It was the big city life that lured her. Till now her life was a secure cocoon.
She was always protected. Always cared for. Almost like a princess.
But now was the time to stretch her wings and fly. The world had so much to offer.
The world she had read about in books. The world in the movies.
That world was beckoning her. And she wanted to submit.
It came as a surprise in the mail. The letter that was her pathway into the unknown.
She had just applied for the job on a whim. Never once thinking about it later. But now here it was. The offer letter. The offer to live a different life. An offer into the forbidden world.
It took a lot of convincing from her friends, her brother from the neighbors for Reema’s parents to let her go to Bombay. Into a city so notorious in reputation. A city they believed was too fast and too dangerous for their darling daughter.
A city that might snatch their daughter away from them.
And now here she was 2 weeks later in the city of dreams with just a bag and an address in hand and dreams in her eyes.
Reema took to the city like the fish to water. She loved the people, the pace, the buzz, the crowd. She wondered how she ever lived in Nagpur.
This was life. These were the people who knew how to live.
This was the place where dreams did come true.
But dreams are just dreams. The morning light jolts you out of it and all that is left are fragmented pieces of memory tucked in some unknown recesses of your mind.
At first the drinking was all about trying something new. Back in Nagpur she would not even have dreamt of touching liquor. But here everyone drank.
They said it was about being social. She told herself that she drank to give them company and not for getting high. But she enjoyed the high. She liked the way she shed all inhibitions when she drank. Her friends enjoyed her company more when she was drunk. She was the fun Reema when she was drunk.
And so every night was a new party. Every night a drunken stupor. The phone calls home went from twice a day to 2 calls a month. The city was taking their daughter away.
And then it happened. A drunken brawl with the landlady landed her on the street in the middle of the night. Too drunk to know what she was doing she slept on the pavement.
She woke up to the feeling of a dog licking her face.
People looked at her in a way she could not comprehend. It was a look she did not like but had seem before. She looked at her disheveled self and her torn clothes and then out of the blue there came the tears. It was like the wave of emotions washing her over.
The same day Reema enrolled herself into rehab. She saw the same vacant look in the eyes of other imates as she did in her own. But somehow she felt safe again.
Her life had come a complete circle. She was back in a cocoon. Back to be being cared for. The only difference this time was, she no longer a princess with dreams in her eyes.
She was a princess with demons she wanted to forget.
Well this is me trying my had at Creative writing. Let me know what you guys think!
