The Frost chronicles 1 : The summoning of the Marid
21 January 2019
Courtesy reddit.com
From the day she had heard the terrible news about her son she was distraught. A few weeks after the initial diagnosis she had realised that the insurance would not continue to pay the costs of the treatment. They paid only for the chemotherapy but not for the stem cell transplants nor for some of the blood and platelet transfusions. She had wondered where to get the money and had been desperate initially as her salary would not cover such huge costs but ultimately she had made up her mind to get the money by all means.
In the beginning she had sold off all her diamond jewelry she had acquired over the years but when that was not enough, she realised she needed more of the same as it was a very easy item to sell. She was unable to borrow any money or jewelry from her friends and had no family left to help her so she found herself in a desperate enough situation to resort to thinking of stealing the jewelry. She was no professional thief, however, and realised that most jewelry stores had too sophisticated security systems for her to be able to do anything without being immediately caught.
It was then that she remembered her knowledge of magic and of ancient spells to invoke beings that could be of use to her. She had quickly taken out her book of spells and found the one that invoked a powerful being which belonged to the class of jinns. It was called a Marid and was believed to be able to grant many wishes as well as to materialise items from one side of the Universe to the other. She ran to the local store and bought the candles required for the spell : six red candles, six white candles and six black candles. She disposed them around her in concentric circles, the black candles first, the red second and the white in the middle.
Within the first circle she put some drops of what was called ageing blood (menstrual blood) to attract the jinn into the circles, within the second circle she put a few drops of younger blood which she had taken from the small wound in her thumb where she had pricked it and within the last circle she drew the protective circle of rosemary, amber and frankincense based on the extracts of these items. She sat in the middle of the circles and recited the incantation « Allah shaoufni barooh shou matnakkar kamir » six times. Shortly after that she sensed the presence of the Marid which eventually whispered its secret name to her. This was the name to be used when calling upon it for services and it accepted to be bound to her ring.
After the ceremony, she carefully noted down the name of the Marid who had appeared and promised to herself that she would invoke him in a few days when it was the blood moon. The night of the blood moon, she wore the ring and disposed the candles around her. This time she only needed white candles as the initial summoning ritual had already been performed and this was only a call to the Marid to connect. The Marid answered her call immediately and as the wish formed in her mind, she watched amazed as her wish materialised into the circle as several beautifully cut large pear-shaped and round shaped diamonds.
She gathered the children around her and asked them if they would like to hear a bed-time story. They were thrilled at the prospect and huddled closer. She took the youngest of the group on her lap and started the story. Soon enough the children were all sleepy and she had no trouble taking them to bed where she tucked each one of them in. She smiled at them though her heart was sinking. Soon they might not even have a place to live in anymore.
She took out her laptop and looked desperately for an answer. She had sent emails to all the people she knew including the office of his holiness. She browsed hopefully including in her junk emails but there was no response. She knew that most people would not be at their homes during the holiday season but had hoped against hope that someone would be there and would help them out. She looked at the children. They had grown since she first came and the youngest had been just a baby at the time.
She could not think of what would happen if they were not able to find the funds to keep the house. The more she thought of it the more it seemed hopeless. She realised that even if the landlord did not chase them away, they would still not have money to survive. What was she going to feed them ? For the first time in years she doubted her faith and her mission on earth. How could it be that while so many were enjoying themselves at Christmas the children should have noone to stand up for them ?
She clasped both hands in prayer and looked up at Christ on the cross on the wall in front of her. She closed her eyes and pleaded or mercy. When her prayer was finished she went out to buy bread for the next morning. She felt so tired and desperate. She wished she had kept some funds aside from the previous job she had before she had decided to become a nun but unfortunately she had donated everything to the Church just before she had taken her vows.
She did not find the usual shop open but saw a small shop at a corner where she had never seen one before. She thought it strange that she had never seen it before and that she had not heard of a second shop opening in the area. The shopkeeper gave her a dozen baguettes and added some cheese. She told him she did not have enough money to pay for the cheese but he shook his head and told her it was on the house as it had just been Christmas. He added that he was just sorry he had no turkey left to give her.She smiled and thanked him telling him that the children would already be thrilled with the cheese.
Just as she was about to go the shopkeeper gave her a lottery ticket telling her it was valid for the New Year and he hoped she would win something. She told him that she did not think it was appropriate to gamble but he assured her that as she had not paid for it, it was not gambling and that besides, God always worked in mysterious ways so why not in this way. She thanked him and returned to the orphanage. The children were all fast asleep. She fell to her knees again in prayer begging the Lord for mercy. These children had already been through so much and she wished would not have to go through the process of having to find a nw orphanage again.
