeded in winning my mother’s heart in college and he believed he will succeed again. But my father had forgotten my mother is not the same women any more. My mother had not allowed love to rule her heart any more. All my father’s letters were returned to him, unopened.
“Your mother wants so much of money and I will get her the money she wants,” he said to me.
“I will become richer that bastard who stole your mom away from me.”
Soon enough, his house was flooded with self help books that were supposed to make my father, a millionaire. Amazingly, none of the self help books worked. My father died almost penniless, and with a broken heart

*****
More than a year has passed. My father had no choice but to face the bitter fact he has lost the woman he loved forever. It was a lost that drove him mad… It was a lost that he cannot digest…. It was a lost that brought him so much misery. And one evening he decided to end his misery. My father went to the nearest railway track. He got undressed. Completely naked, he ran towards a moving train.

*****
When my mother first heard about my father’s death, she was devastated. She spends most of her time in bed, with tears streaming down from her eyes. But with time my mother learned to cope with her sadness… She learned to forgive herself… She learned there is a price for everything and nothing in life comes free. The price for her success is that she has droved the man she loved to his death.
Her greatest fear now is that I would hate her. I would blame her for my father’s death. Most mothers do not want their children to hate her and my mother was no different.
Truly, my mother has nothing to worry. I do not hate her. I do not blame her. If she didn’t want my father as her husband, I didn’t want my father as my father. I wanted a man like Eliot Gold as my father. Like my mother, I wanted a life where all my dreams come true and only men like Eliot Gold can give me the life I wanted. All my father can give me is love. But love is not enough to keep me happy …

The End

His Wife, My Mother

His Wife, My Mother By Bissme S


My dad was an affectionate man. He was never afraid to shower the people he loved with caring gestures. But when I turned 15, all this changed, drastically and dramatically.
He completely stopped loving me or anyone else for that matter. He became restrictive with his emotions .To a certain extent, his wife, my mother, was responsible for this radical change. She promised that will be together forever. But she failed to keep to her words.
She left us and my dad couldn't accept this fact. On the day she left, my dad was emotionally upset. He shed tears uncontrollably. He was raving like a mad man. He begged her to stay, he begged God to change the fate.
But God and my mother disappointed my dad immensely. Indeed their refusal had made him a broken man... too broken to have any more love in his heart.
That was the last time I saw any emotion outburst from my dad. Since my mother's departure from our lives, my dad and I rarely had any more intimate moments.
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 dad. 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 dad and I became more like strangers.
Many times I have tried to bring down the barrier between us... and be father and daughter again. But I failed miserably. Dad was not cooperative. He preferred to have a distance between us. He didn't say this directly to my face. But his action spokes volume.
After my mother, he was afraid to get too close to anyone including his own daughter. Maybe he was afraid that I might leave him the way my mother did. He was not ready for another disappointment.
He did everything in his power to forget her. He put away anything reminded him of my mother away in the attic. He forbids anyone to speak about her. He didn't want any memories of her lingering around. He treated her as if she never existed in his life.
But no matter what he did, he never really forgets her. The fact that he remembered her name in the last moments of his life simply testified this fact.
Truly, my father had loved my mother with all his heart. I remembered my mother once told me in one of our intimate moments, "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 left him. I learned the hard way that love is not enough to sustain a relationship. But to be totally honest, I can't fully blame my mother.
If she had her way, she would not have left my dad. It was fate that had the last say and I must add that fate was cruel to us. My mother was involved in a car crash and the best doctors failed to save her. She was barely 40....really too young to die.
For the doctors, she was just another patient that they lost... another casualty. But for us, she was an important part of our lives. We loved her with all our hearts and emotions. Our world come tumbling down. Indeed our lives were never the same again.
All the love in our house and our heart was buried together with her. Looking back now, I think my mother, my father and I, should take some blame as well. We should learn to love each other a little less. Perhaps then her death won't have a drastic consequence on my father and me. Truly, we should learn to love each other a little less.

Forgetting Adrian

Forgetting Adrian
Truly, I believed, one of the hardest things in life, is watching the person you love, love someone else. I was madly in love with Adrian but he never loved me back. He only regarded me as his best friend and nothing more. I didn’t want his friendship. I wanted his love. I wanted his body to touch mine. I wanted his lips to be on my lips. I wanted to carry his child. When he introduced me to the woman he loved, my world came crashing down and my heart was broken to thousand pieces. I was no different from the Humpty Dumpty that sat on the wall and had a great fall, and no one can fixed me back.
Frankly speaking I can’t totally blame Adrian for breaking my heart. I never confessed my true feelings to Adrian. I never had the guts to reveal what was in my heart. I never showed my pain to Adrian. I put on a clown mask and pretended to be happy for his happiness. I attended Adrian’s wedding with smiles in my face and tears in my heart. I reminded myself that love and marriages were fated and it was not in my fate to be Adrian s soul mate. I tried dating other guys. But no one can take Adrian’s place in my heart. Forgetting Adrian was not easy. May be I was fated to love only Adrian and no one else.

*****
The first time Adrian and I met, both of us were hardly 12-years-old. Adrian and his family were our new neighbours. Our parents become fast friends. Both of our parents had so much in common and spend so much time together. It was only natural for Adrian and I to become close friends. My feelings for him didn’t only remain as friends. Slowly, I find myself falling in love with him. Love happens when you least expected it. I began to have dreams about us falling in love, getting married and living happily ever after, just like in the fairy tales. I learned the hard way that some fairy tales are not meant to come true.

******
I cannot understand what Adrian saw in Anita. She was just a plain Jane. But in Adrian’s eyes, she was the most beautiful creature to walk upon on his earth. He sang high praises of Anita like angels sings sermons in the praise for their creator. The first time they met was when Anita s car broke down on the highway. And the shining knight armour who came to her rescue – the love of my life – Adrian. Naturally the numbers were exchanged. Out of gratitude, Anita took him to a dinner. That was not the end of them meeting each other. Soon more dinners followed. Slowly, love blossomed between them and naturally the next step was to get married and start a family.

