I woke up abruptly wondering what it was that had disturbed my slumber. As I looked around, I got a flicker of a movement and looking at the window I was surprised to see a policeman staring back at me. I felt guilty, I didn’t know what that guilt was for but a sense of fear took over me. My conscience was repulsed at my feelings and thoughts. I looked at Peter, my husband, who was sleeping in his bed. An uncomfortable feeling caused utter disturbance in my soul.
My surroundings all began to haunt my inner self. There was no smoke in the room, yet it felt as if a dark cloud of smoke was filling up my throat. It was as if there was a void in my soul, in my existence; something inside me was incomplete. Looking outside the window, staring at everything didn’t make my soul less burdened. So I went back and lay on my bed, wrapped my warm blanket around my body. To my amusement, even the blanket so warm and comfortable didn’t comfort my inner turmoil.
I lay on the side of the bed and just stared at the grey wall. I wondered, as humans we make things in our lives so black and white. We leave no room for the ‘grey’ areas, we just tend to block them out. I thought, perhaps it was the grey part in my life that was haunting my soul. I looked at my husband again, I felt repelled at his mere presence right before my eyes. My mind didn’t comprehend what I was feeling at the moment as an utter state of confusion took over me. I couldn’t understand my own self. I felt as if it was some supernatural being, or perhaps a different person, who had taken over my existence. Suddenly, I was experiencing such feelings of disgust and animosity for my husband that I had never experienced before. How could this be possible?
Someone who I had loved and adored all my life, how could I experience such intense emotions of hatred towards him. Nothing made sense; it was as if I was living in a dream. I didn’t know whether, all that appeared was real or a mere figment of my imagination. At that very moment, reality seemed liked a dream, everything was blurred. I tried to close my eyes and go to sleep, but I simply couldn’t . I reluctantly tried to put myself to sleep, by just closing my eyes but my mind was still awake. Soon the sun rose, sunlight peered through the white curtains on our white linen sheets, some how in that ray of sunlight I could see black holes, I didn’t understand whether they were actually there or my ill mind was just imagining them. I shook my head. After a few seconds when I looked back, they were gone. I got up , my husband was still asleep, I quietly slipped my feet in my slippers, tied my untidy hair in a bun.
As I was about to leave the room, I took a glance in the mirror and I looked deep into my eyes. They looked swollen and empty. I touched my face, I felt numb. I walked outside the room and went to the lounge. I made a cup of coffee for myself, sat on the dining table and looked outside the large window. We lived in an apartment in Manhattan. The apartment was on the highest floor. I looked down and everything seemed so congested: the traffic, people rushing from one place to another. It seemed like a ruckus. All the commotion made me uneasy. I sipped my coffee and just stared outside at the sunlight, for it was so bright, yet so gloomy and dark to my sense of sight. As I was thinking all of this, Peter got up and came to the lounge, cooked himself breakfast, made coffee for himself and sat right across me on the dining table. He quietly started reading a newspaper. We didn’t speak at all. It was as though two strangers were sitting across the table, completely oblivious to each other. Two people, who had once been so drawn towards each other, how could they just lose interest in one another?