She spent the whole week in prayer every night and tended to the children during the day. They were happy to be with her and oblivious of the fact that soon they might be separated perhaps forever. The first day of the New Year, the usual shop was closed and she was surprised to see that the other corner shop was open again while it had been closed during the whole week after Christmas. She went in and asked for a dozen baguettes again and the shopkeeper gave them to her smiling. He had a well-trimmed beard and his eyes were full of kindness. She wished there were more people with such kindness in their eyes and hearts.
How did it go sister ? he asked softly.
How did what go ?
The lottery
Oh, I did not check it. I think the ticket must still be somewhere in the bag where I had put the bread
Maybe you should check it
Something in his voice and demeanour seemed so familiar. She promised him that she would check it once home and he gave her the winning numbers on a piece of paper. She returned to the orphanage and fell on her knees in prayer again. She was getting weary as nobody had responded to any of her emails yet. She remembered that she had promised the shopkeeper to look up the ticket and so she checked the numbers. She had to look twice as she could not believe her eyes. She seemed to have won the jackpot. With trembling hands she folded the paper and tucked the ticket into her pocket. God worked indeed in mysterious ways. She clasped her hands in prayer again and looked up at the cross. The Christ was no longer there.
She looked around her. Everything looked exactly the same as the other days but she knew that she had shifted again. Nothing else than the small difference usually identified the shift but here it was much more marked. Many events in this reality were different from how she remembered them. After the first discrepancy she had searched the internet and identified several other discrepancies. She was convinced by then that this time she must have jumped several parallel universes to land in this one.
The first time it had happened she had brushed it away on the account that her memory must be failing her but when it had happened again and another of her friends remembered the same event in a different way than how it was supposed to have unfolded she had then been convinced that she had somehow jumped into an alternate reality. Since then, every time she identified a discrepancy she knew that she was in an alternate version of her reality where only slight changes had taken place.
Slowly but surely she had become able to identify the very small differences in her own life that then confirmed the fact that she was in a parallel reality. Something inside her knew with certainty that it was not a physical leap as much as it was a consciousness switch. It was as if her consciousness which had vibrated at a different level the day before had then syntonised with a new level of perception and therefore blended into a new reality. Everything around remained the same but for a few changes and while she first identified this by major different events, her confirmation always came from the small differences in her own life.
She thought back to the first time it had happened and realised that it was following an intense session of meditation that had involved kundalini activation. The awakening of the kundalini had put her consciousness in a completely altered state and she had felt vibrations go through her whole body. The next day when she had awoken something had seemed strange and she had then discovered the first discrepancy during the day. After that, every day of intense meditation had been followed by a day of shift into an alternate reality.
She realised over the weeks that she was now moving into a reality that was so far removed from the original reality that very few things remained the same as they were perhaps meant to be. She looked at the photographs of herself and her friends and sometimes she could not remember the details of the moment photographed. When she searched hard enough though she eventually found the details but it was as if she was searching in another person’s memories and not her own. She had realised that consciousness was so designed as to allow one to access streams of it even if those streams belonged to someone else and defined their memories.
During one of the incursions into the consciousness streams, she had come to realise that she could use the energy of the kundalini activation to direct her shift into a reality that she would be more comfortable with. After a few trials, she was starting to get the gist of how to make it happen. She realised that it required a concentrated effort of mental projection into the altered reality the day before the shift and immediately after the kundalini meditation. The only thing that was a bit disappointing for now was that she was not able to move into a substantially different reality all at once but it had to happen gradually.
The first time she had tried she had been quite ambitious and tried to project herself into a reality where flying cars were an ordinary thing but that had not happened. Instead there were just a few advances in the field and some drones as well as a couple of prototypes that were functional but nothing at the large scale she had hoped for. Over the weeks she had gotten used to the fact that things could not change drastically but only gradually. She had however kept her ambitious plans in mind although in a different way and she was now aiming for a world without illnesses and free of poverty. She concentrated shortly after the meditation and imagined how such a world would be. Her mind filled with mental images of such a world. She smiled at the thought of it and closed her eyes. Tomorrow would be the first day of the new shift.
The rhythm is that of the wind against the fallen leaves like a banshee wailing. Her mind syntonises with it finally as she picks up pieces of the shattered glass in front of her. There is no saying how much time the wind will continue to blow relentless. Her mind blows with the wind, flying high in the sky gathering momentum. At the same time her body continues to mechanically operate on its own. She carefully stacks the pieces of shattered glass in front of her and starts her daily work of repairing the window pane again.
