I started
collecting secrets when I was just six years old. I would put them in a little
chest-like jewellery box that I hid under my bed. I wasn’t sure at the time
what my ability meant or how I could use it. All I could do was put in one
secret after another. They never evaporated or rotted inside, though as the
days passed I realised I had to get a bigger box.
A secret is silky,
silvery and card-like, though often slightly thicker and occasionally with a
hue of another colour. When I turned eighteen, new colours started appearing. I
then began to sort them and group them together. Shades of pink for love,
shades of green for money, prosperity and good-fortune, orange for anything
related to secret meetings; romantic excursions – those were a mix of pink and
orange. Then there were the silvery-blue secrets, those were my personal
secrets. Finally, there was red, and it only ever appeared twice. I didn’t make
that particular choice of colour, the secrets did and of their own accord too.
I hated red afterwards. Red was for death.
By twenty-one, the
secrets began to have a mix of shades; after all secrets tend to combine
several secrets within them. The way I saw them, these secrets would have been
very pretty to an onlooker.
There was never
one.
I never told
anyone about my ability; simply no one would believe me. I did try to tell my
mother once. She listened silently. When I was done, she said it was an
interesting story and wished me good night.
It’s an odd gift,
I am aware of that. But aren’t all gifts strange in nature? A mind-reader would
be seen as mad but then again he could prove it.
I couldn’t.
My friend Jenna
dropped in once while I had my chest of secrets open. I quickly hid it but some
of them fell on the carpet as I hurried to hide my secret. At first she didn’t
notice anything; then she said there was something glittery on the floor but
could not really see or catch it. When I told her I had clumsily dropped some
glitter on the floor while doing our assignment for Arts class, she believed me
in an instant.
After twenty-one,
my ability evolved into – well something between a real gift and a real curse.
Whenever I shook
hands with anyone, their emotions gushed through me as a high voltage of
electricity stings the person who touches the naked wire. I instantly saw what
they were thinking and feeling. At first, it made me extremely dizzy and unable
to stand up straight. For a month, I claimed I had a severe case of flu but
after that I had to pull myself together by hook or by crook.
Jenna, who had
always been honest with me, had never told me that her boyfriend was so
abusive. That summer’s day that we met, I fell off my chair in pain. Holding
her hand, I grit my teeth as I saw images and her stream of thoughts trying to
hide in the depth of her consciousness. She had applied a lot of make-up that
morning to cover the bruising on her face and the black eye, had worn bandages
on her back to keep the wounds from opening again, had cried for hours in the
bathroom before she could muster a fake smile to show me when I came to pick
her up.
Furious rage
swelled through me. Somehow she felt my anger or part of it because she asked “Angela,
why do you look so red? You look like you’re about to explode!”
I took in a deep
breath and tried to calm myself. I told her that I could see the black eye
under her make up. It was a lie, but I didn’t think she could handle my secret
of secrets, not at that moment at least. She broke into tears and flung open
the cupboard of abuse that she has been enduring.
When I got home
that day, I was still on the verge of exploding. I had to get that secret out.
I put my thumb and index finger to my temple and pulled the silvery shapeless
secret out. It didn’t take a form. It just looked like a wobbly silvery thing.
It was practically colourless – for silvery no longer represented a colour to
me. I held it in my hand, the pain lessening in my body but bits of the memory
still lingering in my head; like me, they didn’t know where to go or what to
do.
The secret in my
hand wasn’t stable either. It didn’t have the usual semi-solid semi-liquid
state it had and didn’t take the card-like form. It just wriggled in
shapelessness. Slowly it began to gain several colours: dark grey, black and a
dark shade of red.
So these were the
colours of anger, I thought.
Jenna was stuck in
that relationship. She couldn’t leave – naturally she’d be dead before she even
articulated the idea to herself. She couldn’t stay – she’d be dead quite soon.
Her body couldn’t take much more of it. I could feel it.
Naturally, I asked
her to spend a few days with me – as we used to do when we were younger. It was
out of the question.
There was one
thing I could do. But it needed practice. I had to practice harder than before.
I intensified my practice over the next week or so. While calling Jenna almost
every other day to check on her.
It helped my
training that through the emotions I got from Jenna, I also got her
boyfriend’s. He didn’t love her; he merely used and abused her.
