Mirror Mirror!

At 2 AM on a new moon Indian night, Tanya opened her eyes to the rustling sound of footsteps in her bedroom. Her eyes blinded by the darkness; her ears alert. She felt a faint heaviness in the air, as if a deer-footed body had flashed across the room. She lay still on her bed, holding her breath in an effort to confirm the sound.But she could not hear it anymore. She tried to look through the blanket of darkness with her big round eyes. But could not trace anyone, much to her relief.

Ten minutes had passed. Tanya felt unusually cold in a sub-tropical August midnight. For some reason, she neither turned off the fan, nor pulled over the blanket. All she did was to keep lying on her back, still.

At quarter past two, she was jolted out of her sleep by the booming stereo of a car whooshing past her house. Hardly twenty seconds, and the sound had dissolved into complete silence. Tanya's heart pounded harder and had made it difficult for her to breathe. There was an acute pain in her heart, like the one she had felt that same evening when Crish walked out of their 2-year old live-in relationship.

Tanya had been devastated. Her 25 years of life had come to an uncertain standstill. The evening that he had left also brought happy tidings via an email from the King's College in London, confirming her seat for research scholarship. But even the email she had eagerly waited for could not animate her broken spirit. Rather it pained her to be reminded of her unfulfilled plans to start a new life with Crish in London.

Things don't always go as planned. Crish had found new love in another woman and packed himself up from the house with all his belongings.

Ten hours since he had left, somewhere around 2.30 AM, Tanyawas lying static on her bed – cold, breathless, fighting with an aching heart. All of a sudden, she heard a sniffling sound, as if someone was weeping in angst, right in her bedroom.

The most predictable thing about the Indian summers is the unpredictability of a tempest. As the sky started growing wilder out of the blue, Tanya strained her eyes across the room under a shocking streak of lightning. The weeping grew louder, but Tanya could see no trace of flesh and blood.

Finally, gathering some courage, she got up from her bed. Her feet were numb, as if they had been immersedin ice-cold water for hours. Her eyes could hardly manage to blink. The pain in her heart was replaced by overwhelm, like the icy Ganges gushing through her ear holes down to her fidgeting toes. As she walked, Tanya feltheaviness in her head, but her bodyfeather light. It was a strange feeling! But the cry was stranger; it had turned into a frail wail by then.

Tanya tiptoed towards the corner of her room from where the waves of the wail had sailed. A few slow steps and she reached the dressing table. No one could still be seen.She stood right in front of the dressing mirror, just a feet apart. Everything stood still, except for the cry that had turned more plaintive and clear. The young lady almost experienced a convulsion when the monotonous wailing had dramatically broken itself into words. "Why did you do this to me, Tanya?"

An already broken heart was too scared to beat now. Tanya was assured that the voice had sailed through the mirror. But when a long spell of lightning had lit up her room once again, Tanya could see no one, but herself in the mirror. The room fell back into darkness the very next moment. Tanya stood motionless, waiting anxiously for the moment to pass. She could have hardly imagined the sight that the next streak of lightning was about to hold up before her. Under the wavering supply of the next batch of light from the sky, Tanya saw herself weeping in that mirror, while she stood flabbergasted in front of it.

"Look what you've done to me, Tanya!Why did you do this to me?"whined her doppelganger.

Tanya panicked out of fear and bewilder. Her mirror-self continued: "You were given a chance to take a new route and start your life afresh in London.But you decided to end it all! This wasn't my time to go. But you did not let me stay. You shall never be forgiven."

Baffled and nervous, Tanya attempted rushing away from the mirror towards her bed.

Lo! Her body laid there cold and still. Next to her pillow rested an empty bottle of sleeping pills.

By Satarupa Mishra

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