She must have repaired it a hundred times yet every sunrise, the storm strikes at the same place again with the tree breaking through the window instantly killing her husband yet another time. Every day she wakes up again with the agony of knowing that she will again witness the scene of her husband’s death. The torture of knowing that initially numbed by the pain of his horrific death all she will be able to do is pick up the pieces of the shattered glass and start repairing the window as if to negate that it happened at all pursues her daily. She lives dreading the moment of initial sunshine which once made both her husband and her so happy.
She realises that she will never be able to grieve the loss of her husband as by the time she has finished repairing the window it is night time again and she falls asleep, exhausted. The first days that it happens, she does not remember exactly what has occurred but is only left with a sense of foreboding. Upon waking up that sense of foreboding slowly grows throughout the first week although it remains quite hazy. As time goes by , however, memories of the day before play back with excruciating precision.
She usually wakes up already knowing what will happen and totally helpless as she watches the events unfold. All she can do is repair the window in a wild and desperate hope that the next time, maybe at least once, it will not give way as the tree comes crashing through. Some days she would work her fingers sore until the nails almost peel and her fingers bleed and yet the next morning she would wake up to perfectly manicured fingers, her stomach tense with the knowledge of the oncoming onslaught.
Her mind soars higher as her fingers work swiftly repairing the window pane. She feels the moment when the night descends softly around her body that falls back on the bed. She watches as she lies almost lifeless her breath ragged as she struggles to overcome the sleepiness. Yet the slumber slowly overcomes her and her breath becomes more peaceful. It is the darkest point of the night now. Soon the killer dawn will strike again. She watches the body of her husband turn around and embrace her body.
Something inside her chest expands and she feels it stirring her body as she looks onward. The sun is about to rise and the winds are still howling. Her mind continues its wild jig with the winds. She knows that as the sun rises the storm will pick up strength and the tree will fall over breaking through the window pane. Her mind stills itself as the winds continue howling. The first rays of the sun pierce the horizon.
She opens wide her mouth and as it slowly rises she finally swallows the sun and the storm slowly loses its strength. Darkness falls all around as heat scorches her mind. She can feel the light exploding throughout her skull. She clenches her jaws as her mind maintains its stranglehold on the sun. The tree never moves again. She rolls her tongue softly over the blisters on her tongue. In the darkness beside her she can hear the soft breath of her husband. She utters a soft sigh and turns toward him holding him tight.
It is not often that I am at a loss for words as words are usually all that I have. I realised though that the ocean between us has made it difficult to communicate so I thought I should write what I feel. Perhaps you will read this one day or perhaps you are reading it just as I post it. I am not even sure that I will post it or that there will ever be a mailman to carry such a terrible weight of unrequited love and loss. There are places no human can go, not even in the mind. There are places that are better left to the domain of the untouched. There are places where my mind hovers in between disbelief and grief.
Do you remember the beginning ? Neither of us had questioned then the essence of what we shared. The unbearable lightness of your touch that grew into a lingering and then intense shared ecstasy. When I am alone, I revel in the memory of that touch, soothing and intense all at once. When I am alone, I feel your presence again lurking in the corners of my grief-stricken mind. When I am alone, I know that you will always be there if not in body then at least in soul. I know it is only the physical form of you that I have lost but even this weighs upon my heart filling me with a yearning that cannot be placated.
I tread often the winding path of broken memories trying to retrace how we got to this point of no return. I know that you had placed so much faith in my reaching the limits of the known and pushing beyond them to open the gates to the unknown. It was not just an esoteric experience, it was a matter of testing whether we were ready or not for the next stage. I know you placed so much faith in my abilities that you had been testing. So much was in stake and yet, despite all my love for you, I failed you. I remember you telling me that when you love someone you would do anything to be with them. I did everything I possibly could but yet I failed you and you vanished from my life.
There are days when the weather is mild and a soft breeze caresses my face startling me into the thought that you might be back, that if I open my eyes you would be there smiling at me again. Then I commit the mistake of actually opening them into the void of your absence. I sigh but at the same time feel your presence in your absence. It is like your absence negates itself because of the strength of the memories you left and the lingering presence of your soul that remains imprinted upon mine. Then there are days when all I wish for is for the sun to never rise again so that I may close my eyes to never open them again on a world where I can no longer see your smile.