******
I had a hard time accepting the fact Adrian was not my lover… Adrian was not my husband … Adrian was calling another woman as his wife. Loneliness became my faithful companion, bitterness enveloped my life and pain never stopped dancing in my heart. I have been told some disappointments and some broken hearts are good for your soul. It makes you a stronger person. But I never wanted to be strong. I just wanted Adrian to love me.

******
Like most men, Adrian was jumping with joy when he learned that his wife was pregnant. He wanted me to be his wife’s doctor and bring out their child into the world. He wanted me to their child’s god mother. Life is full of surprises and disappointments. I dream to be the mother of his children. Instead I was becoming the god mother to his children. The day finally came where his wife was in the delivery room. There was complication and her life was in my hand. My pain robbed me of my rationality. My life didn’t have a happy ending and I didn’t want Adrian to have a happy ending either. My dreams had turned into disappointments and I will do the same to his dreams. I made sure his wife and his child didn’t survived the operation and like I have hoped, the tragedy made him a broken man. His life became be a carbon copy of my life.
Loneliness became his faithful companion, bitterness enveloped his life and pain never stopped dancing in his heart. Adrian tried dating other women. Like me, he can’t never find a woman who can take place Anita’s place in his heart. “Basanti, may be I am just fated to just to love only Anita and no one else” he confided in me. Strangely he never blamed me for his wife’s death. If anything he blamed God for his extreme sadness. He stopped going to church. He never forgive God for taking away his wife and his child. He was furious at God and anything that has connection with religion. “Doctors are not God,” he pacified me. “Life and death is in the God’s hand and God always has the last say ,” he added. Our regular church priest, Father Joseph Convin tried to convince Adrian to love God again and to come back to church. But Adrian was adamant to hate God. “The day my wife died is also the day God died for me,” Adrian told the priest. “The next time you come to my house, it will not me who will welcome you, it will be my dogs. And my dogs have fierce hatred for priests,” he added. Father Joseph Convin never visited Adrian again.

******
I never wanted sadness for Adrian. I had loved Adrian with all my heart and I have always wished all the happiness in the world should be showered on Adrian. But I can’t see him being happy with another woman in his arm. Like I said earlier one of the hardest things in life, is watching the person you love, love someone else.

The End

His Father

His Father By Bissme S

I have always prayed that my son must never find out the truth about his father. The moment he asked me about his father, Ihad painted a picture of lies.
Convincingly, I told him that his father was a real warrior... a real hero... a soldier who died while protecting his country from the vicious enemy.
But in reality, his father was a man who had committed the most hideous crime. Truly, the truth about his father will only psychologically scar him for the rest of his life.
The truth has broken me. The truth has brought unspeakable misery in my life. Even now, I have a hard time digesting the truth.
I don't want my son to go through what I had experienced. He must be protected from the truth at any cost. He must not suffer for the sins of his father.
I didn't face any difficulty painting this picture of lies. Firstly my son has never met his father. He died before I gave birth to Ajay.Secondly, nobody in this town has ever met Ajay's father. When I arrived at this town, I was a four-month pregnant widow looking for a job and a new life.I created a different identity entirely. I had to. If they knew the truth, they would probably outcast my son and me.
They would probably spit in our faces. They wouldn't want a convict's family to live within their community. His father and I were teachers in a small town. The first time I met Ashok was at the teacher training college. Slowly we became more than friends.
The moment we graduated, we tied the knot. I thought that I knew him well. It appeared that I was wrong. After two years of marriage, I learn about his terrible dark side.
Apparently he had been molesting some of his male students in the pretext giving them extra free tuitions. He took advantage of their innocence.
His secret was exposed when one of the student, Bala, made a complaint to headmaster as well as the police. My husband was arrested.
At first, I doubted the charges against him. Later, it became difficult to believe in his innocence. Bala managed to reveal some intimate details about his penis... a certain dark patch. Bala's confession gave courage for other children to come forward and speak out. In the two years of my husband teaching career, he had at least molested 25 children.
Out of shame, my husband committed suicide between the four walls of the cell. He was found hanging. I wonder what happened to the shame when he was doing the unspeakable act on the children. Perhaps he was more ashamed of getting caught compared to the act of molestation.
The town folk felt immensely cheated when my husband committed suicide. They felt that he had escaped the law and punishment too easily. In their eyes, justice was denied.
They were furious and frustrated beyond words. They directed their angry emotions at me. They felt that being his wife, I had to pay for his sins.
Whenever I went, they were throwing insult and curses at me. Shopkeepers refuse to serve me. I was not allowed to enter the temple.
Suddenly, none of my friends wanted to have any more association with me.The headmaster hinted that it is for the best that I resign. Apparently parents have been threatening not to send the children to school if I was still working.
I find the society is more unforgiving when the crime involved innocent children. When I learnt that I was pregnant, I had decided to leave this town and find somewhere else to start a new beginning. I don't want to subject my son to their anger and to their punishment.
Off I went, to a new town with a fake new identity. It has been 30 years since the incident. My son is a successful lawyer, happily married with two children.
To this day, Ajay doesn't have a clue that I have been lying to him all these years. Looking back, I have no regrets telling those lies.
For sake of my son's happiness, the lies on his father were necessary. Even on my dying bed, I would not tell Ajay the truth about his father. I will carry his father's crime to my grave.

Separation

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.
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’tbring 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.