Women often claim
that their abusive fathers, brothers, boyfriends, or husbands love them but are
unable to control their anger or that they – the women – act idiotically
therefore earning those waves of wrath. That’s not true and I can vouch for
that. Few, in fact very few, have such a relationship. The rest: the men simply
don’t care and need a punch bag to show them who’s the man and show off their
so-called masculinity.
I know. I have
seen it and felt it. I know love from jealousy from hate from rage from pure
ugliness in a person’s soul. I have seen them all, and more.
Jenna knew nothing
of my plans, only that I had insisted on coming over for dinner and making
several dishes myself. Jenna didn’t object to my loading her with this dinner
but at the same didn’t mind getting the load of cooking off her back – whatever
was left of it. Her boyfriend, Matt, would never object to another person’s
cooking since he maintained such a formality with everyone.
The hypocrite.
He hated me.
And I knew it.
And after knowing
his misdeeds against my best friend, I indulged in his hate and jealousy.
I made several
dishes that day; from lasagna to meatloaf to my signature chocolate cake. I
knew Jenna hated meatloaf and Matt loved it.
Jenna didn’t
believe me when I told her that the day she left Matt, I would be the one to
take her home.
“The day I leave
him would be the day you mourn for me. I will be let out in black plastic bag on
a stretcher.”
“No. You won’t.”
She looked at me in disbelief as I looked back with a sly smile and air of absolute
certainty of what I was saying.
The dinner table
looked splendid. Matt was thrilled with the meatloaf, though less thrilled when
I insisted that he keep it till the end. He had to at least try my lasagna
first. Out of courtesy, which I am sure wasn’t one of his qualities, he did as
I requested.
At last, the
meatloaf.
The moment he took
that first bite and swallowed, he fell off his chair and was thrown hard
against the wall. Jenna jumped but merely stood back, her hand on her mouth.
The sight before her was too familiar and too painful.
Matt appeared to
be pinned to the wall by an overpowering invisible force. His face twitched
horribly. At first he was silent, holding back his voice then he started
screaming. He put his hand around his neck; he looked as if he were choking
himself then as if he were trying to push back whoever was choking him. He
yelped and wailed, fell to the ground then slammed against the wall again.
Jenna was
motionless. She was afraid. I didn’t have to hold her hand to feel it. It
emanated from her.
“It’s ok,” I
whispered in her ear, and I felt her hold body ease a bit. She came to hold me
but I said “Wait.”
She gave me a
confused and inapprehensive look, but waited. Her eyes had shifted from her twitching
and trembling boyfriend to me. I, who stood there motionless but unaffected,
unsurprised; I, who had complete composure despite the absurdity of what was
happening.
Matt fell to the
ground again and managed a breath and said ‘You poisoned me!’
“No. I did not.” I
said calmly. “You did.”
This time, Matt
was flung with his face against the wall. He screamed in pure agony.
“It is called
pain, Matt. And it’s not mine. It’s all yours.”
I went to the door
and motioned for Jenna to follow. She did. I let her out first and as I followed,
I called out to Matt and said “All yours. Enjoy!”
Jenna was
speechless after we got home. Only then was I able to tell her of my ability. Naturally,
she didn’t believe me, but the things I recounted from her memories, the things
she never told me, made her believe that strange as it – or I – was, it was all
true.
“I didn’t put
poison in the meatloaf. I suck at Chemistry, you already know that. All I did
was put your pain in it. I used all the buried memories of your torment, all
the secrets you had bottled up, all the anguish you buried deep that I was able
to feel through you, all that I channelled into that meatloaf. It was intense.
If I were to channel that amount of agony into a tree, it would have withered
to death on the spot.
“I apologise for
pushing you away when you needed a warm hug but I couldn’t let your fear ruin
that moment when I added fuel to the fire or rather more pain. I made him
suffer using his own methods. All that he inflicted upon you, I channelled into
him over and over. Your pain had become his pain.”
Jenna was in tears
of surprise, relief and joy.
“And don’t worry;
he’ll bring all your stuff soon. I am pretty sure he doesn’t want to see you
ever again, especially with your evil friend, who I’m sure he thinks is some
wicked witch.”
I held her in my
arms that day and felt her pain and sorrow subside into happiness and content.
I am seventy now
and not once have I taken out the memory of that day. Jenna is happily married
and her daughter is expecting twins. Jenna doesn’t dare hide anything from me anymore,
for she knows I will find it out whether she means to tell me or not.
Jenna carries two
big secrets now: that day and my gift.
Note: This story was my entry for one of The First Line contests. So, the first line is theirs.
