Birth From The Waist

Chapter 14

Days pass, my liberation from captivity not imminent. I sit in the apartment lounge facing the dark night sky, below me projected a scene of thousands of lights, all belonging to different homes. I once read a nineteenth century journal belonging to a famous philosopher, I couldn’t recall his name but all I remembered from the text was, “behind every light is a story to be told”. This quote had fascinated me since I read it, every light that was projected from people’s homes were stories to be told by each person in the household, some interesting and some shocking; those were the components of people in society. I’ve learnt people are not the same, just because one may seem ordinary doesn’t mean he is, doesn’t mean his committed things he should be proud of, were are all this type of person, we are not angels far from it actually, but a main thing we can relate to is our imperfections, whether they were in conjunction with society’s view on us and that was a another story to be told.

I sit with my arms wrapped around my arms, looking down, thinking. Thinking of what? Nothing. I wasn’t contemplating anything; my mind was just black, fried, dead, nothing. I was surprised I could keep going, I was outgoing, I’d usually crack if I didn’t communicate, here I am alone sitting down.

I wasn’t entirely alone, he was in the kitchen cooking, the rattling of dishes and dicing sound of the knife vibrated through my ear drums causing me to turn around and look at him, my mediation broken, my concentration lost. He looks up staring at me pausing with all the notion in the kitchen. We just stare at each other for what seems like moments; nothing in mind. The past few days had been really quite, we barely talked and worse of all was that he left many times in the day bolting the door behind leaving me alone in the bedroom. Even if I did have the chance to escape where would I go or what would I do? Go back home or even school for that matter, he’d find immediately, whether it was him directly or his ‘contacts’.

I break the connection looking back immediately directing my gaze to the crème coloured mesh carpet. The large LCD sat adjacent to the panoramic window, below it a small wooden TV unit with several ornaments and a photo displayed in a metallic frame. I scrutinize the photograph carefully, it was a picture of his sister and him posing together at the beach, judging by his looks I’d say it was a couple of years old if not less. His sister! He mentioned something briefly about his sister in one of our open conversations once upon a time. He praised her, they were attached, something causing them to disperse or distance themselves apart, what? Offcourse his sister wedded. She had her only life, a family life to live with her husband, she couldn’t spend the time she use to when she was single, but now rarely seeing him and dedicating her time to her husband had caused major psychological trauma to Mathew.

I was bored, the worst thing about this ordeal was that I couldn’t speak or say anything; he would see it as an advantage, an impression for him to communicate and dawdle together. Did I want that, maybe? Was I going to show it? Was I going to be the weaker one and crack? I didn’t know. I honestly didn’t know. 

He walks over to me with two bowls in his hands. I slowly look up to meet a smiling face, he offers the bowl and I look down.

“Eat”, he demands.

I continue to ignore him, maybe he’d go away and leave me be.

“I’m not going to ask you again”, he says, his voice was deep and harsh almost angry.

“Obviously this is a sign for you to back off, I don’t want to eat so that means I don’t want to eat”, I articulate, authority in my voice, as soon as I spoke I knew I regretted. Mysteriously, nothing, no comment, he just placed the dish on the table and walked off, I breathed and exhaled loudly emphasising my relief. Where did he walk to?

I continue to look straight ahead at the dark sky, the delicious smell of Spaghetti Bolognaise filled the room, my stomach rumbling and in tune with the footsteps I hear trailing towards me.