DAD

DAD : By Bissme S

If God is going to be in heaven, I would rather be in hell. Those were the last words my mom said on her deathbed. There was a time in her life when God and religion played an important role. She was a regular face in church. The bible was the most important book in her life.
She was actively involved in church organized charity events and she didn’t stand anyone making fun of religion.
“God made us and we should respect him and not make joke out of him,” she said.
But when my dad died, everything changed. She stopped believing in God. She stopped going to church. She developed an intense hatred towards God and anything that has connection to Him.
Mom held God responsible for my dad’s death and she didn’t - couldn’t- forgave God for taking her husband away, the man she loved with all her heart and soul.
Dad was only forty-one when he met his tragic death. Too Young to die! What a tragedy! That was what everyone said at my dad’s funeral.
My mom literally worshipped the ground he walked on. In her eyes, he was a perfect man, a perfect husband and a perfect dad. Mom always told me my dad was an angel in disguise.
Indeed, she was so shocked when she learned that someone hated him to the extent of murdering him.
“Ramesh, why would anyone want to kill your father? He is a wonderful man,” my mom said to me when she first heard my dad had been murdered.

***
It was raining the night someone sneaked into my dad’s shop and shot him. TV shows often have the tendency to portray crime scenes as gory and extremely violent.
But my dad’s murder was nothing like that. Except for his dead cold body and a pool of blood staining the carpet, no one would have guessed a murder had taken place.
Policemen scrutinized each corner of the shop for evidence. They dusted for fingerprints. They studied the blood spatter analysis. They ruled out robbery. Nothing had stolen, so they believed the motive was pure hatred.
“Mrs Shanti, whoever shot your husband wants to make sure he is really dead,”Inspector Ram Kumar explained.
“That is the reason he or she used up all the bullets in the gun,” he added.
He was young and ambitions. This was his first murder case. He promised to apprehend the murderer at all cost. My mom had a hard time digesting that anyone could hate my dad, let alone murder him. She refused to accept the police inspector’s theory. She believed what took place was a robbery gone wrong.
In the end the young inspector failed to keep to his word. The case was forgotten and my dad’s murderer was never caught. Sometimes the young and the ambitious make promises they cannot keep.

***
Of course, life went on for the rest of us, except for my mom . She couldn’t stop loving my dad and she couldn’t stop hating God.
Years later, a distant relative of mine who became priest visited my mom. He was hopping to convince my mom to love God again…to come back to church again. My mom simply replied: “These days, I find myself having more respect for prostitutes than priests.”
The young priest was startled. He looked at me for support. But I could offer none. My mom continued: “Father, tell me why do pimps, prostitutes and priests starts with the same alphabet.”
My mom took the broom by the closet and literally swept the young priest out of her house. I did nothing to stop her. “Don’t ever come back here again,” she yelled. We never saw the priest again.

***
I, on other hand, became totally the opposite. My dad’s death brought me closer to God. I went to Church more often. I read the Bible from chapter to chapter, book to book and whispering the archaic verses over and over to myself.
Religion brought me the peace I desperately sought. Killing your own father is not an easy burden to carry. Strangely enough, my hands were not shaking when I shot him to death that night.
I still remember every detail. I walked into his shop, bold as brass. My dad was shocked to see me pointing a gun directly at him. He stared at me speechlessly, a thousand questions going through his mind. Before he could regain his composure, I shot him.
In case I missed the first shot. I shot him again and again, until all my bullets had been used up. I dashed from the shop not looking back.
At that time I didn’t have any regrets killing my dad. He deserved to die. But seeing my mother’s misery put so much guilt in me. Perhaps I shouldn’t have killed him in the first place.
I was getting tired of my dad sneaking into my room and touching me in the place he shouldn’t. I begged him to stop coming into my room.
“For God’s sake I am your son, not your lover,” I whispered.
But my dad wouldn’t listen to me. I hadn’t expected his death will take such a tremendous toll on my mother. Even after killing my dad, I wanted to tell my mother the whole truth. But I was afraid she would hate me the way he hates God. I don’t want her hatred. So I keep it a secret.
Initially like my mom I hated God too. I hated God for different reasons. I hated Him for everything bad that had taken place in my life, for allowing my dad to touch me and for not being there to protect me.
Later I realized I couldn’t lead a life like my mom’s … a life filled with hatred. I needed God in my life. I needed God to forgive me for what I had done.

Footnote: This fiction  has appeared in Dark City 2, a book consisting a collection of 17 short stories

TWINS

TWINS - By Bissme S


It was strange to have my twin brother undressing me.... to have his lips kissing my lips ... to have his naked body brushing against mine... to have his hands touching my manhood.
I had reservation touching him back. I wanted us to be brothers forever and not sinful lovers. I wanted us not to cross the boundaries. 
But I had promised him that I would not stop this madness. I would let his dreams come true. I would let his desires be a reality. And I had not broken my promise. That was the first time, we as brothers, made love. But that was not our last time.


******
Sometimes, I blamed our father for making us from brothers to lovers.  Our father should not have pampered us too much. Our father shouldn't have fulfilled all our dreams and our desires. Staying with our father was like staying with a genie who grants every of your wishes.
Our father made us believe life would be wonderful always, suffering was not written in our fate and misery would never touch us. Our father told us that everyone would bow to us, forever. He was not far from the truth. 
When you born into royalty, you have a bless life. You have wealth beyond your dreams.You always had people respecting you as well as fearing you. My father was the king while we were his precious princes. 
But our father had forgotten that life can be unpredictable and things can change. A king can lose his kingdom. A Prince can become a pauper.
That was what happened to us. A revolution took place in our country. My father was not a great king. People were suffering under his ruling. For years, the people did nothing and endured the suffering, quietly. 
Then came a day when people were tired of suffering… people were tired of keeping quiet.They rebelled against their own king. They burned our castle, captured our father and hanged him. A new government was set up. Royalties were not needed. Royalties were no longer respected.
When the revolution began, my father had my mother and his sons shipped out to America. We begged him to follow us. He was adamant to stay behind to protect his kingdom and to teach his people that King should be respected, not rebelled against.
He believed he could paralyzed the revolution and put the troublemaker behind bars. My father had underestimated the revolution. He had underestimated his people.


