ONE: Sad News!

NIGHT WAS SLOWLY  FADING AWAY. The stars seemed to dim with the break of daylight  that was slowly and calmly  coming in. I stood gazing out the window in a state of utter apprehension struggling to fathom the very path that had led my life to this bleak dead end. The small wooden brown  window  with thin glass shatters, the place  that had now become a permanent  spot  for me to sit and ruminate  on things; ruminating on  my entire  existence on this Earth brought me some form of closure and comfort. It eased my internal pain and I felt everything was going to be just okay. The window that had bore witness to my bleak and sad life also bore my happiest moments.

Daylight was slowly approaching in the  form of dawn when the phone rang delivering  the very news that would shatter me for the rest of my life on that very night. I had been sitting on the small comfortable  arm chair while looking out through the  window, my tinny window that gave me comfort, while  seeping tea from my favorite  mug, while trying to hide away my tears.  Tears of pain and sorrow  while my older and  mean  husband sat there at the kitchen counter raging on and on about how I was ruining his life and how he would get rid of me as soon as his business trip was over and when  we went back to our home country. I remember  how and when  it exactly happened. I was wearing my favourite  sweater. The brown one, the one that went up to my arms and covered all  my bruises so that our neighbors  didn't get suspicious  when they saw them like last time.  That's when it rang and a woman answered on the other end. There was brief moment of silence then he replied; "Oh, okay, thank you for informing us. I will drop by tomorrow to complete the formalities!" 

  He had not disclosed the news to me but somehow  I knew what it was all about because, i got a sudden fear strike my heartvin most frightening manner, a fear i have never feIt nor known. I got up   and  stood  there shocked, in tears and disbelief. My weakly trembling legs failed to support my body. I was struggling to breath as I tried my best  to comprehend  his words. He had uttered them, stressing each words slowly  without  emotion.  They felt surreal; as if this all wasn't happening and I had just hallucinated it all. I paced back leaning on the cold counter for support. No! This can't be happening, it can't. I thought to my self. How could Destiny  have played such a cruel joke on me? She was my everything, the only hope for me out of this prison i called a marriage. She had made false promises of my escape from him. From his life, from  his family but she had went ahead and broken that promise she had made to me.

"She said she would save me, she said she would save me!" I cried to my self. 

"What is that woman?" He asked me absent mindedly. As if he cared to begin with. 

"These days you just mumble nonsense to yourself ha? I might need to get you checked out at the local mental assylum back home!" He laughed as if what he said was totally funny. He expected  me to react in a similar  way. To laugh as well at my self. To act as if he was always right in all his doings and endevours. 

"Make shure not to mumble things to your self in public,  or you might embarrass  me! I don't want people gossiping behind my back  saying the multi- billionairel Bairam King married a mentally unstable  loon! You see, you're not all that special! In fact, you don't deserve someone like me." He roared in a cruel tone. "I could have had anyone i wanted. I could have married anyone but it had to be you.  You woman! You ain't even that pretty, but your daddy  compelled  me   to do this. Your old, dead and useless father. If he had just given me back my money, I'm sure we wouldn't  be talking right now."

He looked away from  me and rubbed his face with his thick chubby hands. His belly was bulging, almost showing beneath his shirt. He was almost in his mid forties. I cringed at the thought that every single night, this disgusting  cruel man touched me. The memories  of him running his filthy hands on my breast, my hips, my body were still vivid in my young  mind. I fought to keep them at bay by all means and I cringed everyday the sun set and I would prepare him food and let him lay next to me. In the same room, in the same bed, next to each other with him doing who knows what he would have thought of doing to me that night. 

"What is it?" I asked him in a  nervous state. 

"What is what?!" He asked coldly and in a rude way as if I had just interrupted him doing something he hated to be disturbed in the middle of. 

"What's is the phone call about!? What i mean to ask is it the hospital? What did they say?" 

"Well for starters, " he began. "Are you deaf? Did i not just tell you? Have you really lost your mind?  Okay then, I would have told you its none of your business but it's actually  your business I guess." He went on. 

I found my   self unable to  fathom  these very words he uttered next. They kept on ringing in my head. "It's the hospital," he continued.  "Your sister passed away this morning." 

"What?!" I said as I collapsed  sitting on the floor. I started to cry loudly in a state of shock. "She can't die!" 

