Writing Raw The Next Step in the Evolution of Reading Literature The Little Red Book By Barnali Saha It looked the same except for the binding that had faded a little along the edges and the bright red color that seemed slightly distressed. Perhaps it too was facing an emotional catharsis like its owner, Amanda Tailor, who had been staring at the little red book for more than fifteen minutes now and was almost fully drenched in a shower of holy tears. This was a usual daily exercise that Amanda had been religiously following thrice a week, sometimes four times a week, at night, when her insomniac, tormented soul would haunt her for answers to questions she had no idea about. How could she know the mysteries of life and death? How could she know why her only son, Adam, died before he had lived his life? She wasn’t a psychic or some paranormal TV show host; she was a mere human being, a thirty nine years old, middle aged lawyer living an imperfect life in the windy city of Chicago. The chilly winds of December were crashing through the open window. Amanda was too lost to even feel the spine-melting nippy air. She was now kneeling before Adams picture that was hanging in one of the bare walls of his room, holding the book to her chest. She was a marionette, a woman of wood with no emotion on her face. All she had was tears, a never ending stream of tears that have been flooding her senses and life since the last four years. The picture on the wall was a little hazy and undeniably it was not one of Adam’s best pictures, but Amanda wanted it to be framed and hung in the wall above his crib. Somehow Amanda loved that picture very much, and though the picture showed the photographer’s lack of expertise, it sure was the only picture she had where Adam was smiling. The picture was taken in the lawn on Adam’s third birthday. He was wearing a White Sox children’s dress and a cap that were his birthday gift from his father, Richard. But he seemed to have loved his mother’s gift more, because when Amanda gave him the little red book she was holding now, the boy was delighted. He smiled and turned the pages, pointed the bright pictures with his forefinger and started babbling. Amanda wanted to capture the expression. So, she took him to the lawn and made him stand under the maple tree while she clicked his picture. There was so much innocence in those little lips, magic in those rosy cheeks and those half closed eyes that Amanda could stare at the picture hour after hour without feeling a slightest streak of boredom. www.WritingRaw.com 1 Writing Raw The Next Step in the Evolution of Reading Literature After sometime Amanda was awakened from her trance by the church bell that announced the midnight hour. She wiped her face and got up, sniffling. She closed the window and dusted Adam’s bed, picked up the toys with which she now played, and neatly kept the items in the dresser and left. A little while later she returned to pick up the little red book which was now her partner in bed. It was a children’s picture book with a collection of a variety of nursery rhymes. It had glossy pages and colorful collage styled illustrations of animals, flowers, fruits and sceneries accompanying the text. But what Amanda loved most about it was its velvety red cover on which the words A Pretty Little Book for Children were written in charming golden letters. On a summer evening four years back Amanda had been looking for a good present for Adam at the children’s books store and she had fruitlessly browsed through a whole collection of nursery rhyme books and fairy tales but she had found nothing unique, nothing marvelous. Just as she was about to leave, her eyes had fallen on the half off section and there it was, bounded in red velvety cover, the perfect children’s book she had been looking for. Instantly she knew that Adam would love it and it would be a great gift for a new learner. She procured it, wrapped it and hurried home. Amanda lay on her side, it was two in the morning and still she couldn’t sleep. She sighed, switched on the bedside lamp and picked up the little red book. She turned it pages and smiled. Adam had made pencil marks on them, it was his favorite book. He would spend hours playing with it, turning its pages and trying to decipher what secret codes were written in bright letters in it. She touched the pages and caressed them fondly. The book was her only souvenir of lost happy hours. She could feel Adam’s touch in it and could smell him. After Adam’s death Richard was totally broken. And as we all know two broken people cannot live under one roof, she and Richard drifted apart. Richard always thought that Amanda was a “bad mother” and took care of her career more than her sick child. He blamed her irrationally and held her solely responsible for Adam’s death. They had terrible altercations when utensils were thrown, plates were broken and when the neighbors complained about such uncivilized happenings in a civilized Chicago locality, Richard left Amanda and went away. She never heard