THE SCREAMING SILENCE By Shabana Anjum
Survivors train you better than the scholars. And Lucia was a recurrent survivor. She survived major tsunami like events in her life. She fought like a warrior in all the battles that she was made to face by her own loved ones. She did not learn this art of resilience from any training institute. It was an inbuilt skill that she was born with. The Almighty Lord knew the battles that were to befall her. He had filled her with an accurate amount of patience and an infinite dose of Faith. This Faith kept her breathing even when she was choked to death. People humiliated her. Some of them tested her patience and some even tried to shake her self-confidence.
Lucia had lost her father when she was just eleven years old. It is not death that makes you lose your precious ones, sometimes distance does. A world that takes away your only source of solace. Her father was her sole support for survival, who had migrated to a new place, and she was left all alone in this whole world. She turned to be more withdrawn and sad. She was sad, yet she herself could not detect the reason behind her sadness. He had promised her that he would come back to take her along with him, once he got settled in the new place. He got settled, but in a new family, which had no provision of inducing her into it. This poor girl, who had lost her mother when she was just two years old, had also lost her father, making her an orphan in this big world.
Time passed and she was left on the mercy of her aunt. Her aunt who loved her but not more than her own kids, Sam and Kiara. Even they were not much fond of Lucia. Lucia could sense their dislike in their behaviour, their voice and even in the way they looked at her. She felt a hollow within herself, a painful hollow which grew more with passing time. She used to find some relief at school. She would get up early with an excitement to go to school. An eleven year old getting ready for school all by herself. Pressing her uniform as well as her cousins’ uniform, she would arrange her own bag and braid her own hair. She would do all her work without any grudge or sadness. She would remain indifferent to the indifference shown to her by her aunt.
“Finish your breakfast” her aunt would keep shouting, as the auto rickshaw, that carried them to school, would blow the horn outside the house. Lucia, Sam and Kiara would run to sit in the auto. Lucia, being the eldest, would allow her cousins’ to sit first and then take her seat. Lucia had matured enough in the last few years. Though her cousins defied her yet she behaved like an elder sister to them. Her aunt was aware of this fact, that is why she considered Lucia as an asset. She was happy that Lucia was here, but just as a caretaker of her kids who were nine and seven years old.
Lucia had two different forms, two completely different forms. One form at home, the silent, withdrawn and introvert girl, who knew her place in the house. It was a house, not a home for her. The other form at school, the giggling, joking, chatter-box girl, who was often reprimanded by teachers but deeply loved by her classmates. She enjoyed every moment at school. It seemed that all the energy that she saved at home was let out, in the school hours.
She hated vacations and holidays, as it made her face the reality of her life. The pain within her heart made her scream. She screamed in pain. The scream that was silent, reverberating within the chambers of her heart. But each time, she stood, with an invisible armour that shielded her heart, a pacified look on her face and a mind full of calm. That is why, one could ever hear the screaming silence.