"Well she is gone now and there is nothing you can do about it. Get over it  and stop crying now, the neibours will think I'm beating you again and they will start knocking onthe  door to complain  and to find out if you're okay." Was all he uttered as a form of consolation. I ignored his rude comments. 

"You always have a way of making me look like the bad husband, don't you?" He said in a low voice. "Maybe a beating will do you good he?" He looked at me. His ugly eyes round, and bulging. 

"She can't die, she was my only hope!" I said as I continued to cry my eyes out. How could she have left me with nothing in the world except this   cruel man.  How was I going to free my self from  this ugly union?

"Shes dead, deal with it, the sooner you come to peace with this, the better it will be for you!" He said in a cold tone. "And what hope are you talking about?" He asked me with a hint of anger in him. He always felt anger when I showed  any slight dislike for him. I sat leaning on the couch  on the floor  whilest   hugging my knees  in desolation. 

"What will I do now? What do I do?" I said to my self rocking to and fro in my sitting position. 

"Ah, I see, you are still under  the impression  that you still going to get away from me ha? If that's so then i would  suggest you get rid of your filthy thoughts. I am your husband now! You can't get rid of me that easily! This union is for life and it is better you come to terms with it, now. He raged as he pierced through me with loathsome  eyes. Deep dark murderous  eyes. I shuddered at the sight of him.

"Remember, your dead daddy  owed me what he failed to pay back and you  are here to repent for his  foul sins. Remember that!" He said as he chuckled in a deep voice.  

"Please let me go! I will find a way to pay you back!" I found my slef begging at his mercy. "Sir you have a lot of money, my dad owed you little and I'm sure it wasn't enough to inconvinience you so much. What I mean is I will try to pay you back?" I heard my self say. 

"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Acania. Two hundred and fifty thousand. Is that not a lot of money to you?" He paused for a reaction from me.  He gazed at me like a sadistic freak  smirking as if he had been deprived of the pleasure he got from tomenting for all these months because here in the Uk, it waa not like home were he was free to push me around and torment me or abuse me. Ever since the neighbours knocked on our door, he was afraid. He was scared he would land up at the police for what he did to me so he tormented me less. I  neither said nor did anything.

"Okay. Can you pay me back that amount? I mean if your father couldn't  how are you going to do it silly little girl?" He asked me with a mocking expression  on his face. He smiled when I did not answer. 

"You don't allow me to work!" I said. I had stopped  crying. 

"Even if I did will you be able to earn that much money for me? You don't even have a   degree qualification. What will you do?"  He asked me. He was mocking me but was  he actually  willing to reconsider?  Would he let me work to repay him and then divorce me? I longed for my taste of freedom. 

"Yes please, i will try sir!"I pleaded. 

"Sir? I'm your husband, why call me sir?" He laughed  with much pleasure. Hewas sitting on the couch in front of were I was sitting whiles looking me in the eyes. One of his legs was almost in kneeling position. 

"Okay, if you can earn that much in one month then maybe in will reconsider" he said in a mocking tone. I wouldn't have been able to make that even in a year! He was making fun of that fact!

I stated to cry again.

"Come on, dont start crying now! Your whole family is now dead and you  have got no body  else besides me.  I'm your only hope!" He held  my chin up  and looked me in the  eyes. "If you divorce me then how will you survive you got no college education. You have no job, neither the experience!" He said.

"I wil survive just like how anybody else is! Do you think I really need you? You think i can't leave without you?" I aksed him confidently with a frown on my face. The life seemed to fade from his.  

"Well then..., confident are we? Well go on!" He motioned with his eyes for me to get out the door. I sat there looking at him, frozen,  wondering if this was really true. He we let to g me go? 

"Leave!" He shouted. "Leave right now. You're free of your debts and never come back here!" 

I wasnt planning on coming back even though i did not know anybody in this city or have any were else to go. As soon as I stood, he also stood up. I walked towards the door and as  I opened it, he shut it in my face. "You're going no where! You actually thought of leaving me? Me? ME! YOU  POOR WRETCH! Dont ever embarrass me by thinking you can get away from  me!" He banged me against  the concrete wall of the lodge's living room. Blood gushed from the corner  of my forehead.

