Panic

Earlier it was the morning, then the noon came, dusk followed, and soon after that the night was there. Yet nothing did change. The terrible pain in her heart didn’t change, the terror didn’t go…….

The flame enveloping her soul didn’t subside.

They didn’t also kill her, they didn’t maim, wring her neck, stab her in the heart. They only remained, they only spread, they only stayed and tormented………

They would only kill her alive……….

Which hour is striking, she franticly wondered hearing the chimes. When did I last see………

Panic sized hold of her.

My child ………….She jumped up and cried out aloud.
My child…….

Her husband now came towards her, swaying, disheveled and shaking. She caught hold of him and screamed.

What did you do with him? Oh what did you do with him?

He stood swaying in her arms, fearfully mumbling.

Nothing will happen to him. Nothing will happen …..

I want to see him now, he is only four. I want to see him now, now itself, do you hear.

The man crumbled and slumped to the floor gasping.

She didn’t want to see the histrionics. She caught his head in her arms and began to shake him, all the while raving angrily.

What a man are you? It’s your son, how can you leave him outside, its night, see, see, its dark out there, my child will be afraid. Go find him.

Someone caught her and dragged her away.

Everything is being done. A voice said. She didn’t care about voices, she didn’t care about people.

She tried to shake them away.

No one is doing anything, he is the father, he is sitting there like a woman crying, he is sitting there like a piece of wood, no one is doing anything.

Everything possible is being done. Someone said again.

What’s being done? She screamed. What’s being done? I don’t see my child here. He is out there in the night with nobody to look after him.

It’s been a week my dear. A woman said whimpering. No place remains to be searched.

A week? A week! No, no she won’t believe that. She had just left him playing in the porch; she had gone in to make something for him, something he likes.

A week? These women are crazy, all of them, they wouldn’t stir, and my boy is dying out there of fright. He is afraid of the dark. He would only move in the night hanging on to my sari.

She tried to break free and run out to the night. They tried to restrain her. She struggled demonically. …..struggled, and struggled……….The something took her senses away for a period.


May be the little body would be found later, sometimes on a railway line, or in a wood, or in an unused well…………as is often the case.

And the world won’t stop. There would still be living people…. There would still be laughter; there would still be merry moments……….