The Storm

By Anandita Dey

The storm outside the room and one inside me were not different. Both were creating havoc. The one outside was wrecking, breaking trees and thatched huts. The other was breaking me into pieces, and I knew, I would never be able to return to my original state.

I lay on an unknown bed, with an unknown person. His left hand held my waist tightly. I could feel his heavy breath on my neck. I could barely move. I wanted to get up and run away from this, into the storm outside, to silence the storm inside me. I looked at the wall clock on the wall in front of me. It was half past five in the morning. I freed myself from the strong grasp of his hand and got up from the bed. I felt dizzy from lack of sleep. I opened the windows, and the heavy rain drenched me in a few minutes. The strong breeze made me shiver.

It’s been a few months now since I’ve been with him. He seems to be a nice person. Sometimes when I pretend to be asleep in the morning, he prepares breakfast for me and leaves it on the bedside table. Sometimes when I don’t prepare dinner, he orders food from outside. He never complains of anything. One day I had high fever. He skipped his work and stayed all day with me, feeding me with food and medicines.

We first met a year ago. My parents arranged a meeting with his family, and they came to our house. He’s the only child of his parents. His father’s a retired police officer and his mother a high school teacher. He’s an entrepreneur. We met a few times after that, all of which were vague meetings. I don’t remember where we met, what were the things we discussed. And after a few months, I was sent to his home. He doesn’t stay with his parents. We live in a small apartment, few kilometers away from my parents’ home. I am now officially his wife and he, my husband. He’s the kind of man every girl desires. He’s good looking, intelligent, caring and everything. But I already had my perfect man in my life.

My perfect man may not be very intelligent, but he knows how to make me smile. He is the most handsome man I have ever seen in my life. He is so charming that anyone would fall for him, but he chose me. He loves me as if I’m the most precious thing he has. And when he touches me, caresses me, kisses me and holds me in his arms, I feel like I’m the most precious thing in this world. He says I’m his muse. He writes poems about me. Some nights, when we lie down together, he recites those poems to me in his enchanting voice.

My train of thoughts stopped when my husband tapped me on my back. He closed the windows and asked me to get ready. He said we were going somewhere. I obediently got ready and prepared breakfast for us. We had our breakfast in silence and left for the ‘somewhere’. As we reach there, the place seemed to be familiar to me. I had been here before, but I could hardly recall. Few moments later we met a lady. She called herself Dr. Sunitha Swamy. She was beautiful with an appealing personality. She asked me a few questions about myself and my hallucinations. I didn’t know what she was talking about. And then she spoke to my husband. She said I had created an imaginary person in my mind who I thought was real and that’s why I was not able to accept my marriage or my husband. She said few medications and therapies could help me get rid of this.

Three months passed since we first visited the hospital. Dr. Sunitha said I was fine after taking medications and therapies. My husband’s no longer an unknown person to me. I never skip preparing breakfasts or dinners for him. His hands no longer feel like a tight grasp. And we make love too. But on days when no one is around, I go back to my man — the man whom I have loved ever since and whose embrace still makes me feel that I’m the most precious thing in the world.

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Anandita Dey is a research scholar from Guwahati who enjoys experimenting with words as much as science. A lifelong book lover, she expresses her thoughts through poetry and fiction. Her writings have appeared in newspapers and online platforms, and she dreams of publishing her book someday.

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