In one of those many fragrant, distant lands that dot the face of this planet, was born a little girl to an excited couple. The little girl brought with her promises of so many things they had dreamed of. While her mother thought of how she would light her life up, she also nursed a commitment to make her a strong, happy woman. The father smiled softly at the thought of helping her with her first steps, riding a bicycle, and attending to him when age began to tell.
They named her Ada.
Ada lived up to many of these dreams. She was lively, intelligent, and by far the cutest little thing that walked the neighborhood.
That, until the spring of her eleventh year.
Her mom noticed something was wrong and within no time, panic ran loose.
The little girl, the light of so many eyes, came down with leprosy. Her parents wept openly. Ada showed no emotion. Just acceptance.
It is understated when suddenly, out of the blue, you take a childhood away from a child. When a pair of eyes look on yearningly at children play, or when ears pretend not to hear taunts and work very hard with the pair of eyes not to flood. Deny a child a childhood, it will become past soon. A past that will knock, mimic, mock, and haunt that child of yesteryears for all of time.
There is a saying in a certain part of the world. It loosely translates to the fact that even once a wound has healed, the area of the wound is never the same again.
Ada moved on with life, needless to say. However, when misfortunes happen to the supposedly good, they never stop with the first or the second strike. Her father became a seasoned drunkard. He would come home drunk on many nights, loudly abusing his wife on all the streets his feet took him through. She would slip her hands into her mother’s, and kept reminding her that this, too, shall pass.
And pass it did. From one predicament to another. There was a man Ada had grown to trust. On one of the days she visited him, he did the unthinkable. And just like that, she was a woman. A woman who had not consented to desire, but was made to. She picked up pieces of her clothing, and wobbled on.
Her way of dealing with this was she would wail bitterly every night, cry herself to sleep. That is how children deal with terror, someone once said. They sleep. But she didn’t remain a child after that day.
All this is not to say that Ada was the silent, helpless victim. She had one thing going for her. Her soul, her savior was her violin.
Many people who heard her on some nights felt something clench their hearts. Some swore that she played the most soulful tunes that would even make a smiling moon want to hug her and tell her it is going to be okay.
Through years that followed, she lived many secret lives. She tried to seize happiness in places she thought she would find it. Arms of men, mostly.
When an abused child- physically and emotionally- turns from flinching at every touch to consenting at most times, there is more to it than meeting a need. It is damaging to what little is left of the spirit, because when you look for love in place where there isn’t any, and you convince yourself that it will be different this time, you consent to the mysterious forces of the universe to give stronger doses of bitter hurt.
Receive these doses she did. With every sip that touched her tongue, her spirit sank a little more, her dreams tended to nonexistent, and the wails of her violin, more intense and deep. When pathos grasps you tightly in its arms, it sometimes does not even leave room for tears. The grip is so hard, so painful, its breath so tasteless, so drunk, it is like a heady pleasure trip on the negative axis.
While playing with the dirt in her backyard, Ada realised that the last ten years of her life lead her to scatter in so many places. Most of it happened as a force from above, and the rest, she thought, could not have been otherwise. Maybe some strange gleam shone in her eyes- that of power. Of how she was misfortune’s favorite little child.
The world has its share of spirits, good and bad. What links the both of them is a path, a road. When one begins a journey, it is considered a good sign- good chi- if a sacrifice is made on the path. So that the spirits are not hungry, so that the road ahead sees no hurdles.
Ada is on a path no one says anything about. It is one she does not know anyone to have taken. All the strength she has remaining is held at the gap between her fingers. Mixed with the colours of strength, are shades of faith that once was.
She is on that path because it is the only one that might have an answer. Where does one go, when tired of everything?
The time spent inching your way to an answer to that, on one and half legs, it shrouded by vacuum. This vacuum is the polar opposite of all the misfortunes of her life, since there is a lack of emotion. No life, so no hurt.
There is an unaccompanied suite by Mozart on the piano. If one listens to even the first sixty seconds of it repeatedly, it appears like an endless piece of music, its incompleteness seeming full in a way. A way that is like saying the end does not matter. What matters is here and now.
