Dead by Love

Her body lay on the floor with a white shroud covering her. Her face barely had any life left in it. It was full of wrinkles and a few scars. A few incense sticks were put around her and a number of people who knew her sat around her. They sat there around her speechless, no tears rolling down their cheeks, no smile, no sadness but a lot of questions in their minds.

People sat for hours and hours waiting for everyone to finally come and see her one last time and while everyone waited each one didn't know how to react. Whether to apologise? Or to confess? Or to cry? Or to be happy? 

In some corner a 36 year old woman was lost somewhere in thoughts. Her daughter sat next to her and wondered who this dead lady was and why her mother was not crying for the loss of this person? Was she not dear to her? And if not then why even bother coming here. 

Things change in life. Not one day is same as the other. People grow, they change, they fall, they succeed. Time keeps moving ahead and every second gone cannot be brought back. And many move on with time, many change with time and everything seems to be normal then. Moving on in life is not an option or a choice. It is what happens whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not. She wanted to move ahead too, she wanted to pass along too but somewhere she was stuck and this made her miserable, for her body lived alongside with time but her soul was stuck and lost in a place where time didn't matter.

She was a girl with aims, dreams, and fantasies, but she saw a lot of misery in her house and even though it wasn't a big deal slowly with time it became a great deal. A home is where a person grows to be a complete individual but her house was the first place where she started losing herself. The fights, the arguments, the pressure, the fear, the tears, the sadness was what started killing her. She never knew all this was affecting her, she lived on with time and remained happy maybe just for the sake of it. 

She didn't want the world to know the sadness behind her smile so she smiled, laughed and enjoyed as much as she could every day before retiring to her nest of sadness.

When her house started haunting her she tried to find comfort outside. Outside was a huge world full of different thoughts and views. Some were cheats, some were good, some were filthy, some were nice but for her none of this mattered because she only saw goodness in all and all she wanted was comfort.

She made a lot of friends in her life, plenty of people who could see her innocence, her honesty, her loyalty. But people are different, some tested her, some were jealous of her, some hated her and some just wanted her to be safe and smiling. She used to feel comfortable outside her nest even though she knew that she was being taken advantage of, she was okay. With time passing by the scars from her house got deeper and new scars etched in from the new people she met.

With every phase of her life passing by came another phase. The phase of love. A phase which she dreamt of for ages and wondered what it would mean to have fallen in it. He was her prince even though she knew she was no princess and she made him her comforter for life. The haunted nest, the messy world all would disappear when she was in his arms. Until that one day when he stepped back shattering her dreams to nothing repairable and murdering her soul. He had come with a warning sign but she chose to ignore because all she wanted was some comfort and love to heal her scars but instead she got scarred all over.

Now that he was gone, she felt all alone. The world was around, her house was around and she was in it all but yet felt as though she was away somewhere else. She never understood what was she going through. She used to cry, beg, plead to her god to give her some comfort.

Time passed by and nothing changed. She was scarred by her own people and now she roamed around in her ragged soul with her hands pleading for comfort. And every night she retired wondering where did she go wrong that her want of comfort made it look like she was committing a sin. 

She slept every night with memories rushing back to her mind and woke up with a realization that she was nothing but a scarred lady. She was in pain, her heart hurt every time it beat. She hated herself. She hated the air she was breathing. People around her made her feel sick and the noise of the messed up world made her sicker and so one night she decided to end all that pain and misery.

She bid goodnight to her parents and went to her room and waited for them to sleep. Once they were gone it was easy for her to end it all. She gathered some pills, a bottle of water and a blade. She felt like watching herself in the mirror one more time but was afraid of looking at her broken self and so she just sat on her bed and wondered about what she was about to do. She picked up the strip of pills with her trembling hands.

She wanted someone to come and comfort her and ask her not to end it because she really wanted to breathe and not suffocate herself. Her fingers got the first pill out and as she was about to put it in her mouth when she remembered the face of those very few who cared about her. She remembered their words, their voices. She put the pill aside and then wondered, "So today I can end it all. I can end all this pain and be free. But after I am gone my parents won't be parents anymore right? The will be just a childless couple. My friends won't be friends anymore for their friend is gone. Even though most of the world has scarred me some still care for me so am I correct in doing this??"

She asked herself for justification of her acts but was not able to justify. She fought with her own self and tried to win but she failed. She put away everything and decided to live for the sake of those who cared for her because they did not deserve to be hurt for the scars given by someone else.

She tried to live her life, but was lost somewhere. She woke up every morning figuring out what life was upto and retired every night hoping for a better morning. In all this mess of her life her loved ones asked her to find her soulmate. A laugh went on in her mind when they talked about it. "Soul mate?? To get a soulmate you need to know what your own soul is like and I have no clue who I am ..."

She used to try every day to forget and let go and move on in life. Moving on with memories crushing her left over dreams every single minute of her life. Soon she was tired, lost and annoyed. The mirror showed her her scars within and the more she saw them, the more she broke.

One fine day she made up her mind of stealing her comfort even if it meant losing her real self and becoming something she isn't. She lost herself in a different world. A world of lust, greed, darkness, selfishness and nothing good. She became a woman she never wanted to be. She stopped responding to the sadness of her loved ones. She ignored their cries, their demand of listening to them. She no more cared about who wanted what. She stopped her tears from flowing more, she gave up on being sad and instead put on a mask of smiles and laughter.

She made men her toys and all she demanded was pure selfish pleasure. She didn't want to know or be there for anyone's sadness. She didn't want to know what was going through each one. All she wanted was to take her much wanted comfort, her much wanted warmth and walk away and she did this every single day and every single night. Who the man was, what he did, where he came from, none of this mattered. She used her weapons of innocence, sweetness, kindness and stole all the warmth she could from his soul.

She then distanced herself from her loved ones. She became a cold mind, making it difficult for people to understand what was going on in her mind. She shielded her broken heart and didn't let a single scar show itself. Her mask became her weapon of telling her loved ones that she was fine where in reality she was being killed bit by bit.

Soon she lost touch with her friends. Her parents had no idea what to do ahead for all she did was spend time alone in her room all by herself. Things started slipping away from her hands and she became obsessed with using people then be it in person or otherwise. Slowly she distanced her family too and moved to be all alone.

Rumours spread out about her being insane, being a filthy girl but she didn't care. She sat in her grave like house every morning feeling her scars deepening in her and her memories being brighter than ever. Sometimes she would cry all by herself in the darkness wishing she could wipe that man out who let her dream and then thrashed her down. Out of all the scars the scar he had given was deepening and hurting way more than anything and no matter how much she tried nothing ever worked in forgetting him.

Time passed by but her life never changed. She was stuck in a phase from where there was no escape. Now she stared at the mirror often, trying to find herself but she was lost and she didn't know where or how to come out. Slowly her body started giving up on her. She had become a walking dead person with no soul and now she lay on the floor looking like someone she never was with the people around her who always loved her and who now searched for her while she was gone.

Noone understood how she suffered all this within herself. Her scars, her sadness, her hurt was no more hidden. The mask of smile and laughter was gone and all that remained behind was her diary of pain screaming out loud that all she wanted was love and comfort. But her want of love and comfort was what had caused her death. She was dead ... Dead by Love.