THE SCARLET WOMEN

Story 1 - First Battle of The War

We all were there once again celebrating the 12th birthday of Emma, except father. She already had grown up to Nat's height. Literally, the outgrowth of her beauty and talent was beyond our expectations. She's become a talk of every teacher and friend. Whenever we hear people praising for her prodigy, it makes us a proud parent.

-Where's grandfather?  Is he not coming tonight too? –she asked me in a sad voice.

-Oh, my girl, he'll be here anytime. I think he may be on his way of buying a present for you. Look what we have got for you! –I just changed the subject and took her outside. Nat, Mac, Sumi, Aunt Helen, and Uncle Sam were trying to hide it.

-What are you hiding Mother? Is it my gift for my birthday? –she asked.

-Well, first we like you to close your eyes,' –Nat said.

As soon as she saw the bicycle, she just jumped on it. We all could see how happy she was to get it as her gift. I love you all. –she said and starts riding it. But she failed to balance it and fell. I just ran and carried her; I knew I've to teach her not only to ride the bicycle but also that unless we fall we cannot rise.

There's still no inkling of what's going on with father. But I knew that this ain't right. If it's not insanity, then this ain't sanity either. There's something I've to do to bring it to light. The situation is going more irretrievable. Even nowadays his behavior has gone inscrutable. Unlike other times, he keeps more to himself and I could feel that there's something instigating or something wrong to happen. Now I've decided to go to some great lengths to know exactly what's going out there in those school meetings. He once was luminary but now I don’t know why he's doing all this.

It was around 11 o'clock. Mac was with me outside the building of our school. The front door was locked but we know the way in back from where we used to flee very often during our school days.

-I don’t know why but I don’t feel right doing this. –Mac said. If father catches us doing this you know how worse the things will get.

-I know Mac. But there's no other option left to fix these things. Trust me; I just want to know what's going in there. –I said.

-Whatever's going, I know it ain't right going in there. –Mac said looking into my eyes.

-'I know'. We got inside and it was almost dark all around except in the hall of our school. We crept to get near to it. It was like someone making a speech about the system of our country. I could reckon it to be the voice of Mr. James. We could hear clapping and voices of people talking in an aggressive and offensive way. We grope across and get more close to those voices. Now we could hear father's voice which was full of aggression and proclaiming a political manifesto and could sway anybody of his speech. I could clearly hear a grotesque distortion of truth in his speech and hardly could believe he could get such blind. Now we could not stop ourselves to see inside the hall. We raised ourselves a little high and peeped through the spaces in between the window panes which has opened itself with its age. What we saw we never could believe. It was the whole village inside the hall preparing itself for armed insurrection against the iniquitous system of our country. We just ran away and promised never to talk about it to anybody else.

She wasn’t asleep at all. She was waiting for me. So what did you see? Is everything all right? –she asked me as she easily could see the lining of terrors on my face. Why are you sweating? Why are you not talking to me? Is father okay?

I just could not speak to her. How could I tell her what I saw? How could I tell her and Emma about our father? It will make them more worried. Oh no…Nat. Everything was fine. –I broke the silence. Father already was asleep when we were there. I found that he was working really hard for our school. Tomorrow I'll talk more about it and see if I could help him to lessen his swings and roundabouts.

I barely could sleep the whole night. The prophecy of war made by the father a decade ago got all over my mind. Was he preparing for this all this time being away from us?  Has he turned himself to the prophet of doom? Is he the propagator of all this happening all over the country? Is he really going to revolt against this system? I was running out of thoughts that could uphold my belief in him and deny believing what I saw tonight. But I knew that the war has already begun and I could not stop it.

-I'm angry with you grandfather.–Emma said while he was carrying her. Why you didn’t come home though you promised me to be here with me on my birthday?

-Oh, my child, I got caught in something. But look at what I've brought for you? It was my mother's locket he put it on her neck.

-Wow, grandfather, it's really beautiful.

-Yeah, my child, it’s the only beautiful thing left with me which I could give to you. –he said.

-Father, how much do you love us? –I asked him.

-What? What kind of question is this? –he awkwardly moved forward from his regular sitting position and looked back at him. I know he can read my mind in my eyes.

-Yes, father, I don’t know why but today I felt like asking this to you. Do you really love us? Do you really love your family? Or your propagandas are more important than all of us?

-He just stood up and tried to smell if I was inebriated. I think your work has taken a toll on you today. I think you need some rest now. –he said and left for sleep without answering my questions. Everything changed from that night. I found my answers in his silence. Since that night he didn’t come back home from school for the next three days.  

On the fourth night, we could hear bombings and gun fires in our village. The whole village got awake and frightened to hear those sounds. I knew those sounds were coming from our school. Immediately I took off towards it with Mac and left Emma with Nat and Sumi.

What we saw could never be imagined too. The scene of destruction was so brutal that hell was raised on earth after the bombings. I lose the strength of my soul and knelt before that dreadful vision of life. I knew this was going to happen but why I couldn’t stop my father. Why I let him die like this? Why I didn’t hear my father's voice calling my name to help him? I felt like all this was my fault. Oh my God! Oh my God! –I broke into tears immediately and felt like losing my control over my nerves too. Mac holds me tightly.

There was no more school at that place. It had turned into a battlefield. Everything had already turned into ashes and pieces by the conflagration of those bombings of armies. We were shocked to see it and started shouting for father. Those armies would not let us enter the school. But we can see the mass of corpses on the ground. No…father no, Father…Father…I kept shouting like insane. From the back, we entered the school. I saw many faces of that night lying dead out there. Also, there were some dead bodies of army men too. The smell of gunpowder was all over the place. No sign of life was out there but I was still searching for the one. Mac was too searching for him through the dead bodies. He puked while going through them when the limb of one came in his hand like a piece of meat. I stood in front of this body and felt like my whole body has gone paralyzed. Its face was totally damaged like burnt in the fire but my father's clothes were on him. Also, his broken glass was lying beside him. I just carried him all the way to our home. The next morning we all were standing in the cortege.