The missing lock...

There came days when she couldn't stand them. They stared at her sadly, as if they had heard her midnight screams. And sometimes when the sun barged in and disrupted her dreams, she woke up to their rude grins.

 

 They haunted her, hid behind curtains and became scary shapes at night. They jumped upon her while she was walking back home and abducted her mind. Paralysed her, turning her into a statue. Muting out even the blaring horns from the cars.

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She dint shy away from letting them know her feelings. She shouted at them,gave them the choicest of abuses, made faces at them. She looked out for them in corners, behind doors, in crowded rooms. She tried listening for them in the howling winds, in the deafening rains, so she could be prepared, armed. 

But failed. They always attacked her without a warning. 

 

She would find them staring out at the sea with her. Smiling at her while she walked barefoot on the beach. She saw them in the mirror when she applied kohl in her eyes. They walked with her in the rains with the umbrella kept safely in the bag. Waved out to her when she was looking out the bus window. 

Ohh they were not ghosts. Ohh no. Everybody could see them. They hung around her like the smell of damp clothes. They warned people that she was heading their way, made them change the topic, think before saying anything that would hurt her. Hurting her was their job, nobody else could do that.

“The memory is a key that is possessed but the lock not found,” he had once told her.

She knew now what he meant.