As the evening approaches, Tshering with her long heavy hair tied in a pony tail and dressed in her usual black jeans that complimented her slim legs silently slips out of the room with a pocketful of money. With a head bent low she swiftly enters a shop and whispering to the shopkeeper, she comes out with a paper wrapped bottle and a packet of razor blade. Avoiding the glances from the people she goes to her usual spot sheltered by the gloomy huge trees, away from the paddy fields. The birds chirping in the distance adds to her agony as she wishes to live the life of that bird free of the sufferings.
She empties the bottle in a gulp as usual as the tears well up in her eyes. Who would have thought that the girl who was so cheerful would be burdened with such heavy emotions? It was only in this place that she could cry her heart out; the trees would listen to her problems without judging her. As the alcohol slowly dissolves in her blood stream she recollects the past that torments her frequently. The feeling of guilt and sadness envelopes her already heavy heart as the bottle empties. She stares at her wrist full of scars and after a moment she swiftly takes the blade across her numb wrist. The blood oozes out and for a split second she forgets about all the depressing thoughts as her mind gets diverted to the physical pain.
“You know why I cut? Because it’s a distraction; for one moment I don’t feel all the pain, the loss, the hurt. All I feel is that razor going into my skin, the blood dripping down my wrist. I don’t think about the way people talk about me behind my back. I don’t think about how a burden I am to my parents and my broken dreams. As the pain insides gets worse and worse I have to make the pain outside worse and worse. It’s all about control. I can’t control the pain on the inside so I get to control it on the outside” Tshering blurts out with teary eyes.
She fakes a smile and laughs like a normal person but no one would sense her far away expression in her eyes. She dies everyday inside as the future nears, the future that she had never imagined. “I never wanted to come here at Sherubtse. My dream was to be an engineer. My parents had great expectations from me as I was a bright student from the kindergarten. I know my parents are still disheartened with me and the guilt that I let them down never fails to make me live me in peace” she added. Her life is all messed up and the worst thing is that the road that she chose was never the one that she had fancied as a child. She wishes she had never grown up; a feeble wish as the harsh realities of the world crushes her down. She avoids the calls from her parents as she feels guilty for not fulfilling their expectations, to get scholarship to a renowned university. “I know my parents love me and it kills me that I can never return back the care that they have given to me. I feel sorry for them that they got the worst daughter in the world” she breaks down as the guilt haunts her.
Staring into darkness for almost an hour she clears her tear stained face and gets up with a fake smile. She pulls down her long sleeves to cover the blood stained wrist and regaining her balance, she follows the path back to her hostel. With a blank mind she stares back at the place that sheltered her with a promising thought to come back again.