When I think of it, it looked like such an easy test to know oneself and to act upon that knowledge. Little did I know that our human frailty blinds us to our true selves and that even when we think we know ourselves we are never able to really act upon that knowledge to the fullest extent required if our knowledge of ourselves is even slightly incomplete. You were expecting me to spread my wings and fly but I only saw them as a paper thin parchment, a relic of a past glory that would never be resumed. I tried to fly but was weighed down by the extent of my disbelief after a brief instant of taking off. In that fleeting moment of flight, I saw what it was like to be truly free.
Al Ghazali said « Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me ». I never knew how right that quote was before my soul got entangled with yours and I was made to test the boundaries of my own limitations while my soul urged me onward, beyond the unthinkable. I never knew that the contentment I once derived from living a simple life would be erased by the smouldering memories of the time we shared together. I never knew that I would live to see a day where I would be without you in my life.
Today, I look upon those moments of our shared hope with the unflinching eye of sobriety. Yet my sobriety hurts me like that of a perpetually drunken sailor would if he were to stop drinking all at once. My withdrawal symptoms are not visible to the world, they are etched in my heart and mind where I shiver alone, shaking with the grief of your loss. I live my life in a fever-clad nightmare tossing and turning in my mind, yearning to relive that shared hope once more. I live my life in the unhappily pregnant moment of realisation that I failed you.
A million gaps compose my essence now making it impossible for me to be whole again. When you were there, you were the matter between my gaps binding me together and allowing me to move around in the world with a sense of purpose. All purpose disappeared when I failed you. I keep repeating to myself that in another life we will be together again but that litany does nothing to thwart the agony of your absence. I move from one paradoxical situation to another not sure whether I should laugh or cry or perhaps do both at once to finally relieve the perpetual tension that my heart relives.
One day, I will have grown strong enough to pass your test. I know now that there is no turning back from that test. Once started, it must be completed. I know that the day will come and even if you are no longer around to watch me do it, I will fly. I have chosen the spot and the time of the year. It will be at the peak of the Mount Kailash and just before the snow starts melting. I will gather my strength, my memories of you and of our time together and I will spread out my wings and fly. The wind will echo through my outstretched wings and the snow will carry my shadow to its destiny.
The next spring, the letter is found by her mother who cries at the thought of the agony her daughter went through without a soul knowing about it. Her daughter had never returned from her trip to the Mount Kailash. Nobody knows what happened as a body was never found. Perhaps she had finally been able to fly away to a better world in her own way. Perhaps one day her body would be found under a heap of snow. Perhaps she had decided to go on a very long trip elsewhere without telling anyone where she was going.
The mother raises the letter to her lips and closes her eyes. Behind her eyelids she can clearly see the image of her daughter flying against the backdrop of the beautiful Mount Kailash. A tear rolls from her cheek and falls on the letter causing the ink to blot. The blot looks like the peak of a snowy mountain. The mother slowly opens her eyes and seeing the blot smiles a wane smile. It is like a message from her daughter telling her that everything is alright and that she is indeed flying, high above the Mount Kailash, her faith in herself and her knowledge of herself at their peak.
The woods’ outline was cool and comforting against the blue skies in the scorching heat that she could feel rise to a peak level again. She moved swiftly towards it and gladly delved into the first cluster of roots and leaves that lay at the outskirts of the woods. Her skin feverishly welcomed the dew that fell off the leaves onto her arms. She stooped further as a heavy branch hid the way to the inside of the woods and crossing underneath it reached a small clearing.
The air was filled with the smell of moss growing all around under the trees. The smell of it felt like heaven to her after her time in the city. There was also a strong smell of burnt wood and she wondered where it came from. She ventured further into the woods following the smell of the burnt wood until she arrived to another clearing and found a tree that had been split into two, visibly struck by lightning, the two sides charred and fallen to the ground. The center of the tree was still fuming a bit and she could sense humming all around it.
She looked around and saw a swarm of bees all around the neighbouring trees. She wondered whether they had been in the tree before it had been burnt down. She was a little apprehensive on whether the bees would attack her as they seemed quite restless but they only circled around her and never dived upon her to sting her. The way they were hovering around, they seemed to be dancing and she found that quite odd. Suddenly they stopped their movement and after a few seconds they flew in group towards a spot at the end of the clearing.
She ran after the bees, eager to see what had drawn them there. In the distance she could see lights flickering. She wondered if there were people in the woods out here like her to escape the heat of the city. She hid behind one of the trees near the end of the clearing and watched intently as the lights drew closer. She realised that the lights were coming over a stretch of water that started at the end of the clearing. She looked further and found out that it was actually a large river. The lights came over the edge of the river and stopped on the river bank.
