Small, Little Bells

“One always has a choice, they say. One can always choose what they want to feel. Emotionally. Physically.
How easily they can classify it into just two categories. To feel good and not feel good. Not more, not less. Not asking for more, not asking for less.” She wrote in her diary but stopped because the words started to fade. The ink was over, now she’d have to go out to buy one. Oh, the questions she’d have to answer. She closed the book, tied the tiny rope around it and got up. She picked up her chandelier like ear rings and tried to put them on. Her ears hurt as a result of putting them on and taking them off so often.
She presses her eyes tight and finishes putting them on, she looks in the mirror and freezes for a few seconds. She sits back down, opens up the rope of the diary and picks up the pen which writes faded words.

“I don’t think it’s that simple. You have a choice, but are you bold enough to choose the other one? Are you bold enough to feel good? I think good is a state, where your mind, body and soul are at peace. It’s where you are not craving, you are not desperate, you’re not anyone else, but you.”

“Laaliiii” called a familiar voice from the end of the corridor.
“Kya huaa? Kyu chilla rahi hai? She replied.
“Laali, customer!”
” Abhi 4 nahi baje hai, jao kehdo mai 7 minute ke baad hi aaungi.” Laali asks her to scram away at once.
“Nakhre tho dekho, badi aayi.” She walked away murmuring to herself and as she walked down, each footstep kicked slightly the small, little bells in her leg. Laali listened to it carefully and continued to write again.

“I’m not good. I’m craving. I’m desperate, I’m not myself, I’m you. A reflection of you.
I’m who you want me to be.
I’m the love you miss in your life,
I’m the magic you miss in the absence of light.
You want me, you need me. Your ecstasy, I’ll take you away.

I’ll take you, if you free me from these legs tied in chains.
Cut these legs, I don’t need them. They’re rotting and dying.
I’m rotting. And dying.
The pain. I bleed tears.

I’m not good. I’m craving. I’m desperate. I’m not me, I’m you.”
She looks over her shoulder at the sudden knock on her old, wooden door that creaks open as a man walks in, uninvited.

“7 minute ho chuke hai ho, tho kya mai andar ajau?”
His sly smile speaks paragraphs of lust. She reads it the minute she looks at him. She shuts her book seductively and places it on her shelf, already in character.
“Aao tumhaare jhumke utaar du.” He touches her neck, she merely realizes. Numbness begins to take over her. It’s been months now that it has turned into self-regulating process. She thought to herself again, “One always has a choice, they say. One can always choose what they want to feel.”
It wasn’t true, she confirmed.

“Sab kuch utaar do.” He orders.
“Lekin ye payal, ye payal matt utaarna.
Ache lagte hai tum par”
And the small, little bells kept tingling. Little did anyone know, they had screams buried in them that no one could ever hear.

-Fa