*****
Life in America was not easy for us. At first, we had so much money and we were not worried. Then, all the money was slowly spent. Our mother was never good at managing money.She spent money like water coming out from a tap. Our mother had forgotten that she was no longer a Queen of a rich kingdom. Before she married our father, she was a model.
It was her beauty that attracted my father’s attention. Our mother didn’t think twice to dump her fiancée to marry my father. She always loved a luxury life and who could provide a better life than a King.
When the money runs out, we had not choice but to live in a slums area. My twin brother and I had to find jobs in a super market. It was a shocking experience for us.
We never worked in our lives before. Taking orders from our superiors was a very difficult affair for us. We are so used of giving out orders and not receiving them.
Compare to me, Danny had more difficulty accepting his new poor life and always got into fights with his superiors. But our mother was in far worse condition that Danny. 
She can’t totally accept her new condition at all. Her mind snapped. She refused to speak to any one, not even us. Then one day, out of the blue, my mother ended her life. Completely naked, she walked towards a running train.
“Damien, sometimes I feel like doing what our mother did,” my twin brother Danny told me at our mother's funeral.
“I cannot live a poor man’s life,” he said.
Fear danced in my bones. I had lost my father. I had lost my mother. I can’t afford to lose my brother.


******


It didn’t take long for Danny to get sacked. The superiors can’t take any more of his arrogant ways. When you are born and brought up as a prince, arrogance comes to you naturally.
Getting fired from your job is never good for your soul. Danny went into a depression. I was fearful that he would take the similar road that my mother has taken. Just like our mother, he refused to speak anyone including me.
The computer had become his new best friend. He would spend hours in front of the internet, chatting with strangers all over the world. Weeks later, to my surprise, he broke his silence.He was no longer depressed. He began to smile. He began to laugh. Happiness danced into his life again. I was so happy, just to see him happy again.
"Do not worry Danny, you do not have to work," I said.
"I will work for both of us," I added.
Danny just laugh at me and said : "Do not worry brother, believe me, life will be easy for us again. We will be rich again. We do not have to work very hard like slaves any more. In few weeks time our lives will change forever. "
Danny didn't elaborate any further and I didn't care to ask. His depression had disappeared and that was enough for me.


****
But Danny kept to his promise and our lives change forever. It all began with Danny introducing me to Jimmy Smith. Danny and Jimmy meet through the internet.From his appearance, it was easy to guess that Jimmy Smith was not a poor man. The more he talked, the more I realized that I was sitting in front a billionaire.
It puzzled me that a man of his status wants to be my brother's friend. The rich only mingles with the rich and they have no time for  poor people like us. When my brother and I were rich, the poor have no place in our house, in our hearts and in our mind. The poor are born just to serve us.
When Jimmy took my brother and me to his house for dinner, the sight of his house left me speechless. Everything inside the house was grand. His home is like one of those houses you see in a high class interior magazine.
He showered expensive gifts on Danny. He fulfilled Danny's every desires. What Danny wants, he gets. Jimmy tried to do the same with me. But I refused. Unlike Danny, I didn't want to take advantage of Jimmy.
It was not long Danny and me move into Jimmy's house. I protested, initially. I wanted us to stay where we were. But Danny was more forceful. In the end I had to bow down to Danny.
I thought Jimmy was too naive to see that my brother was taking him for a ride...my brother was using him to lead a rich life. But in the end, I learned that I was the naive one.


******
Jimmy had an ulterior motive to share his wealth with us. Jimmy gets a high watching twins like us making love in front of him.Jimmy was willing to go any length to see his dirty desire become a reality. Jimmy was willing spend any amount of money to see us making love.
Danny didn't have any qualms making love with me in front of Jimmy. Danny kept convincing me that this was our road to richness again…this was our road to an easy life.Danny didn't care about what is sinful and what is not. When I refused, he threaten to end his life , just like Mama.
"I cannot live a poor man's life," he said.
I had no choice. I didn't want to lose my brother. Out of desperation, I agreed to his wishes. I was like a puppet in Danny's hand, dancing to his tunes.I felt guilty whenever we made love. Some nights, I had disturbing nightmares where God punished Danny and me to fires of hell. I wake up with fear dancing in my bones and sweat all over my body.
I described my nightmares to Danny. But Danny was unemotional, unaffected and unperturbed. God, hell and religion doesn't bother him any more.
"If God wants us not to do this sin, then he should not have made us so wealthy and out of the blue, take away our wealth," he says.
"God is partly to be blamed. If God puts us in hell, then he should be in hell with us too. I am not worried about hell yet. Hell can wait. What is important is now."


******
It has been two years since we stayed together. Jimmy never got bored watching us making love. Sometimes Jimmy joined us in our love making session.My brother and I called ourselves as JD (Jimmy's Darlings). And Jimmy loved the title  we had given to ourselves . As Danny predicted, life was wonderful again.
We were not prince anymore but at least we were rich... at least we didn't have worked hard like slaves just to earn our bread and butter. I began to enjoy my luxurious life.I was also glad that the nightmares had stopped. No more God, no more hell and no more punishment. Just happiness and more happiness.
Like my brother, I have learned to kill my conscious. I told myself what happened was for the best. I told myself, some people are not destined to live a poor man's life.


The End

She

She - By Bissme S


"How can you look after your husband's murderer?"