She came out of her hiding place behind the trees and stared curiously at the lights. There seemed to be nothing holding them up there, not even an insect. She reached out to the lights and could feel a tingling feeling at the tip of her fingers. The river bank softly gave way under her feet and she seemed to be sinking as she could no longer feel the earth underneath. At the same time, the lights seemed to move closer to her or perhaps she was moving closer to hem. She could feel their warmth as they engulfed her…
She looked at the water that was breaking into foam at the edge of the sand. It was a pale grey colour, unlike the blue water of the day before when the sun had been out. The night fell gradually upon the beach plunging her in a temporary darkness before some street lights flickered and illuminated the edge of the water. The deep side of the sea remained pitch black and undistinguishable from the edge of where the sky had ended at sunset.
The disappearance of the sun changed nothing in the stickiness of the atmosphere around her. Crows cawed as usual high above, their restlessness never curbed, not even by the night. Just before sunset a batallion of dragonflies had fought the crows for some space in the skies and though they outnumbered the latter, they still looked remarkably fragile in comparison and she had wondered what the outcome would be. For some reason her thoughts had drifted back to the boy in her childhood who used to pin down dragonflies with needles or a side of a safety pin. The memory of that cruelty had made her shudder.
She looked back at the skies but all the dragonflies had left now. Only the cawing crows were hastening back to the shelter of the surrounding trees. She felt the waters call to her again and she turned back to gaze at the black outline of the waves that she could hear breaking on the shore. She would have loved to plunge into the waters had they not been so polluted at this spot. She longed for the beautiful beaches she had once been at and where she could first soak her toes before plunging in delight right into the sea.
Her gaze went up beyond the waves and she saw a flickering star. She wondered how it was that something that looked so alive was but the last message of a dying entity. Something within her stirred. She could almost remember a journey through the void and in between a myriad of planets. Her eyes glazed over with tears. She wanted to be back up there, on that roller coaster ride far away from Earth. She could almost hear that other deep calling out to her. She sighed and looked back again at the shadow of the sea. One day she would be back there. One day she would return to the stars.
She walked through the swarming streets heading towards the beachfront. She smiled at the woman who crossed her path and touched her outstretched hands that were offering her a garland of jasmine woven with small roses. She took the garland and put it around her neck as her hair was too short to weave it in there. She paid the woman, smiled and moved on as the woman waved at her smilingly.
The sun was high in the sky but the sea remained grey as usual. She had wondered when she had first arrived at the seaside why the sea was always grey but had got used to it. It seemed like it had to blend with the darker colour of the rocks on the seaside. She thought back to the beautiful sparkling beaches in North Africa and wondered whether it was the pollution here that made the sea turn grey close to the coast.
She sat on a rock overlooking the beach and stared at the sea. The waves were making a gentle lulling sound interrupted from time to time by the shrieks of children jumping into the water. It was a joyous sight but somehow she could not help her heart feeling heavy. She could not get over the feeling that something had completely stirred out of control in her destiny, changing her future, and that it was not by chance. Barely a year and a half had gone by but it seemed like it was light years away.
Back home to keep the memories of those moments of the future she had glimpsed she had resorted to collecting falling leaves in which she mentally inscribed glimpses of that future. Over time, the future she had seen seemed to be slowly fading into oblivion and she would then take out the leaves to remember. Each leaf reminded her vividly of a place in time where she had been in thought and where she had lived an incredible adventure filled with love and happiness.
Her right hand felt for the small basket that was tucked inside her handbag. It was still there and she sighed a sigh of relief. She wondered how it could be so small and hold so much at the same time. She got up from the rock and resumed her walk but towards the canal this time. It was one of the rare places in the city where stagnant water was not necessarily a synonym of stench and rot. At some points it even looked beautiful with profuse vegetation and a small bridge-like construction.
The water was a sombre green. She walked to the bridge, looked over the edge of it and slowly emptied the small basket. The leaves fell into the water and swirled away with the current caused by the wind. She watched until they were out of sight and felt as though her heart were leaving with those swirling leaves. Yet she knew that she could not hold on to the leaves as a totem anymore. They had to disappear for what they represented to reappear.
Those moments of the lost future she had lived had to be reintegrated within her. They belonged to her and had to be a part of her again, not relegated to the role of externalised memories. Her heart warmed slowly with the returning memories that filled her being with love. It was as if the release of the leaves had opened a dam within her. The images cascaded in her mind like a whirlpool of sunny water as they filled her neurons. Tears of joy streamed down her face and wiping them she lifted her head and smiled up at the skies. It did not matter anymore that it had been steered away for it existed out there. It was forever hers.