  "You are nothing but pathetic and i am very very  glad your sister took her last breath and left  this earth. She will no longer be here  to instigate  you against me! She is no longer an obstacle  in your life and from now on i will put you on the  right path. " He said with his eyes full of hatred.  There was so much darkness in his soul. They always said the eyes are the windows to the soul and if I had possessed  such  zeal  in me as much as the hatred I saw in his eyes, who knows what  would have become of me.

He paced back a few steps took the receiver from the kitchen counter  and  he placed it  back on the phone and continued munching on his  ham sandwich  as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. He then gave me a  smirk and then he continued.

"Since you wanted to leave my place  so bad, you can go as soon as I'm done with you. When you're no longer any use to me. When I don't want you anymore!" He laughed.  I paced back as rage streamed within me to the core I thought I was going to go mad and lash out at him but no. I didn't. Now adays, I had learned to control my temperament. I ran up the stairs  to the bedroom and shut the door behind me. How could  he? Take advantage  of  the situation  to poke fun at me, my helplessness, my desire to be away from him, and my sister's death. How dare he?! I heaved in anger. Extreme  anger over took me, "why is this happening  to me." I cried out loud and hit my hands on the bed. 

"Shut up you wretch!" He shouted from the kitchen.

 

THe had made fun  of the fact that I had no family left and no we're else to go. I sat on the bed lamenting his cruel unforgiving ways. His harsh tone. His lack of empathy when it came to anything that had to do with me. He was a bomb waiting to detonate when ever I made one simple  mistake or when ever he felt I was vulnerable.

I held my head in my hands and bitterly wept. I had nobody  else. All the people  I loved and cared for were no longer in this world. 'If only I had not asked him then I would have never found out. I would still be hanging on to the hope that my sister  was still alive fighting for her will to live, i would  still have hope that  one day,  she would walk in, her favourite  yellow dress flapping in the fresh  breeze that blew in when ever one opened the entrance  door to the gigantic  apartment back in our  home country and tell me; 

"Acania,  let us get out of this place, it's been to long you've lived with this cruel and  vile monster," but  no, she had to give up when I needed her so much. She had to let go of our life. The one  she had planned for us if i left that place. If only I had not known, I  would be in a better state of mind right now.' I would still have hope, '  I thought  to my self. I was distraught.   I was filled with regret.

                                       **

It was two days after my sister's passing, when my so called husband brought me  her ashes from the crematorium. There, the only memories of my poor and beloved sister lay in this tiny metal box he had in his hands;  in the form of nothing but burnt ashes. I cried as he handed them to me. I fell to the go round on my knees. How could she do this to me? I thought to my self. My hands were shaking. I was not only nervous but hurt. My sister was the  only other shield I had against my husband besides his very own sister. She had been my only real family left. After my cousin's passing. I was now all alone in the world. Left alone in hands of this cruel man. 

"Take this thing and do as you wish!" He said wipping his hands with a tissue. " That's your beloved sister right there! All nothing but ashes." He said. I started  to weep uncontrollably but he sort of consolled me in a cold way.  "That's life kid! You just gotta deal with it and move on. Aint. No going back to change what has happened but you got me love!"  He said to me not even caring about what he said last. "Now get that disgusting thing  out of my sight!" He snapped at me when he said that. I was still crying while holding my siter's ashes.  " I have told you to get over it already." He said to me in an annoyed voice. How could someone be so insensitive to someone else's pain?  So uncaring towards my agony,my loss, my sadness? I thought to my self.  I have great news for you though." He smirked. 

"Pack your bags,  we are going home tomorrow."   He continued to say. "My business trip is over and its time for us to go. We leave tomorrow!" He said coldly as he walked towards the corridor that led to our room. "After dinner please  don't  stay up late. I want you in bed by eight thirty." 

"Aren't you  having dinner tonight?" I asked him with innocence in my voice. 

"No, i already ate my supper  out!"

How selfish.  I thought. That he would have his own  dinner out and not  take me along or bring me anything. Like I never  existed.  I longed for a relationship  where my husband  loved me. Where he took me to eat out and gave me warm kisses and hugs. I was starting to wish of a new lover. If only I would be blessed enough to be granted a young lover who was still willing to love me even after finding out I had an old obsessive and abusive husband  wouldn't have been  a bad idea. I spent my day during the trip fantasizing about him. What he would look like. I dreamt of him. I had seen him in my dreams, fantasies. 