My best friend Janaki has been asking me this question for years. I can understand her curiosity. But sad to say, I have no rational answers for her.
All I know is that I just can’t abandon her. If I did, my husband would be immensely devastated. My husband had loved his murderer with all his heart.
Even on his deathbed, he pleaded with me to look after her. His exact words were: "She won't take my death well. Promise me, Naveena, that you will look after her till her last breath."
How do you refuse a man whom you love with all your heart, begging and pleading in his last breath? You simply couldn't. You could only comply.
My husband was right. She didn't take his death rationally. She went insane. Looking after a mad woman is never an easy task.
She has not spoken a word since my husband's death. She recognizes nobody. Most of the time, she will just stare at a blank space. There are rare moments when she will throw tantrums. She will throw things at me. There are times when I would defend myself and other times I will just stand there like a mannequin and take whatever pain came my way.
When there are no more things to throw, she will let out a long frustrating scream sounding very much like a wounded animal. After her cries are over, she will slip into her silent mood. No words, only blank stares.
My husband had told me that he had loved her and me equally. But I knew my husband had lied. He loved me. That is one fact I can't deny. But he always loved her a little more. Whenever we quarreled, my husband would defend her even when she was in the wrong.
My husband always told me that I should be understanding and patient. I should learn to forgive easily. I should not take her too seriously. But she was a difficult woman to live with.
She never liked me from the beginning. I can still recall her displeasure the first time we met. But my husband assured me otherwise. He said I got the wrong impression. I got the wrong picture. Foolishly, I believed him.
In front of me, she didn't say much. But behind my back, she'd had a lot to say and a lot of venom to spit out.
"Prakash, you deserve better than her," she said.
But my husband was adamant and his desire to make me as his wife was far stronger.
"If I can't marry Naveena, I will marry no one," said my husband.
Even after our marriage her hostility towards me didn't lessen. There was always a cold war between us.
Then I got pregnant. She was thrilled that my husband was becoming a father. She became kinder to me. Instantly, the hostility between us disappeared. She was looking after my welfare, making sure I ate the right things and I had enough rest. Slowly we built a bridge of understanding and compassion. I was extremely glad we no longer hostile enemies.
Then tragedy struck that changed the nature of our relationship forever. Seven months pregnant, I had an accident - a nasty fall from the staircase. But losing the baby wasn't the worst news that I had to face.
"Mrs Naveena, I am so sorry that you can never be a mother again," said the doctor, coldly and without any trace of emotion.
My husband and I cried out hearts out. But she was far too furious to be sad. Her dream to see my husband becoming a father was shattered. She became more hostile to me than before. Our disagreements were far more intense.
Once I overheard her persuading my husband to divorce me and find a new wife, one that could bear his children to carry on the family name.
"If you want me to stay with you, never bring up the subject of my divorcing Naveena again," my husband harshly warned her.
She never brought up the subject again. But she was still determined to see me out of his life and she was willing to go any lengths to see this happen.
With me out of the way, she felt she had a better chance to persuade my husband to marry another woman that will make my husband a father. She planned my murder. She paid some gangsters to kill me for once and ever. Everything was planned in detail. They would snatch my purse and made the whole incident look like a robbery went wrong .Every Friday I would go to the temple for morning prayers. When the day came, everything went wrong. For the first time in his life, my husband decided to follow me to the temple.
Prior to this, he was never a religious man. Perhaps the recent tragedy of my miscarriage had made him think about God and spirituality. Tragedies have been known to bring man closer to God
His body took the knife instead of mine. The police ruled out the whole incident as robbery. When she looked at my husband's cold lifeless body, out of sheer sadness, she blurted out the whole truth to me.
Beating her chest, she cried, "I was evil and God had taught me a lesson." Those were her last words before sanity left her. She never thought the diabolic plan she conceived would kill my husband. Her grief and guilt were so intense that her mind suddenly snapped.
I knew the truth but I never told a single soul except my best friend Janaki. I just felt I had to tell someone about my grief - someone I know who would keep it a secret too and there was no better person than Janaki. It is just too painful to keep a secret all to myself.
Initially I couldn't bring myself to forgive her for what she has done. My hatred was at the highest degree and I regretted the promise I made to look after her.
But over the years, I have learned to forgive and forget. Instead of anger and hatred, I felt compassion towards her.
I came to realize that her situation was far more tragic than mine. I lost a husband, she a son. But she sent her own son to the door of death. Truly no mother should have a fate like my mother-in-law.

A Life Without Love

A Life Without Love By Bissme S


Is it possible everyone loves you and you love no one back?

