The Life Of Her Dreams

“It is too dark and I am not able to see anything here”, said Rose to herself. It was pitch dark in the central park of the city where Destiny, Hope and Felicity were to meet Rose at nine in the evening for an important discussion. Rose had left for the park at 30 minutes past eight .

Rose met Destiny, Hope and Felicity two years ago in a rehab. Rose had a history of family disturbances and lack of peace in her life. Her mother had died when she was six years old and soon after, her father married another woman. When Rose grew up to be 12 she found out that her step mother was cheating on her father, when she went to inform her father he rather beat her up instead of believing. He was very disappointed about Rose lying and soon made arrangements for her to be sent to a boarding school.

All these years Rose could never overcome the loss of her mother and all she could do was to instill all her faith and love in her father but when her father kicked her out of the house she was shattered. She was no more the chirpy, little girl who believed that there was another world beyond the oceans that had unicorns and princes riding them in search of princesses like her.

It was the first year of college for Rose but it had been years since her father last met her. A lot had happened meanwhile. Her father came to know that his daughter was right when he found her second wife cheating on him but his despicable male ego forestalled him from bringing her daughter back to his house. Rose had enough money sent by George, her father, to live like the richest girl at college but she didn’t spend even a penny out of it. Rose was lucky to have got a job at the local shopping centre nearby where she earned enough to pay for her college fees, food and her college dorm. She saved all the money her father gave in a bank account she had opened in the name of her mother.

It was the first year of her college, the summers, when she decided to work for extra hours to earn little more in order to pay for her extra credit course on Human Sketching. Ever since Rose was a child she made beautiful sketches of human figures. Rose was a very talented as an artist but she wanted to pursue her further studies in a Medical school for that was her mother’s dream. But that summers had a sharp turn planned on her way. Rose was brutally raped by her employer at the shopping centre when she was working alone in the late hours of darkness and loneliness. Rose was fear-stricken and severely traumatized to even speak out her case before the police officers for she was being black-mailed by her employer every single day. Soon she found herself being raped by his employer frequently and that was when she got exposed to LSD(Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) and Cocaine. She tried to find temporary peace in a world that didn’t exist in real. A person who loved the beauty of human bodies now loathed the mere existence of humans.

After Rose was hospitalized for drug overdose at the end of second year of her college, she was immediately sent to the city’s most famous rehab. One night while Rose was trying to sleep, all her past experiences and pain revisited her and she desperately searched for her pain-killer, drugs. She became insane and started to scream and cry in sheer helplessness. “Hey, girl! Get up! Now don’t cry like a baby”, Rose lifted her head to see Hope staring right into her eyes. She shifted her sight to find Felicity and Destiny standing right behind her. “I’m Hope, this is Felicity and that’s Destiny, and you are?”, said Hope while offering her hand for Rose to stand up. “I am Rose. What are you doing here? I live here alone”, said Rose. “Well, you see that is not going to happen from today for we three are going to stay with you ”, said Felicity.

Rose had given up her addiction since last six months but she was not being let out of the rehab so she decided to run away. A great bonding had been created between the four and so the three roommates helped Rose and themselves to escape. “Rose, tonight you have to jump over the fences of the rehab and run away without looking back. We will meet you at the city’s Central Park at nine”, said Destiny. Rose hugged them and wished them all goodbye for the moment and executed the plan as they had thought of.

It was fifteen minutes past ten but Hope, Felicity and Destiny were not there. She got off from the bench she was sitting on and went towards a huge, deep pond in the middle of the park. A flickering street light shone her reflection on the still water; Rose stared at her own reflection for some time. There were big, dark circles under her eyes and the jaw bones were peeping out of her face. Her hands reached for a packet in the pocket of her sweatshirt. Rose’s eyes were twinkling the brightest when she looked at the white powder of eternal peace. She smiled and a tear flowed down her cheek as she looked back at the waters to find the three angels of her life standing right behind her. Rose turned her face only to find no one standing there. She turned back and found her angels stretching their arms out to her.

It was Sunday morning, six days past Rose’s death, George was talking to Niah, a woman in the rehab who was the only one to be talking to Rose. “Every day she would ask for four plates of meals to be served for her and her best friends but we were surprised to find her eating all the food on her own. At times, she would even point out in space and laugh at jokes that only she could hear and apparently I couldn’t. I had long realized that Rose was long dead, it was just her body with us, just like one of her sketches, beautiful and honest.”, Niah said wiping tears flowing down her cheeks. George was very overwhelmed and quickly went out of the rehab.

Rose was imprisoned in the lock up of LSD and Cocaine where she was shown a world of her dreams, a place of hope, happiness and a future her mother and she had always dreamt of. Rose had never actually got rid of her addiction and it seems Hope, Felicity and Destiny were her desires deep down in her heart, in the unfathomable darkness that could never bask in the sun.