Page 32 of The Circle of Exile
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, so… ryyy…” were the words that came out instead.
Everything is gone.
“Aaaaaah,” she wailed without noise, teeth scraping into the surface of his chest, saliva sticking to his shirt, face pressing into his bones.
We are alone.
“Aaaaaaaaaah.” His arms banded tight around her, pushing whatever was left of her into him. They tightened to the point of pain and she welcomed it.This pain is not enough. I am in too much pain. Take it away. You don’t deserve it. Still take it away. Help me. Don’t come near. I am drowning. Save me. You don’t drown with me.
“Aaahhhhh,” her teeth pressed down into the fabric of his shirt and his hand came to push her face deeper into his heart, the wild thuds heavy in her ear. Iram fisted his shirt in both her hands, holding on with the only anchor that was left. Her. Not even a full version of her.Iram. Myani zuv. Iram Kaul.
Take me. Keep me. Remind me who I am. Keep reminding me. Don’t leave me. Don’t let me leave myself.
A shrill cry jolted her out of his arms.
Iram whizzed her head around. Was that an animal? Was it from another room?
The sound came again, this time shriller, louder, a wail — like a song, the octave going higher and then lower. A child’s cry? She blanched when Atharva abandoned her and began to stride towards a door on the side of the room. Her feet trembled.
Eyes burning, face freezing, body turning into stone, she stared as he threw the door open and walked in to Begumjaan rocking a baby. A baby. Whose baby?
He took the bundle in his own arms and cooed, his words loud but nothing but vibrations on her ears. She tried to pop them, tried to clear her eyes that saw this but didn’t. And then he turned.
“Aaaaaaaah,” she staggered, her knees buckling back up before they gave away. She threw her arms out, pushing back from this vision. Atharva walked across the room, that bundle real, in his arms. Moving. Alive.
“No,” she muttered, not able to tear her eyes off it. “No.”
He kept walking towards her.
“No, no, no,” she kept walking back, feeling the inside of her head heat up. Questions started popping up. And a split second later, she gasped; possibilities too outlandish to be true. Atharva blurred in front of her eyes and then spun. She blinked out, and this time she knew that her legs would give away. Her knees connected with rough carpet, her body turning away from how resolutely he was coming towards her, his eyes enraged. Blistering.
“No,” Iram whimpered, crying, trying to turn away from him. He stooped down to her and the baby’s face came into her field of vision. She tore her eyes away.
“No, no, no no no no!” She hyperventilated, trying to think of this as a nightmare, trying and failing miserably to look away from Atharva’s gaze. She shook her head again, begging him with her eyes to change this. To change what she was thinking.
“No no no no no no… this…”
“Iram.”
“No, no, no… no no,” she pushed away from him and found the bedpost stinging her back. “This is… not…”
Atharva stood up in one fluid motion, his gaze blazing down at her.
“This is our son, and I will not allow you to make him feel any less welcome.”
Everything working in overdrive inside her suddenly shut down.
7. Old Spice called out to her…
Old Spice called out to her. She inhaled. It was stronger on her neck. She turned her nose in there and burrowed into the crevice, pulling the heavy woollen covering tighter over her. Her feet felt cold. But her chest was warm. Her face was covered in Old Spice.Atharva.
She popped her eyes open to darkness. And blankness. Old Spice was heavy, but it wasn’t Atharva. She patted the covering over her. It was his jacket. It was like in the early days of their marriage, waking up to his head on her chest, holding her down, the mix of his sleep and last day’s Old Spice in her nostrils. It wasn’t his sleepy scent right now but the Old Spice was unmistakable, like the renewal of life. She inhaled a long whiff, bringing herself out of whatever nightmares had plagued her. He was here. And he had…
Her heart raced.
The cloud on her chest became a mountain. She couldn’t bear its weight. Iram jolted upright, rattling something from the bedside. It fell down with a thud and rolled.
A moment and a small light came on. Atharva was beside her in a second, hand stretched out with his finger on the lamp on the bedside. His grey eyes were squinted, roving her face as if she wasn’t Iram. With a dark sense of humour she realised she hadn’t been Iram for a long time now.