My mother posed me this question when I was hardly 20. I was too stunned to reply her question. I just stared her, blankly and she did the same. Then, slowly, she gazed down on the table and start eating her dinner.
And I did the same. Throughout the dinner, there was an awkward silence between us. Our eyes were fixated on the food that was on our plates. We were afraid to look at each other’s eyes. Only, the sound of our spoons and forks hitting our plates can be heard.
Deep in my heart, I was glad she didn’t pursue the answer to her question … I was glad we didn’t have an intense discussion on this topic. I was afraid of the conclusion of our discussions. I was not ready to face the truth. Till the day she died, she never brought up this question again.
To a certain degree, I could felt my mother was afraid as I was. Like me, she was not ready to face the truth, too. She didn’t want to rock the boat. She preferred to let sleeping dogs lie. I shared her similar feelings.
Both of us knew the answers in our hearts but we were not brave enough to bring the answers from our hearts to our mouths. Perhaps, some questions are not to be answered.
But if truth to be told, my mother had mastered the art of getting everyone to love her and she love no one back. My mother had one of those charming personalities where she doesn’t have to do anything and people just loved her. What they failed to see is my mother feels nothing for them.
My mother never demanded to be loved. She was one of those individuals who could live a life without love. Some people have to walked miles and miles to find love. But with my mother, love came knocking at her door, easily and she can never appreciated this fact. I, truly, believed my mother was born handicap. But her handicap is the rare kind. She simply doesn’t have a heart to love.
She can’t even bring herself to love the man she called husband and the man I called father. She lost her husband at the young age of 30. When the police informed her about my father’s terrible a car accident, my mother had no emotion all. If anything I noticed there was a sigh of relief, as she does not have to pretend to be a caring wife anymore.
She was happier to be in a widow’s shoes. At my father’s funeral she stood there like a lifeless statue. Everyone at the funeral thought she too grief stricken to show any emotions. They pitted for her. They felt the God was unkind to make her a widow at the young age. They never stopped hugging her. They never stopped consoling her.
In reality she just can’t wait for the funeral service to be over. She was eager to go back to the comfort of her home and perhaps reading one of her favorite novels. She was wanted so desperately to go as far away as she can from the overly dramatic emotions that my father’s friends were showering at her husband’s funeral. If only his friends had known the truth, they would have probably spat my mother’s face, called her unkind names and dragged her out of my father’s funeral.
Even her own mother could feel she didn’t have a heart to love. On her dying bed, her mother said to me “ Please forgive your grandmother! I have raised a monster.” Looking back now I can never blamed her parents. My mother didn’t have a tragic childhood. If anything her childhood was a blissful one and a dream that every orphan looks forward too. Her parents never stopped showering my mother with love and more love
Perhaps God had just forgotten to put a functional heart in my mother. Therefore, she can’t bring herself to love anyone. I remembered years ago, asking her why she married my dad. I was expecting the usual answers – “It was love at first sight”… “He was handsome and had the kindest heart”… “He was so romantic and never stopped pursuing me.”
With my mother, you can never expect the usual answer. “Jason, I married your father so that I can know the meaning of love,” she said.
Sadly, marriage failed her miserably. My mother never learned to love my father even though he worshipped the ground she walked on. He never stopped loving her even though he knows she has a cold heart that can never love him back. He believed he can changed her.
He had high hopes that one day his wife will love him as much as her loved her. I believed, sometimes, my father had convinced himself that he was Rhett Butler from the movie Gone With The Wind who will in the end win the love of heartless and beautiful Scarlett O’Hara which was my mom. Of course my father will make sure his Gone With The Wind will have a happy ending. He will learn to forgive his Scarlett O’Hara and together they will walk into the sunset, holding each other’s hand and gazing at each other eyes, lovingly. But my father failed to understand life is not movies.
There are some people who simply don’t change. My father should have learned there are possibilities for leopards to change their spots but not my mother. Sometimes I felt my home was like an asylum where I had a father cannot accept reality, a mother cannot love any one and I was this lousy psychologist who cannot find cures for my parents. Of course my father died of broken heart and my mother never learned to love him till his last breath.
But my mother wanted to learn the meaning of love, so badly. She desperately wanted to be so normal. She wanted so badly to fit into the society where love is a normal expression. When she found marriage failed cure her handicap, she resorted to motherhood. She read somewhere mothers are angels in disguise and they have natural instincts to love their flesh and blood. And that was her reason to have me.
But like marriage, motherhood failed her miserably, too. She began to accept it was fated she is never meant to love anyone but herself. She began to believe not all mothers are angels in disguises… not all mothers are meant to love their children.
When I was young, I must confessed that I hard time accepting my mother didn’t love me. All children want their mothers to love them and I was no different. I did everything in my power to make her love me. I was hopping that I can change her…I could make her love me.
But unlike my father, over the years, l learned winning her love was an impossible task. There are possibilities for leopards to change their spots but not my mother. Perhaps my mother was right that not all mothers are meant to love their children.
When I was old enough, I made a point to accept a job where I will be far away from her. I wanted to give her freedom where she doesn’t have to be my mother anymore. Most mothers will be sad when their only child will be so far away from them. But my mother was different. I could see joy was dancing in her face. Finally she can be alone. A lot people are afraid to be alone. But she cherished the companion of loneliness than people. I can fully understand her motivation wanting to be alone.
When she was alone, she can truly be herself…she doesn’t have to conform to the society norm where love is supposed to be natural expression. She can lead a life without love, with some peace and without have any guilt. She was most comfortable when she was alone.
I only visited her during Christmas Holidays. I do not want to intrude her new life with loneliness. I could feel there certain amount of tension whenever I returned home. She can’t wait for the Christmas Holidays to be over, so she can be alone again.
When she was on her dying bed, I went to see her. I hoped she become a changed person and developed a heart to love. When you are near death, people become different… people become less heartless. But my mother never changed. She never talked about love. It is possible for leopards to change their spots but not my mother.
At her funeral, I promised that I would not cry for her. After all, she never loved me. But I never kept to my promise. Tears never stopped streaming down my eyes. She can’t bring herself to love me and I can’t bring myself to hate her. Not all children are meant to hate their mothers.

Ghost

Ghost By Bissme S

I tried to convince him that there is no such thing as ghost. But he refused to listen to anything I have said. He let fear destroyed his life. He let fear robbed his sanity.
“What we have done is a sin,” he said.
“She is going to punish us. God is going to punish us. We will be burned in hell.”
He was so afraid of sleeping. He would go any length to stay awake including taking all kinds of drugs and countless cups of coffee.
Whenever he slept, he would have terrible nightmares where she was chasing us and making our lives a living hell.
“I do not want to sleep any more,” he said.
“I want the nightmares to stop. I want her to stop haunting us.”
Of course it was impossible to stay awake forever. Each time he woke up from his sleep, he would shout his lungs out. He sounded as if he was a war prisoner that was being tortured, mercilessly.
Sometimes he would hit his head on the wall till it bleed, as a punishment for sleeping. I had no choice but to admit him in a mental asylum. I had high hopes the doctors will find a cure for his madness. But I was wrong.
In the mental asylum, his madness got worse and his fear reached to the highest peak. He lived in his own world and refused to speak to anyone except me. His doctors lost any hopes of curing him.
He spends his days and night drawing the woman that we had killed … the woman that was haunting him…the woman he claimed is making his life a living hell. His room was full of her portraits.
“I think God will forgive me,” he said to me, out of the blue.
Those lines were enough to bring smiles to my face. For once I had hopes that he would recover. But his next sentence was enough to tell me his madness will not end and fear has become his new companion.
“But I do not think she can ever forgive me,” he added.
“She is not that forgiving.”

