The Bitter Pill Social Club by Rohan Dahiya

Author:Rohan Dahiya
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9789387457904
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter THIRTEEN

NOBODY’S BUSINESS

As consciousness dawned on Kama, she became aware of three terrible things. She was no longer on the patio, in fact she didn’t know where she was. That her dehydrated tongue had swollen stiff, so when she screamed it came out a garbled moan. That they were moving, in a car, uphill.

Inertia hit her with the force of a brick wall and she viciously vomited out the open window.

The fear of waking up in unfamiliar surroundings, with no memory of how you got there, it sends your soul into free fall. That weightlessness is usually followed by a burn of bile rising up your throat, while your heart echoes emptily inside you. Kama closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time she had been inside a moving car – fifteen years ago, for Geetu’s birthday. She had spent a week locked in her room to recover from the shock, no food no water, and the betrayal was still fresh as if it were yesterday.

She opened her eyes when the hands groped her, ready to attack her molestor but it was Geetu. She looked around the cavernous vehicle and put names to faces – her brother, Geetu’s new husband and Pranab Sahay who for some reason had his head out the window. The smell of bile hit her and she vomited again this time directly into Geetu’s hands who then abandoned hope of cleaning her up. Pranab retched in reaction, now half outside the window himself. They stopped at the next restaurant-guest house and ordered tea while the ladies rushed to the bathroom.

The toilet was filthy but Kama thought nothing of it and sat down, head swirling and heavy in her hands. She had read countless experiences that described an out-of-body experience and the feeling of your soul drifting in the cosmic unknown as you sleep, it all seemed like hyperbolic trash compared to the cold sweat waterfalling down her face. The smell of drying vomit was intoxicating, sweet and sour at the same time considering she’d been drinking red wine for three days straight – three whole days from whatever words perforated the cloud between Geetu and her. Now it all felt like vinegar, like her insides had pickled. She stared at the tiled floor, once upon a time white but now crusty with dirt and other grime. Her insides were gravitationally unbound, revolving around a different point altogether, trying to push themselves out of her flesh prison. Once she had thrown up a third time, Kama stood despondently as Geetu scrubbed the stains off of her kurta.

The plain cotton shift was thin but fresh, it smelled of lavender detergent evoking the memory of home, of mixing store bought soap with her own ingenious mix. She remembered Ria and was overwhelmed with the need to sit and cry for an hour or so because in that completely foreign setting she could understand the depth of her devotion. Of her family, who sat around the table tense and ready to swoop in at the first sign of hysteria.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.