Rabinandini

You live in your aunt's house, for college. Small claustrophobic room with scratched wallpapers... soft pool of reddish light above the bed where you sleep, study, eat (it's a small room); the red light is slowly maddening. You try to read under candles, but the eyes are straining. Cold is sinking through the skin and hairs on your arms are constantly on edge. There is always a feeling... something right behind your ears. The need to drink black coffee. You sip the hot black nectar, swirl it around your mouth roughened by tar. Then the warmth flows down through you...and you feel...hope. Focus. Focus on the book at hand. A thrifted copy of Carmilla by Fanu. It's 3 at night and you must sleep, yet you read on, wishing for a young girl by you... a friend... alluring, maddening. You dissolve into a dream...pale skin, bony fingers running through your uncombed hair, her bloody lips reaching for your neck, perhaps for a kiss. The red light flickers and you hear a tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. The sink tap has been broken for weeks. You need to sleep. There is a test tomorrow on The Lighthouse by Woolf. And you want to forget about it. Remember that time when all you wanted was a pastel colour set with 80 colours? How your dad used to shout... deafening.... Tap. Tap. Tap. You get up and shove a cloth in it. The red light guides you. You want to sleep, and you turn the next page. Perpetual discomfort. You read a sentence twice, thrice.... Tightly wrap the blanket around you. A beautiful word, must underline it. Where's the pencil? You find one stuck in the edge of the bed. Did Carmilla really exist? You ponder her beauty, imagine yourself in a gothic castle... The darkness helps hide the reality. You sink further into the bed, sleep slowly hovering above you. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap on the door. Of your room. You are home alone.