(i) This is an experiment.
(ii) The irregular chronological order is intentional.
(iii) There are 6+1 parts, each comprising 55 words.(so have I counted)
Beg.inning
6th September, 2010. Night.
Norah clenched her teeth. She gasped. She embraced the silence that followed. No mirth, no melancholy and no miff; she was a stone. Sound of scissors. Severed umbilical cord. Time progressed. No relevant sound. The unwanted yet unavoidable, obligatory slap. Cries of the baby filled the room. Norah’s brain throbbed like her heart, with agony.
Cow.ardice
1st January, 2010. Afternoon.
John was a powerful man. Aal kept silent like a dead piece of log. Aal preferred to live like a castrated ox rather than fight with vigour like a bull and ultimately, probably die with his testicles getting crushed. Aal succumbed to the opprobrious clout. Norah’s body was profaned, mutilated; and now, her soul, amputated.
New.s
31st December, 2009. Late evening.
‘You look terrific, Norah.’ Aal took Norah in his arms. The red dress she donned, embraced her immaculate lissome body, envying anyone, everyone else who could, who would lay a hand or even a sight on her. She dispersed seeds of pulchritude that could absorb any man’s wavelength of restraint. ‘I am pregnant’, she whispered.
Part.y
1st January, 2010. Around midnight.
Aal exceeded his limit of sane alcohol consumption and slayed his consciousness, probably unconsciously. John offered to help Norah get Aal home. She agreed, albeit reluctantly. John’s hormones flickered. He pounced on Norah. Norah let out muffled shrieks, tried to fight back, but in vain. John increased then ceased his pubic movements with diabolical satiation.
Mo.u.rning
1st January, 2010. Morning.
Aal’s head was still heavy with the previous night’s alcohol. Norah handed a cup of coffee to him, her hands shaking incoherently. Norah choked on the lump in her throat, gulped it, and then let it all go. The fact that John raped his wife seeped in, as the hot coffee slipped down Aal’s throat.
End.urance
1st January, 2011. Noon.
A little more, Norah thought. Endurance, that’s banal, mundane and superfluous. She can stay unscathed, unstirred, even if hot lava is poured on her coarse skin which used to be gentle sometime, long ago. A little more she thought. The stifled muted shrieks of the child drowned in the cotton pillow, his legs stopped moving.
--x--
Epitaph
31st December, 2011. Morning.
The kid placed the white rose on Aal Carter’s grave. His parents, Norah and John stood behind him. Aal was a promising writer, but he was addicted to drugs, which subsequently led to his death, after gifting him coma for a year. “Can people think while they are in coma? Maybe, Aal had a story.”