Morning had come when I woke up. I got ready and we left. We boarded the plane and during the eight hour flight, my husband kept grunting and screaming at the air hostess as if he owned the plane. I was deeply embarrassed. 

" I'm telling you sir, we are out of those beverages out have requested, would you like something else instead." She politely asked him. 

"Okay then," he agreed at last, "you can bring me something else!"

"Would your daughter like something too!" She motioned her eyes at me smiling back at me. 

,"What daughter?" He grunted looking around. 

"Her of course , she's not your daughter?" She  asked smiling and I could tell she was feeling a bit akward. 

"He looked at me for a really long time. I watched his face change from one of  happiness to uttter rage. His upper lip was quivering. 

"She's my wife you silly hostess!" He grunted at her terribly struggling to contain his anger. 

"Oh sorry sir, it was my mistake. I just thought....umm...looking at her age, I just thought...." 

" You thought what?" He demanded.

 "Sorry again!" She left.

"When we arrive back home, the first thing I am  going to do  is divorce you! " He said to me and looked on ahead in front of him as if ruminating on something important.  

On the plane I was still  engulfed in sorrow. I was ruminating on my life. 

Finding out that some of my   family had perished in a car accident was the most devastating  thing to ever happen to me in my whole  eighteen  years of life, I was barely eighteen. Only having witnessed my birthday a few years prior. I was young and full of life  but receiving  the news of my sister's death broke me to pieces. Considering I was about to run away and  leave him, to return to our home were I would weave my dreams into existence. We're I would dwell the life I have always wanted. I had hopes she would be  awaken  from her comma so I prayed for her everyday. Every single day. I missed my whole dead family.  I longed to see their faces. My father, with his sombre and  calm aura. My mother,  a bubbly and talkative persona. My quiet and kind brother.  Last but not least my sister Arora. My sister had just recently completed her university studies. She had dreams. She had ambitions   that died with her. I felt a sort of pain and sadness in my heart every time I thought  of her. She had just gotten  a job  offer from abroad. She said she  would work in Paris for a prestigious company. My parents were happy, so was I. On that day, that fateful tragic morning  I woke up  sick. My sister Aurora was supposed to leave for  her work. I remember  the whole house was lively . Even though it was only the six of us including my cousin Claire. I lay in bed ailing away while  my favourite cousin took  time  out of her precious  busy day to   take care of me and i guess that is how destiny spared  both our lives.    I guess fate wanted it to be that way. I remember  gazing in to Aurora's eyes that day weeping I was saddened by her depature but I felt  part of urging me to hang  on to her because I would never see her again. Claire clung to me as I let go of Auroa in a state of sadness. I was distraught. We had  never  been separated before and this was a painful moment for the both of us

 

 A tragedy  that would soon  change both our lives befell  and we would both soon learn our family had a fatal accident whilst accompanying my sister to the air port. I became  an  orphan  that day, the last hope for me to what one can call 'family' lay in the hands of those I deemed the  well wishers; doctors who attended to my dear sister as she lay in  that bleak hospital's room on a gurney, in comma desperately  fighting for what most of us take for granted; life. alAs you all now know,  it  wasn't , the car accident that  took  her. It was merely her fate. The persimissm that she bore in her heart finally triaumphed over her hope for recovery and she probably just have up on her life. My old husband had sent her with us abroad to get her the best treatment possible as it was my mother in law's wish. But despite that, she ended up perishing to  lie along with our ancestors. And I was left alone. I have always wonder why? Why me? How could all this misfortune befall some one like me. But then again, maybe it was my destiny. Maybe this is the path I was meant to tread in this life. Maybe happiness isn't a thing that was destined for me. Maybe I didn't deserve any form of good things happen to me.  I always wonder if my sister had postponed the trip or if it had been delayed, my family would not have been on that car; would they all be still alive today? 

To think all those years of  existence ,  being born  into this very  world,  and being raised with loveanr care ,and bonding with family and investing in family relationships, developing your self into your own being   only to perish and turn to ashes like you never existed. I was left with no family with no sister, with no father, no mother ; all alone in this life.  Life was one such odd thing...