By Ayarada
Softly she closed the door to the living room,
leaving all the noise and befuddled voices behind her and went upstairs
to her bedroom. She needed to be alone to think for a while. The last
few days she had this terrible fear arising, first in her stomach and
slowly creeping up to her breast until she hardly could breath.
She sat down on her bed and looked at her trembling hands. She knew,
something was waiting for her. Something unknown and frightening. Afraid
of the mysterious, yet unavoidable, she started to cry.
Suddenly she heard a soft knock on her door. Alarmed, she thought: “Oh
my God! it’s standing right outside my door. If I open the door, what
would I have to confront? A monster? It’s face distorted by hatred,
anger and frustration? Or would it bear the signs of disease and agony?
Did it come for me, to destroy me? But, maybe it won’t be so terrible
after all. Maybe it’ll have a friendly face and will look down with
sympathy upon me”.
She pretended not to hear the continuous knocking on the door. Instead
she started to make promises, like she had done when she was a little
girl, to ward off punishment after her naughty pranks. “I will be more
patient with my kids, I promise. After all, they are not as misbehaved
as I had made it seem”. They were just vivacious kids, trying to have a
good time in between their studies at school and the little housework
she’d asked them to do. “I will try to be much nicer to my husband,” she
told herself, “I will not get angry anymore if he comes home late from
work or from the pub, where he spends a few hours a week with his
friends. I will try not to be so jealous anymore and start fights with
him over nothing.”
She could hear music and laughter from downstairs and her husband’s
voice, calling her name, yet she daren’t open the door. She just sat
there in silence, anticipating the knocking to start again.
The knocking startled her, for it was much louder this time. She closed
her eyes and put her hands over her ears. “If nothing terrible happens
to me,” she cried, “I will even stop smoking”.
Then the knocking became too loud and demanding for her to ignore. She
did not want to perceive what was about to appear. She wanted to hide,
rolled up like a child in a corner, not to be seen. But she was not a
child anymore and nothing like this would be possible. There was no way
out.
Finally, resigned to the inevitable, she pulled herself together, with
head held up high, with jest and determination, she walked to the door.
Hesitating a few more seconds, taking a deep breath, with a silent
prayer, she opened the door, to confront the inescapable -
THE NEW YEAR.
