RED

Slowly, slowly, she tiptoed into the backyard. It looked like it was going to rain. How she used to love the rain. How she used to play in the puddles, and come back home drenched and hungry, but glowing with joy.

A gush of air hit her tired face. The baby’s cry blasted in her ears. She was confused. The baby was never this loud. And yet, she stood still. Her feet rooted to the grass. The wind blew on.

Her red dupatta stuck onto her clothes, the ends of it fluttering backwards, almost as if they wanted to rip off her and go somewhere far far away.

She closed her eyes, and took the deepest breathe she’d taken in a long time. It came out rather broken and difficult. But it felt so good to breathe like that.

And then, she grabbed the dupatta off her shoulders and hurled it in the wind.

She watched it fly onwards, dancing the same way she always did when she tried in front of the bathroom mirror, back at home. Slow, awkward and rather funny. She sighed. And then she laughed.

And then she cried.

She cried because she saw so many dupattas flying beside hers, and even more being hurled into the sky from all around her. Red. So much of it. And then, peace.