THE CRY OF A VICTIM

The clock almost struck twelve as Azaan speechlessly sat on his bed, too shocked to move as he felt his mind going blank, spine feeling chill, heart feeling frozen and almost everything inside him wrenching. He wanted to run away from the reality, the blast from his dark past which was standing readily in front of him to embrace him and consume him completely and then to leave him with nothing but agony. Some kids become matured at an earlier age, they say. But the problem with such kids is that their mind knows what the truth is and their heart would politely refuse to accept it, resulting in more pain. He kept staring at the diary he was holding tight with both his hands. All of a sudden, tears flooded his eyes turning them red and anger infuriated his mind. He threw the diary away and pushed everything around him, weeping out loud.

‘No. I don’t want this. This shouldn’t be happening to me. I don’t deserve this.’

He screamed and wailed till his voice broke. He paused as he heard a knock on his door. The door flew open and his father stood there with a blank face. He then entered, took Azaan in his arms and made him sit on his bed as he sat beside him.

‘You’re gonna be alright Azaan. I know you will. It’s hard for you to accept, but you don’t have a choice. And I want you to understand that I’ll always be with you. I’ve treated you as my own son all these years and that isn’t gonna change even a bit any further. Deal with it. I was waiting for you to become old enough to let you know all these. You’re strong. I trust you.’

He hugged his father and wept uncontrollably as his father gently caressed him. Once he was done crying, he tried to compose himself. As his father stood up to leave, his eyes fell on the diary that was lying in the corner amidst broken pieces of a vase. He took it and placed it in Azaan’s lap,

‘She left this for you. You must be having too many questions now. This has all the answers.’

He said and left the room. Azaan finally mustered up courage and opened the diary with trembling hands. He was shocked to see that most of the pages were empty. He flipped the pages as fast as he could and finally found the very few filled ones.

Every day I woke up from sleep to a very normal day just like most other people. I was like any other teenage girl who wanted a merry life, who dreamt of a happily ever after whenever romantic numbers hit my ears, who stepped into college with millions of expectations of a bright future. Things were this fine when all of a sudden everything changed. One day I woke up to immense pain, incessant torments and the essence of hell being shoved into my soul. For the first few days I didn’t even understand the indescribable physical pain I felt. Whenever I opened my eyes, I could see my parents crying their lives out. I felt more like a corpse with life merely clinging on to it. It took a few days for the tears to start flowing as I realized that I was raped by a bunch of filthy men. All my dreams were shattered. Every single dream of a happily ever after, was gone. I was there stuck in the middle of nowhere, neither knowing how to fix the past nor knowing how to deal with the future. Any word I use to describe that feeling would be an understatement. Even after showering a million times, my body still felt soaked in the disgust as though a thousand leeches were crawling over me. Every second of my existence became miserable and torturous. The chastity which I’d been preserving all through my life was torn into pieces by the hungry dogs that devoured over me. My parents wanted to keep this off from the world considering my future, but destiny had its own plans and gifted me a child at the most unwanted moment as the bitterest surprise. That was the end of everything, I then realized. Through no fault of my own, the world called me a bitch and cursed and criticized my parents, questioning their brought up and insulting them in every possible way until they decided to end their life. In spite of being innocent, I had to face the guilt while all the bastards who were solely responsible for ruining me were leading a happy life somewhere. Just because I was a woman, I’d to be the victim going through hell every single minute. I was thrown out of the hospital when I tried to abort the life in my womb, since I didn’t have my parents or spouse. I was left with no choice but give birth to my child and I decided to raise it on my own as I didn’t want to give it the pain of being an orphan, after seeing what it is like to be one. Again, destiny had its own plans of making me face death. I couldn’t dodge it, I tried my best but still it won over me. I knew that I wouldn’t live long enough to see my child, the only wish I had was that it shouldn’t grow as an orphan. That’s when God finally decided to show some mercy, a gentleman showed up and volunteered to raise my child. My faith in humanity was a little restored and yet the anger and rage kept burning within me. Though I was the innocent victim, the society branded me as a slut and just because the rapists were men, they weren’t accused. The sadistic thing about people is that they want them to be heard but they never bother to hear other’s reasons. The world didn’t let me explain that my child wasn’t a result of my love and was a result of lust of some unknown bunch of bastards. As a girl who lost everything to their mere thirst of pleasure, I want them to suffer as much as I did. Every ounce of pain, every moment of sadness, and every single moment of torture, agony, insult, every single thing. They should suffer to such an extent that any man should shudder even as the thought of laying hands on a girl occurs in their mind. Such should be their suffering. To the good soul that has come forward to raise my child, if it’s a boy then teach him to respect women as goddesses and not mere ball of flesh. If it’s a girl, then teach her to sue men who don’t give her the respect she deserves. Pain and regrets, Saira.

Azaan cursed everyone who was responsible for all that his mother went through. He took a deep breath, closed the diary and went to his father.

‘Are you okay, son?’

‘I’ll dwell on her last words dad. Thank you for being there for me always. I’ll be you someday.’ He said wiping the tears that rolled down his cheek.

That day, the result of an assault raised a complete gentleman, slamming the judgmental society.