Panic seized her again at the thought of all she had to do. It seemed like a list of insurmountable tasks and she was wondering which to start with. She felt discouraged at the thought that not only she would have to find a way to accomplish all those tasks but she would also have to pay for the persons rendering the various services she needed for the accomplishment of some of the tasks. It would cost a lot of money ; money that she was not earning for now. She felt like crying but the tears did not come. Instead she felt a wave of weariness overcome her. Fortunately or unfortunately the weariness did not last and panic struck again.
She became restless and started biting her nails. She checked herself immediately as she did not want to end up like some people did with very small chewed-up nails, a testimonial of their anxiety. The thoughts raced through her head again and she felt desperate. She cried out to her guardian angels for help but was met with only silence. A silence that seemed deafening in comparison to her cries. She wondered how things had come to this point. There had to be an explanation for all that was happening. Things never happened without a reason and she was sure that there must be some reason for this chain of events.
Despite her reasoning she was starting to get desperate again and hated the feeling of helplessness that accompanied the flurry of her thoughts. She had not been able to meditate that morning as her mind had been too busy and pervading, not allowing her to focus on the meditation. She wondered if the lack of meditation was not worsening things. When she meditated things always seemed to be alight with fresh perspectives but today all her thoughts seemed to be cloaked with a dull tone of grey.
She suddenly realised that she was getting trapped by the age-old trap of fear. She was allowing herself to be sucked into the destructive energy of fear instead of maintaining herself within the powerful energy of love. She realised that it was her own mind that was allowing this, focusing on all the negative outcomes instead of focusing on the positive ones. Her mind kept trying to convince her that the positive outcomes were few while the negative outcomes were many and more likely.
She slowly tried to silence her mind that kept chattering away its thoughts into her head, attempting to make her feel submerged by helplessness again. She focused on her breathing and willed the thoughts away. She would deal with each task as and when it came up in the best way possible. Slowly she could feel the thoughts ebbing away as her mind gave in to the rhythm of her breathing. In a few minutes she was thoughtless and started focusing on the middle of her crown chakra.
She could feel the silence growing within but it was a pleasant silence now. She breathed in and out very calmly. Slowly but surely she could feel herself being filled with a sense of peace and joy. Her mind was silent and she could see a light growing at the tip of her crown chakra where her intent was focused. She played with the light, watching it grow until it filled all her head and then imagined it travelling downwards towards her toes before going up again and filling her whole body. She was light, she was peace, she was acceptance. She was pure thoughtlessness and silence. It had all begun with the stillness of the mind.
She readjusted the dish-stand. It still looked crooked. Nothing seemed to be straight in anything that was going on around her she thought. Her shoulders hunched slightly in defeat. She turned the dish-stand around lengthwise against the wall and it finally seemed to fit straight. At least one thing that would be in order she thought. She laughed to herself at the idea that her OCD behaviour seemed to be returning. This was definitely not the place to have those compulsions she thought to herself. She shrugged off the nagging impulse to set straight the jars that were drying next to the sink.
On the floor a cockroach was running towards shelter under the sink. She gritted her teeth and tried to swat it with the broom but it was too fast for her. She re-positioned the broom but it had already disappeared under the sink. She did not feel like going to search for it. The mere idea of pursuing the insect under the sink nauseated her. She looked for the chalk she had bought earlier and that was said to keep away ants and roaches. Slowly but surely, she began drawing straight lines all across the floor, around the sink, the granite topped cavities that acted as makeshift cupboards and the small wooden cupboards.
After she had finished drawing the lines she stood up and gazed at them. Some seemed slightly crooked and she bent down to draw straighter lines after she had rubbed away those that seemed crooked. She repeated the experience when she felt the result was unsatisfactory. After a while she was far more pleased with the result of her drawings. She stood up and gazed at the drawings from above. They were indeed very straight now with the intersections giving forth clean right angles.
From the corner of her eye she could see one of the huge ants that had been there earlier run towards the cupboard and then stop before the line in front of it. She was extremely pleased to have bought the chalk. It seemed like her ticket to sanity in this insane circle of huge ants and roaches that had been taking turns in attacking her stock of groceries. She looked at the lines again beaming at the idea that they would finally protect the groceries. Under the tube light it seemed to her that the chalk on the floor beamed back at her.
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