****
A year after his arrival at the asylum, he ended his fear for once and all. He found a way to escape from the mental asylum. He ran towards a moving train, totally naked. He left a suicide note, addressed to me.

Dear Jennifer

Death is the only thing that could give me the peace I desperately want. Sometimes death is not bad thing. Death is ending of all misery.

From your loving
Jack.

Those were his last words. In some ways, he was right. His death was the ending of his misery. He was no longer a tortured soul any more. He can’t forgive himself for the murder we had committed.
I, other hand, was totally different.. Oddly enough it was him who first suggested of killing her.
“Life will be better for us if she was not in our lives any more,” he said to me.
I had reservation of killing her. But he can be very persuasive.
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life looking after her,” he said.
“We are young. We are supposed to enjoy life. Not to be trapped in this house and looking after her. Sometimes death is not a bad thing. Death is ending of all misery. Her death will be the end of her misery … and ours too.”
Like him, I was tired of looking after her. The first time she broke the news of her illness, he was shocked. So was I. We have never seen her sick in all our lives.
All of us had tears in our eyes and we hugged each other tightly. We promised her that we look after her till her last breath and, we will be compassionate, caring and loving to her.
She believed every word we told her. But we never kept to our promise. We never expected looking after a sick woman could be a real burden.
We underestimated her illness and overestimated our capabilities. Just waiting to see her doctors can be a tiring affair and can really test your patient.
Constantly, dealing with her vomiting, her wetting her bed and her wailing in pain was enough to drive us crazy. Managing a full time job and looking after a sick person can be tremendously stressful. And when the stress was too much for us to bear, he came up with the plan of killing her and dragged me into this diabolical plan.
Both of us put our head together and came up with a perfect plan. We pushed her out from our apartment’s window. Naturally the police arrived at the scene. The police ruled out murder. The police came to a conclusion that she had jumped out from the window at her own will.
After all, her suicide letter was lying on the table. Her suicide note was simple and said:

My dear children,

I am in so much pain. I have stayed alive just for you. Please do not cry over my death. Sometimes death is not a bad thing. Death is ending of all misery.

From your loving mom
Jacqueline.

Of course my mother never wrote the suicide note. It was my brother who did it. The moment my mother’s funeral was over, my brother madness began.
His guilt haunted him. He was convinced our mother has returned from her grave to punish us for being the ungrateful children. It was guilt that drove him to his death.
As for me I have not seen my mother’s ghost. I never had nightmares where she was making our lives miserable.
My conscious didn’t bother me at all. I have convinced myself that killing her was a necessary. My mother was in pain all the time and we just ended her misery.
Of course it was a different story with my brother. I keep seeing him everywhere. He keeps begging me to end his misery.
I have no peace. I am anxious and nervous all the time. My friends tried to convince me that there is no such thing as a ghost…..

He & She

He &She By Bissme S

He told her, a secret of his that was buried in his heart for ages. She was shocked. She was speechless. She went into her room and cried her hearts out. She refused to discuss the matter any further.
But a few hours later, she was standing in front of him, looking calm and composed. The first thing she did was to hug him. Both of them had tears in their eyes. Wiping away his tears, she said to him: “Do not worry, I will find a cure for you. Once you are cured, God will forgive your sins. God is very forgiving.”
He did not protest. Like always, he let her run his life. She wanted him to change. She wanted him to be a better man. She sought the church’s help. He was send to a religious rehabilitation program where he can repent his sin and finally walked the road the Jesus wanted him to walk.
Every day of the 100 days in the rehabilitation program he was subjected to lectures where a world of hell awaits for sinners like him. The only way out was to repent and never to repeat his sins again. He felt like he was in a torture chamber. Fear dance in his bones each time the lecture was over.
He had nightmares where the fire of hell was burning him, alive. He was shouting in terrible pain and nobody shown mercy, not even God. He learned the hard way that God may not be as forgiving as she had painted him to be. God can be a merciless punisher.

***
When he returned home, he lied. He pretended that he was cured. He had embraced God and all his teaching with an open heart. He was a better man.
He didn’t want to go back to the rehabilitation program at any cost. He was tired of listening to sermons about hell and punishment. He just wanted the nightmares to stop.
She believed every word he said. No question asked. She really believed God has saved him and showed him the right path. Sometimes lies are easier to believe than the truth.
In front of her, he learn to wear a mask of lies Sometimes he asked himself If God wanted him to be straight why did God make him have this feelings. He never found the answers. Perhaps some questions are never meant to have answers.
He had more room to breath when he got a job in a city where there is less discrimination against people like him. Slowly he learned to throw his mask away. He learned to love himself more. He felt like a slave who finally gets to enjoy his freedom.
But whenever he goes back to his hometown to see her, the mask of lies will be on his face again. He will enter in a world where he will be a stranger to himself. She suspects nothing. Out of blue, came a day, he was tired of living a life of lies. It was a time to end the charade. He felt the time has come for her to know the truth and learned to accept him for what he is.
But the truth didn’t go well with her. She was furious. She wanted to send him to the rehabilitation program again where he will repent, reform and be a better man. Boldly he refused her request. She threw him out of the house.
“Do not come back till you have repented,” she said.
He really believed he would never see her again. But he was wrong. Six months later, on his birthday, she was standing at his front door. He was speechless. She wanted to mend their broken relationship. She wanted to be his mother again.
She even brought some of her famous porridge that he likes as a peace offering. It didn’t take him long to hug her and welcomed her into his apartment. All was forgiven and forgotten.
Only after eating the porridge he had realized that he had invited his own death instead of the woman he called his mother. The porridge was poison. She came to his house with only one aim… the aim of killing him.
She has given him time to change but he did not change. So she took matters in her hand. By raising a gay son, she felt she had sin. From what she understood, there is no heaven for sinners like her.
She wanted forgiveness. She wanted redemption. She wanted heaven. By killing him was her way of getting forgiveness from God …was her way getting redemption…was her way getting a place in heaven
After he had taken his last breath, she left his apartment and took bus to her house at their hometown. There was no remorse. There was no sadness. There were no tears. She had convinced herself that she did not kill her son but a devil in disguise.

