Kabir’s Arrival - II
1250 Words
V. The Silence After Kabir
After Kabir left, the house seemed to exhale.
Aanya sat on the rug, staring at the empty doorway with a pulse that was still too fast.
Her skin is still too warm.
She placed a hand on her sternum.
Her ribs rose and fell rapidly; like her body was preparing for impact. It was an old instinct, carved into her when she was too young to defend herself, too small to understand survival.
She shut her eyes.
But shutting her eyes was dangerous. The darkness behind the eyelids remembered too much. She opened them again. Stillness was safer.
So she sat....motionless, breath measured; as the daylight thinned, and the room darkened around her.
VI. Kabir’s Walk Home
Kabir walked down the tree-lined lane, his thoughts unsettlingly alive. He had seen something in Aanya today.
Something far more delicate than affection or fear
A thread.
Something the wind might snap if handled incorrectly.
Kabir was careful with small things......his instruments, his students, his own heart.
He knew fragility intimately. He had once loved someone who trembled every time the doorbell rang, and this taught him that silence was both shield and prison.
He knew the patterns and strikingly recognized the quiet shaking in Aanya’s breath.
He noticed the way she froze when surprised and how she anticipated harm.
He paused mid-step. It dawned on him, with terrible clarity:
Historically, Aanya has been bone-deeply afraid of someone.
Not philosophically but physically.
.
.
Kabir felt a surge of protectiveness he didn’t fully understand.
He wasn’t in her life.
Not really. But he wanted to be.
Not romantically maybe, probably like two hands cupping a flame in the wind.
He looked back once at the house, its blue door glinting faintly under the streetlamp. It looked small. Too small to contain so much hurt.
He exhaled.
Be careful, he told himself.
She is not someone to lean on. She is someone to stand beside.
VII. Sharda’s Suspicion
Sharda returned to the blue-door house at 9 p.m., her shift unexpectedly cut short by a power outage at the hospital.
Aanya was still on the floor, the room unlit except for a single lamp. Her face was pale, and there was a rigid stillness about her that made Sharda tense immediately.
“You’re sitting in the dark?” Sharda asked, stepping in.
“It’s fine,” Aanya murmured.
“Is it?”
Aanya nodded.
Sharda glanced at the table. The mithai Kabir brought sat unopened.
“You had a visitor.”
“Just Kabir. For work.”
Sharda didn’t respond. She removed her shoes, rolled up the sleeves of her kurta, and sat on the sofa.
“How did it go?”
“It went,” Aanya said.
“Aanya.”
Aanya looked up.
“He’s… kind,” she said softly.
Sharda frowned.
Kindness, she knew, was dangerous and makes people vulnerable.
It for sure made people trust and eventually broke people open.
And Aanya was already made of cracks.
Sharda kept her voice neutral. “Do you trust him?”
Aanya hesitated.
Then whispered, “I don’t know how to answer that.”
Sharda sighed.
That was answer enough.
VIII. The Past Slips In
Later that night, after Sharda went to shower, Aanya walked to the kitchen for water.
But when she reached for the switch, her fingers froze.
The corridor was dark and long.
Really narrow.
The kind of darkness she had run down as a child; breathless, panicked, chased by footsteps heavier than hers.
Her chest tightened.
A sound echoed in her memory: Creak of a wooden door,
The shuffle of slippers on concrete,
A low voice calling her name like an accusation.
Her breath caught.
“Aanya?” Sharda’s voice floated from the living room, cutting through the memory like a blade. “Are you okay?”
Aanya forced air into her lungs.
“Yes.”
She flicked on the light, grabbed the glass of water with trembling hands, and returned to the living room.
Sharda didn’t press.
She simply watched her....eyes steady, knowing.
Aanya hated being known.
It made her feel transparent.
Weak.
She sat down slowly.
Sharda pretended to check her phone, but her gaze flickered toward Aanya every few seconds.
IX. Rain as a Trigger
At 11:26 p.m., it began to rain.
A heavy monsoon downpour; fast, loud, merciless.
This rain hid sounds like making blurred footsteps and made a house feel smaller.
Aanya stiffened.
She hated storms.
They reminded her of nights she couldn’t forget.
Nights she had prayed would end.
Her breath grew shallow.
Sharda noticed instantly.
“Aanya,” she said softly.
But Aanya didn’t respond.
She stood abruptly and moved toward the balcony. The rain roared around her, hitting the metal railing like fists.
She gripped it tightly and leaned forward slightly, trying to breathe.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
In.
Out.
But her lungs wouldn’t obey.
Something was rising inside her; a cold, suffocating wave that made her vision blur around the edges.
She felt her chest clenched.
Her hands shook and feet felt unsteady.
Her mind whispered: Don’t go back. Don’t remember.
Don’t let it in.
But the storm outside pulled the memory to the surface anyway.
The locked door.
The hands on her shoulders.
The voice in her ear.
The pain. Her knees buckled.
She stumbled backward, hitting the wall.
Her breath disappeared.
She pressed her palm to her ribs, gasping.................and that’s when Kabir arrived.
X. The Storm’s Witness
Kabir had returned because he realized he’d left his tuning fork in Aanya’s drawer. He hadn’t planned on staying more than thirty seconds.
He knocked; but the storm swallowed the sound.
So he knocked again. No answer. He frowned.
Then....tried the door.
It opened.
He stepped inside; and froze.
Aanya was against the wall, her entire body shaking, breath ragged, eyes wide in a panic so deep it didn’t look like fear—it looked like drowning.
“Aanya?” She didn’t hear him.
She didn’t see him. Her body was somewhere else, another room, another time, another nightmare.
Kabir stepped forward slowly. Very slowly.
“Aanya,” he said again, softer, lower, steady. “Look at me.”
She couldn’t.
Her hands were pressed into her ribs, as if trying to hold herself together.
Kabir moved closer, but not too close.
He knelt a few feet away, palms open, posture low; without being threatening or invasive, just present.
“You’re here,” he said gently. “You’re not there. I promise you.”
Her breath came in sharp, broken gasps.
He stayed perfectly still.
Sharda came rushing out of the hallway, hair still damp.
She froze when she saw Kabir; but only for a second.
Together, without planning it, they formed a quiet circle around Aanya; distance kept, pressure softened.
Sharda took Aanya’s hand.
Kabir whispered:
“Breathe. I’m right here.”
Aanya’s knees gave out.
And for the first time since she was a child, she let herself fall.................not into someone’s arms,
But into the safety of being witnessed.
Kabir caught her before she hit the floor. Very gently. Like holding something irreplaceable.
Her breath shuddered and body went slack.
Kabir held her carefully while Sharda placed a steady hand between Aanya’s shoulder blades.
“Shh,” Sharda whispered. “You’re safe. You’re safe.”
Aanya’s tears mixed with the rain on her face.
She whispered....broken, small: “I don’t want to remember.”
Kabir closed his eyes. Sharda gripped her tighter. And the storm outside roared.
- Writer
