C, Through my life

 

The thing I remember most about C is that he wore the murky red shoulder flaps and has an easy going smile on his face. In any other circumstances, that would have been a people puller. But hidden in his smile is a small oddity, something sinister, that is difficult to put finger on. May be it was that the smile was held a moment too long or is it the cold eyes looking into you after the smile. May be like a small part of tail of a monster sticking out the closet door, in an otherwise pretty bedroom. I am sure he has worked on it over years and is as charming as he could be, now. I just don't want to know. I wish that I don't come across him ever again in my life.

 I was barely four, may be, when I first met C. It was that age where you can easily forget things you are not really into and move on. But, it is also that age where you don't really have any control on what you remember and what you forget! It is that age where you imagine many monsters in closet. Well, the imaginary ones fade away! But the real ones!! Ah if only reality can fade and monsters can stay in closets forever!!

A casual reader reading this may have imagined C to be grown up or at-least much older than me. Alas! That is not the case. He was may be five or six by then. It is said that the smallest coffins are heaviest, I also believe that smallest monsters are scariest!

I don't remember how it all started or even when! But I clearly remember the glee on his face. The sadistic glint in his eyes making his smile vicious. Oh! How I abhorred his smile then. How I feared it. I would want to both, smash his teeth to bits and run away from him, at the same time. People say that we remember not what they do but how they made us feel. That is what I remember exactly. How it made me feel. How scared, angry and helpless I was left.

The downside of this is that, I can never tell anyone what really happened. Simply because I don't remember. But like trash left along the path, every once in every while, I encounter something that transports me back to the lonely helpless days, and I am left with absolutely no clue of what happened, like the reader is now left. Just with a premonition of tales untold, horrors withheld.

Although C's presence in my life was for only three years, the effect has reverberated through years. The cold hard smile still sends me through shivers, a similar smile leaves me in jitters for hours. The childhood that should have been beautiful is gone but instead is filled with thorny insecurities, self-doubt and lack of trust in authority.

I often hear people say that everyone comes into our life for a reason. I just wish I know why C came into my life.