Way to heart (Flash Fiction)
**Trigger Warning - Domestic Violence, Abuse **
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| Picture (C) |
Kalpana lay there motionless long after Rajiv had left the room. Her mind went back to the time when it had all started. It was just a few days after their marriage. All the guests had left and it was only them now. Kalpana was nervous yet excited as she made preparations for breakfast that morning. She carefully laid out the table having made everything of his choice – the way he liked it.
She remembered
her mother and aunts telling her “The way
to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” How many pains had her mother
taken to ensure she learnt to cook all types of delicacies! Though a little bit
unnerving for her at the beginning she, later on, realized that any task done
with love got returned with love. Hence she had consciously made an effort to
know Rajiv’s favourite dishes and learnt them very nicely.
Kalpana waited with bated breath, that day as Rajiv got ready for office and came to the breakfast table. She eyed him as he took the first morsel and anxiously stood there like a schoolchild awaiting her results. She clearly did not anticipate what happened next. All she remembered was the food splattered all across the table; she was on the floor with a stinging sensation on her right cheek and a fuming Rajiv looking down upon her.
That day it was less salt in the food, today it was his favourite shirt not being ironed. The reasons kept on changing but the reaction remained the same. What started with a slap has today snowballed into something very gigantic as he hit her with anything he could lay hands on. Today it was the turn of his belt.
As she felt the
injury marks on her hands she wondered if Rajiv’s mother had ever shown him
the way to a woman’s heart like her mother had shown her to a man’s heart.
