Infinite Truth

CHAPTER:2

PRESENT

12TH October, 2013

When the glass falls down, it shatters into millions of pieces and besides the physical pain, a more painful and yet sharper dagger is stabbed at our hearts of the fact that we cannot join the broken pieces. That it's too late and the only thing we can feel besides the pain is regret. A regret that can never be vanished from our hearts, it's like a dark tenacious stain, always attached to the memories.

The same feeling of regret is rushing as I sit in my room, staring at the newspaper in my hand and reading the article on the front page over and over again. It read:

"A middleclass businessman, John Jones, was reportedly murdered on the night of 9th September, 2013. His body was found in his drawing room. The results of investigation led the trails to his wife, Mrs Ella Jones. On the day of this tragic incident, around 10 in the morning, Mrs Ella found out about the extra marital affair about her husband through a letter with some pictures containing photos of her husband and his secretary which were dropped by an anonymous person to their house. After their fight, the investigators believe that, at the moment she stormed out of the house but arrived again after midnight and killed her husband using a heavy hammer. After satisfying her thirst for revenge, she purposefully collided the car which she was driving and killed herself. Mr Jones' body was discovered by his daughter, Sarah Jones, who is reportedly 17 years old. On more investigation, it was overturned that the fights between the two of them were not seldom. The bickering and the curses were heard even by the neighbours. The business and the remaining property of Mr Jones, will be handed over to his brother Mr Harry Jones-"

I couldn't read more. Every letter was ambiguous for me to read as the tears started rolling down my eyes with determination to never stop. I cried and cried until I couldn't breathe. It was almost a month ago that this hapless incident happened. But the wounds were still fresh. I just couldn't erase the image when I first saw my father lying on the floor, drowned in a pool of blood, his blood. His eyes were still open and his body was cold and blue and........

I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't. I took a shaky breath and tears started rolling down my eyes flawlessly, as if they were waiting for the right moment, waiting for this memory to get triggered. I cried my heart out because I saw my world shattering into tiny pieces like a shattered glass. Six months ago, just six months ago, I was like a cocoon, protected and sheltered with all the love and care, but a tempestuous storm just blew everything away.

As if my Aunt could hear my cries, she came rushing towards me from the living room downstairs and hugged me for the longest time I could remember. I started crying loudly in her arms remembering that in the morning she had come several times in my room like this to console me while I was crying.

I raised my head towards her and asked, 'Why? Why me?"

Alike those several times, I heard her saying, "It's okay, child. Everything will be okay."

No matter how many times she says that everything will be okay, I know it won't. It just won't. Sometimes the destruction caused by the tides is so debilitating, that a recovery is insurmountable. And all that is left are the broken pieces of things made with so much strength and passion on the barren, meaningless land. After this nightmare successfully crept it's way into my life, Uncle Harry and his wife Aunt Julia had come to foster me for their whole life as they did not have any child of their own.

When my Aunt's eyes drifted towards the month old newspaper lying on my bed, she quickly took it in her hand and threw it in the dustbin.

"It's untrue, you know." I said wiping the tears off my face and looked at my Aunt's face which was completely covered with confusion.

"What's untrue?" She asked clearly alerted by the way I drifted the topic of the conversation.

"The things that are written about my mother, the side of my mother shown to the whole world which is completely non-existent, are untrue. Everything printed on that paper is untrue. My mother would never think about killing my father, or anyone, even in her dreams, let alone the reality." I said controlling my tears from flowing out again.

"I can understand, sweetie. Your mother would never have intended things to go like this. But you need to know that this must have been a prodigious mistake on the part of Ella-"

"No, it was not a mistake. My mother would never commit such a mistake. She wouldn't do that no matter how much unfaithful and cruel my father had been to her.

"She did storm out of the house when she saw the photos-"

"But she never came back and murdered my father. Why can't you understand Julia?" I guess this was it. I could no longer hold back the tears that cajoled their way out of my eyes and started crying at the top of my lungs. Aunt Julia came to my rescue and hugged me tight.

"I am so sorry, I really am. I should have never doubted your mother." She said rubbing her hand on my back. Maybe she still thinks that my mother is the real culprit; the murderer of my father, because that was put forth by the people to the world and that is now what is believed by the world. I don't know who killed my parents or who snatched the happiness from me just in one night, but I am promising myself to find that person one day.

*

Everything is dark here as if darkness has spread its blanket over the newfound place that I am trapped in. I know that it's just a dream. An interminable dream. In this abject darkness, I can see no one. I open my mouth for seeking help, but only silence finds its way back out. My heart is thumping loud because of fear and I run to unravel the uncouth destination. My lungs run out of oxygen but the only thing that I can see is darkness. But slowly I see a figure forming its way into the darkness holding a lit candle in one hand. He is coming towards me and a smile is spread across his face. I very well know that face.

"Jake" I say running into his arms and sobbing uncontrollably.

Suddenly, my eyes are wide open and I am brought back to the reality which is no different than the dream. It is a little after midnight and I find my pillow all wet from my tears. It's a routine now; each night I'll try arduously to sleep and when after a lot of efforts, sleep finally trudges its way into my eyes, it would run away by this nightmare and never turn its head towards me for the whole night. The darkness that I am trapped in is infinite and I don't see Jake holding a candle which could be the only source of hope in my life. Indeed, he was just a dream.

Before this hapless incident clawed into my life, I consoled myself iteratively by saying this to my mind:

What gone is gone in the past, it will never come back in the future. HE will never come back in the future.

I grabbed the earphones from the bed side that were now my new companion, apart from silence and darkness. As I lay there on the bed with earphones in my ears and the music on, I shut my eyes to the world and shut my mind off thinking about my future.

But suddenly, I couldn't think more of anything, because in my ears a slow and a peaceful song echoed digging the freshly dug memories out in the open until I couldn't think of anything else but that moment. It wasn't just a peaceful and a slow song, it was the song on which our hands were intertwined, our legs were moving in perfect synchronization and all I could see was his eyes in that perfect moment. I still remember that day when everything was perfect. Everything was like a movie or a romantic novel. Thinking about it, I couldn't stop the other memories to flood in. And for the matter of fact, I didn't want to control myself because this pain and affliction made him real and rebuked the feeling of him being a dream. I let the tears flow out from my eyes, and I let the fresh wounds open only to be closed again when the sun rises tomorrow.

But as for the moment, I have the darkness and I have the memories with me. So I let my emotions express themselves into zillion salty water droplets and close my eyes listening to the peaceful song which would become the only light in this infinite blackness.