Khushi Gupta; Class 12; LCTH; Category Classes 9-12; Winner: First
She’s walking towards the light, hoping for one last time that it will consume the pain of this deadly toxic world, hoping to have a freedom that had free not just in its name and she finally closes her eyelids.
Giving up the weight of the world with it.
Moments later her eyes are open and she feels light, not metaphorically but literally light. Light as a feather and she’s wearing a white satin dress which makes her slender curves even more beautiful, the kind of dress she would never wear because of her insecurities, her hair is long and flowing down her shoulders and her perfect collar bones.
For the first time in a long time her eyes don’t hold a melancholy tune. For the first time in a long time her green eyes showcase the beauty of the emeralds they are. She’s still in a white light walking somewhere she doesn’t know exists, she wonders whether this is the heaven or hell they talk about, she wonders which one she’s in.
And in front of her eyes comes a figure of something she doesn’t know what.
She’s beautiful, with gold locks , brown eyes, dusky skin and beautiful silk robes. this woman doesn’t have a halo on her head yet she seems divine.
And this pious woman asks, “how are you Zoe?”
She’s startled, she doesn’t know this woman , yet something about her is so familiar, but how does she know her name. So she asks hastily, “ but how do you know my name?”
She answers in a smile so beautiful that it captured her soul. She said, “I know everything and everyone but today I want to know you from you.”
This is the first time Zoe realises that this maybe the god people talk about and therefore in all innocence She asks, “ are you god?”
The divine woman laughs heartily and says, “ you might believe so, Hindus, Christians and muslims have got a part right and a part wrong, Buddhists have a good understanding but again are not right and this goes for many religions but
I am what you might call god.”
Zoe had been an atheist all her life so she asked the woman ,the divine , where she was?
And she replied,” you are where you want to be”
Zoe couldn’t comprehend the riddle but decided to go with it. So she finally asked what she wanted to since she arrived, she asked, “ am I free?”
And the divine creature came close to her ear she could smell the beauty of roses and the fragrance of the first rain in her breath when she said, “ you will be when you want to.”
Her words filled Zoe’s eyes with water she was trembling with what she was consumed all her life, the walls she buried herself in. She was once again a 4 year old child whose wearing a light pink dress trying to play with her dolls, when her mother’s employee comes to play but it’s not all fun and games, he looks at her with something which is not love, young Zoe can not comprehend the misogyny in his eyes and she’s crying and crying as the man thrusts himself inside her, she bleeds in pain tells him to stop and he tells her to not tell anyone and she does so because that 4 year child is overcome with disgust for her own flesh and body, that child is so strained that she at a tender age of four turns to a shrew. She’s overcome by the pain of her childhood the touch that cursed her life and had now followed her to death.
In front of the divine one , Zoe cries like a baby and the woman embraces her. She says, “you were not wrong my dear, you were not at fault stop punishing yourself and redeem your soul. Stop taking the punishment of somebody else’s sin.”
And something about these words made her feel a little less caged and a little more hopeful.
She breathes a deep breath and for the first time in a long time feels free, she feels free of the burden that strained her.
She smiles at herself and looks at herself and in many years for the first time she feels beautiful and she turns to thank the divine one but The divine one then vanishes into thin air.
Zoe opened her eyes, she was the 18 year old she is, lying in the hospital gown, her slashed wrists covered in bandages. Her parents by her side, happy that she opened her eyes, and this time she was happy too. She looks at them and she told them I am free, I feel young and after a long time not under the boulder of depression.
Well written, congratulations ?