Dirty Desire

Dirty Desire By Bissme S



I wanted a man to fall madly in love with me and then, I will betray him in the worst possible manner. This desire has been playing in my mind since I was young. I cannot give any rational reasons for this desire.
But I am sure that many psychologists would jump to conclusion that a man had betrayed me and now I have become a heartless monster who wants revenge at any price, and my revenge is I want to betray an innocent man. The psychologists would scream that what is happening is a vicious cycle.
But believe me, I was not betrayed. And no unspeakable tragedies have taken place in my life that turned me into a heartless monster. If any thing I had a wonderful life. I cannot ask for a better life.
The problem with many psychologists is that they like to give justification to every dirty desire the human race has. But sometimes a desire is just a desire and there is not justification for some desires, and life is not just about vicious cycle.
For many years I have suppressed this desire of mine. I have tried to be a normal human being with normal desires. But I was miserable. Outside I was smiling but inside I was a restless tortured soul. Silently, I was screaming in pain. Slowly, I was losing my mind. Desperately I want my misery to end. Desperately I want my pain to end. Desperately I want my sanity back.
I learned the only way I can be happy and have some peace of mind if my desire becomes a reality. My desire cannot be suppressed, any more. My desire must be fulfilled at any price.

*****
The first thing I did was to sell off everything I owned and move to a smaller town where no one recognized me. I lied everything about me from my name to my hair colour.
I pretended to be a copywriter, attached to a well-known advertising agency. I was tired of the city and was looking for a quiet life, far from madding crowd.
My neighbours did not suspect anything suspicious. It didn’t take me long to win their hearts. I have the kind of face that people will trust and love easily. Now come the hardest part. I had to pick a man whose heart I would break …whose trust I would betray.
After many month of searching, I found my perfect victim. His name is David Smith and he is a widower with four teenage daughters. His wife died in a terrible car accident. It was my close neighbour Mrs Jenkinson, who pointed him out while we were shopping.
Mrs Jenkinson told me the story of his life and the story of everyone who stays in this town. She is a walking encyclopedia of this town. She knows everything that takes place here
David has been a widower for five years. He and his late wife Carole was a perfect couple. They loved each other deeply. David believed no one could take Carole’s place in his heart. Of course I was determined to change that. I was determined to prove him wrong. I was determined to make him love me.
I learned that every Saturday, David and his four children would visit the library. The love for reading is one habit that father and daughters shared in common. So I got a job as a librarian. I wanted our first meeting to be spontaneous. The first time we talked, I complimented him on his beautiful and well- behaved daughters. The compliment was enough to win any father’s heart.
On their subsequent visits to the library, David and I began talking more and more .It didn’t take him long to ask me out for a date. Slowly David was falling in love with me. I didn’t only win David’s heart but also the heart of his four teenage daughters. His children were jumping with joy when I agreed to marry David.
I really believed love can make a fool out of you and David was the perfect example. He really believed ours would be a love story with a happy ending. But I was determined that our love story can have everything except a happy ending.

*****
Six months after our marriage I decided to put my plan into action. It was time for my desire to become a reality. David’s happiness was at the highest point and this was the best time to betray him.
Besides, I was getting a little too tired playing the perfect wife, the perfect mother and the perfect lover, and staying in this small town. I desperately wanted a change of scenery.
It was time for me to throw away my disguises and be what I am, a betrayer. Some people are just born to be a betrayer.
David was looking for a second chance at happiness, love and marriage. But all he would get is misery.

*****
It was like any ordinary day in our household. David left for his work. Like always I would drive his daughters to their schools. We got into the car but we didn’t head to their schools.
Instead I took them to the airport. We entered a plane that took us far away from where we came from. Surprisingly, his daughters didn’t show any signs of fears. If anything they were excited about the trip that we were taking. Children are easily pleased and are less suspicious.
I can understand their excitement. It is their first time to be inside a plane. It is their first time to be so far away from their hometown. I had convinced them that their father would be meeting us as soon as we booked into our hotel rooms.
His daughters didn’t suspect that I had an ulterior motive. Once we arrived at our destination, I took his daughters to a brothel that specialized in child prostitution.
I left them there to suffer. My hand was full of cash. They have paid me for bringing his children there. As I walked away from the brothel, I was pleased with myself. A big smile formed on my face.
I can imagine the scenario that is taking place in David’s house right now. He would reach home and he would be extremely worried when he cannot find us anywhere. Police would be called. Missing report would be made.
A few hours later, the police would tell him the terrible truth – that everything I have told him was a lie including my name being Patricia Cook. He would felt betrayed.
Indeed my desire had become a reality. I had betrayed a man who loved me with all his heart. I was no longer a tortured soul. Tonight, I can finally sleep, peacefully.


*****
Footnote: Five years has gone by, there is still no news on David’s daughters. The police have given up any hope that David will see his daughters again. But not David .
He told to a reporter with The Sun newspaper: “I believe God is great. God will listen to my prayers and return my daughters into my arms some day. God will not rob me of my children. God is not that cruel. God is not that heartless. God is great.”