Subconsciously Conscious

Palak looked around. Her father was rushing out of the home. Her mother hurriedly put the breakfast on the table. In the meanwhile she stood there waiting patiently for her sister to help her wear the pinafore. After all she was just three years old and had recently started going to the nursery school. She needed some help getting dressed up.

When she came back to the home in the afternoon, the nanny was standing at the door of the home. She took her bag, helped her get out of the school uniform and change into a pink t-shirt with teddy bear print and a striped pink and white skirt. Palak waited for her sister to return from school so that they could have lunch together. In the meanwhile, her best friend, Tanmay came back from school as well.

He was the same age as her and also went to a nursery school though a different one. They both skipped along. He lived in the same block of flats and in fact lived one floor above her.

“Hey, let’s plays skip the steps. You jump from the stair to the next one. Let’s see who is faster. Than one wins,” he said to her. Excitedly she laughed and told him, “I am going to win this one.” They played a game which kept them running up and down the stairs. Without a care, they were lost in their world. They were at the top of the stairs when the reverie broke. Tanmay’s mother was calling him for lunch. He went home running. She had nobody to play with now. And she had won the game.

At the door of his house, he yelled, “I will see you in the evening then we can play hide-n-seek”. She yelled back, “okay.” She turned to go but the next instant started falling down. Instead of the stairs there was a black long hole about 40 feet deep. There was nothing to hold on to, only slippery vines and she was plunging into darkness. Fast. No sound came out of her throat. She tried to scream but it got stuck somewhere inside.

Suddenly Palak woke up in a sweat. The same dream again. How strange was that. She looked to her left. Her husband was sleeping next to her, blissfully unaware that she had woken up and was shaking. She thought of waking him up but then saw his peacefully asleep face and thought the better of it.

On the bed stand was a bottle of water which she grabbed and gulped down some of it. Her nerves much calmer now, she snuggled upto her husband and went off to sleep again.

The next morning Palak, lost in her thoughts, kept thinking about the dream. She knew it had a deeper meaning. There was something calling out to her. But she could not put her finger to it.

Trying to shake off a feeling of impending doom, she decided to go to the local library to take her mind off disturbing thoughts.

Wearing a beautiful flowing blue skirt and a white t-shirt, she picked up the house keys and the library card. While climbing down the stairs, the skirt caught in the heel of her shoe and she went tumbling down the stairs.

Lying bruised at the bottom of the stairs, instinctively her hand flew to her stomach. An agonizing animal cry escaped her throat. The life growing inside her was suddenly ebbing away.
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The above is a work of fiction by yours truly.
Originally posted on Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:34 PM