Shahma had her phone in her hand.
She walked back and forth in her room as she wondered how Sushi was doing. She wanted Sushi to be happy. She deeply wished that the man was a really nice man with Sushi's tastes. It would have been very nice if Sushi had liked that man. Sushi as well as her parents would be out of worries if Sushi likes the guy and said yes to the marriage.
It would have been even greater if they could have their marriages in the same month and go for a honeymoon trip together.
Some really nice honeymoon spot....Sushi, Viswanath, Shahma and Salu. She giggled at the name that she herself found for her future husband.
Shahma liked the idea of being on a houseboat under a starry night, watching the stars and the moon with Salu. The night would be more than beautiful, holding his hand with a tingly feeling in her heart.
Does Salu like house boat trips?
Or they could go to some place Palakkayan thattu. They could get tired together while walking and take small intervals of rest with small yet beautiful chit chats. All her cousins had said that the time period just after their marriages were just absolutely the best. She and Salu could resume their trip just after the small chit chats, holding hands and smiling.
But what if Salu hates the idea of walking a lot?
She really knew nothing about Salu. She made a mental note to ask Salu about having another meet up before their marriage.
"don't you think that you are just being desperate to find common interests?" The words managed to enter her thoughts again. She could not understand why aunt Anna was so interested in making her back off from the marriage. Aunt Anna had claimed that it was only because she wanted to make a character or something but Shahma was pretty sure that the case was different. There was something more.
She looked at her phone again.
She wanted to call and ask about it aunt Anna directly but she did not dare to. Instead she walked over to her computer and logged into her Facebook account. She did not know Aunt Anna's last name and there were a lot of Annas in Kannur. None of those Annas had the beautiful woman's photo as the profile picture.she moved onto option B.
She took Thomas's profile. She could not help but think that his profile was not something like what she expected.
His wall picture was a pendulum's photo. The background looked pretty familiar. The arrangement of the tables. The light blue colored wall. The cream colored tiles. The ceiling fan that was almost hidden behind the spider webs.
It was her physics lab.
She never knew that Thomas liked physics so much. She could never guess in a million ears that he liked pendulum.
In her case she hated pendulums so much . She could still remember the day that she discovered insanity at physics lab. The pendulum moved on its own accord and thus she could not count it. Neither could her lab partner. Thomas was such a mess that day, receiving a lot of scoldings from their physics teacher.
His dp was taken from Ali baba restaurant.
He had thousands of friends and it was obvious that many of his Facebook friends were people he never met in his life. Shahma shook her head as she wondered how he managed a lot of shallow friendships. His wall was filled with Valentine's Day wishes. Some of the wishers even dared to confess their loves. Thomas had given all of them the same answer which made Shahma scrunch her nose.
'Happy Valentine's Day to you too. May your love life be successful unlike mine,'
Even the confessors got the same answer. The guy must have been so hurt to be distracted that much. She felt sorry for him.
She still did not know what happened between Sushi and Thomas but she understood that whatever had happened it was too hurtful for him. Too hurtful to the extent that Thomas did not even share the same space as she and Sushi did except for the classes. He would just flee away from the canteen or college garden or anywhere where She and Sushi were, once his eyes fell on them.
Shahma had actually tried talking to him a few times but all she got was cold shoulders as he simply walked away and that was the story of how Shahma lost her recent friend.
She checked out his info and found that he had only one Facebook Aunt . Even without clicking on the profile and looking at the profile picture closer, she could say that the beautiful woman was Aunt Anna.
She entered aunt Anna's world with just a click.
Aunt Anna's profile was also something that she never expected. She never expected a celebrity writer like her to use another name for her social media account. Her Facebook name was 'black Dahlia'. For some reason the name intrigued Shahma.
Shahma looked at her wall picture. It contained a few white texts in chiller font against black background.
"Love them but trust not!"
Aunt Anna had only seventy friends. Shahma had expected at least a few ten thousands . Aunt Anna was breathtakingly beautiful and that factor alone could gain a few thousands. Moreover she was a writer and that could earn another few thousands. It seemed that Shahma's calculations were wrong.
Shahma scrolled down the page. There were many quotes. Some were romantic. Some were mysterious. Some were humor. There were a lot of photos of Aunt Anna with Thomas....those when he was a baby, when he was a little boy, a teenager and his college days. She did not know that she had checked out all her quotes and photos until she reached the end of the page.
Her first post was with a picture in which she stood near a building. The building was very old and was not in it's complete form. It was covered under vines. Shahma could only see four broken window and a destroyed roof.
"Only the walls and they heard me scream. The walls kept silent and they kept enjoying it...or rather me as a whole ~Stella"
For some reason Shahma felt the words to be familiar. Like she had heard it somewhere. She felt drawn to the familiarity of the words. She scrolled upwards.
Aunt Anna had posted many quotes with the building's photo. Shahma noticed that all those posts were posted on the same day every year, 28th February.
'With your hands you wipe my tears
with your words came true my fears~Stella'
'I could build a castle with the words that describe my pain, but then again, I would be all alone in it~Stella'
'I am not afraid of when I would die, I am rather afraid of how much more I have to live~Stella'
All those Stella quotes felt very familiar to Shahma. Stella must have been a character from Aunt Anna's book and familiarity to those words suggested Shahma with the idea that she must have read the book but she could not remember reading a book written by someone named Anna.
A. Elizabeth...the quotes were from the book named 'wilted before spring' by A.Elizabeth.
She remembered that book well. It was a very dark and depressive book with unexpected events. It was popular during her eighth grade and she had bought it with the money she got from her relatives on an Eid. Her mother had warned her that she was not going to finish such a thick book but her mother was wrong. She had finished it in just two days.
It started as a sweet romance but ended as a dark themed book. It was filled with so much depression and hopelessness that Shahma decided to never try another book by the author. The book was more than what a fourteen year old girl could read with betrayals,rapes and suicidal thoughts.
She ran to the store room.
The book was covered with dust as she took it from an old shelf with many books. She opened the book and read just the first page of it. Stella was a character in her book.
Shahma went back to her room and googled about 'Anna Elizabeth'
Yes, she was right. Aunt Anna was the writer whom she herself had declared as forbidden for her.
She felt the urge to have a talk with Aunt Anna again. Shahma wanted to know something but she herself was not quite sure what it was about. She had to meet Aunt Anna.
She took her phone and unblocked Aunt Anna. She did not know if she should send Aunt Anna a message or not. She wanted to know more about the writer and her objectives but she was a little afraid. She was not afraid of Aunt Anna's words, she was afraid of her own decisions. She was not afraid of being influenced by Aunt Anna, she was afraid of letting herself be influenced.
Shahma kept the phone on her table and lied down on her bed as she sighed deeply. The book was just beside her.
She took it and started reading it again.
Suddenly, her phone rang. Shahma grew even more eager when she saw the caller ID. She made one last prayer to Allah, requesting him for the call to be from a happy Sushi.
Her prayer was not accepted and she knew it when she heard Sushi's broken voice.