She turns the knob and slides in swiftly to what would usually represent a dungeon, damp and dark but reveals itself to be her own small abode that she had abandoned for another day being away on the daily errand. Dropping her bag down her shoulders she keeps it at its usual place.
Her eyes, unseen, as if reluctant to recognise the clear chambers of her castle she has been living in for quite a few years now and would be rocking herself to sleep to some Twenty One Pilots song, leads her to the kitchen. It has been almost a habit for her now. To pour herself a drink as soon as she comes back home. Sipping it slow, with the lights still dim till the smooth liquor burns in her throat has always been some kind of secret thrill to her.
She does not remember being welcomed by back home for quite a time. Perhaps, she would never prefer being. The two-room flat was her own little shell about which she was despaired enough to have kept in a mess. With time the process of her alienating herself from anything and everything became so vigorous that even the gimcracks of her abode started branding her as a loner. But then the constant scenario altogether conspired to make her fall deeply in love with her own solitude (which must not be confused with loneliness).
She blinks widely at the mirror, looking carefully, pondering something as irrelevant as an gift, now obsolete, that she received on her 15th birthday, a phone call to a friend some 8 months back. She even wonders if the shape of her nose represents her mother or her father and leaves it unconcluded. Her hands trembling now, she keeps the empty glass down on the table.
It was not the drink, she clearly knows. It was not the drink numbing her leading to all the chaos in her head. The drink is just the remedy.
She hears the window panes rattle to the speedy wind sending the firsts of chills of the coming season. Her lips itch. The constant rattle doesn’t go well with her. She runs to the windows almost suddenly and tries to fix them still. The window panes, closed, continue to rattle with the wind eventually leading her to give up on her effort.
‘Hate this!’, she whispers.
As long the panes continue to rattle her mind cannot keep away from picturing a strange entity, almost non human tapping the panes, causing them to rattle louder.
She feels the tension. Some tension for a reason that is never clear. She would try to reason it sometimes- the fallout with her parents, the bereavement of her lover, the incident that has been a year since.
Anxiety has been a constant audiance in the empty auditorium of her mind. So often it comes that she has let it take control of all the symphonies that play in there. It has been long and just like her solitude she has made friends with it too. Loosing all rationality and sanity to it and claiming it back to herself thrills her no less.
It was like a Beauty Spot on some part of her body- dark yet beautiful which she chooses to hide under her lacy lingerie in front of the world and lay it bare, almost admiring it as she unwinds back home.
The wind subsides it’s pace. By then she almost feels short of breath. Her shoulders ache. She shifts back in her place on the sofa in front of the mirror. She holds the empty glass in her hand, head down almost ranting now. She gropes the table feeling numb for sometime, gets up, her lips curving to a smile as she heads to the kitchen for another drink.