from him for a long time, not one phone call, not evens an email, he just vanished from her life. Richard was a writer who had published several volumes of his fictional works over the years. When he left Amanda realized that may be she too was a part of the phantasmagoria of pedestrian characters he built, a figment of his fictive impulse. The fact that Richard who had vowed to be www.WritingRaw.com 2 Writing Raw The Next Step in the Evolution of Reading Literature with her forever left her just like that at an hour when she needed him the most seemed astounding to her. After the initial shock, Amanda tried learning the art of accepting loneliness. But her despondency was illimitable. She railed against fate, at God and hated her life. She wanted to die and end everything once in for all. She stopped going to the office, disconnected the telephone and confined herself to her room where she cried the whole day. After a while she felt demented. She would often stand before the mirror laugh and make faces at herself for no reason. She ate little and drank all the alcohol she found at home. One day her parents visited her, naturally they were worried about their daughter’s whereabouts and when they found no way to contact her, they drove all the way from Minneapolis to Chicago. In the beginning she wouldn’t open the door to them and finally when she relented, her parents were taken aback by her specter thin frenzied look. They rushed her to the hospital where she was immediately admitted to the psychiatric department. She stayed in the hospital for a week and was treated for severe depression, a condition common after a severe loss in someone’s life. Amanda’s parents urged her to pull herself together and start a new life. But Amanda lacked the energy to start everything anew. Her parents stayed with her for sometime, but she hated their presence and had to act normally to send them back to Minneapolis. On the first anniversary of Adam’s death, Amanda received a note from Richard. It was a plain formal note which said amidst terms like “you killed him” and “God wouldn’t pardon your offense” that “I need a divorce”. The legal separation took place faster than Amanda had thought it will. On the day of the divorce, Richard looked clean and handsome; he was sporting a gray Ralph Lauren suit and had neatly done his hair. The couple had nothing to say to each other except that they did not want anything from the other. As Amanda walked back home disconnected from the only bond she had, she felt a strange sense of nothingness rising like a lump inside her stomach. She wanted to cry. She reached home, hugged the little red book and cried the whole day. In the evening she visited Adam’s grave, put some flowers and candies on it and sat for a while. She wanted her son to come back to life; she waited silently for some miracle. But in a mortal world miracle rarely happens nowadays. It is said that time heals everything and it really does. By some magic potion it balms all the wounds and pacifies all the hidden pain one might have. After the second year of Adam’s death, Amanda got used to her son not being there around her. To alleviate her loneliness, she joined a new law firm and stayed at office until midnight, surfing the net. One day she googled Richard’s name out of curiosity. She couldn’t believe what she found; Richard had married a www.WritingRaw.com 3 Writing Raw The Next Step in the Evolution of Reading Literature rich real estate agent in Detroit soon after the divorce and now had a perfect family of his own. He even had a one year old daughter called Maggie. Amanda felt it strange that a man who had been inculpating her for their son’s death could forget that child so easily and go ahead and marry once again. “He decided to move on, and you should do the same” said Amanda’s mother when she told her about Richard. You know moving on can be pretty hard in life, especially after the death of your only son. Amanda was searching for a way to move on but in her heart she didn’t want to move on and forget her son, even if he was dead. She loved trudging the deserted road of memories; it was an entertainment for her, the only entertainment she looked forward to the whole day. Being with the little red book was like being with Adam. Every night Amanda spent her leisure time in Adam’s room and thought about him—how big he would have been if he were alive, if he would look like her or his father, which school, college and university he would good to. Those were nice thoughts, thoughts that Amanda would never part with. She talked to the little red book, told it about her day at work and other things. For hours the monologue went on and when Amanda felt sleepy he left the room and went to bed. One night she thought she heard Adam’s voice. She rushed to the room to see if he was actually there. She didn’t find her son instead found the little red book on the bed, which she clearly remembered having placed inside the dresser before leaving the room that night. That little incident thrilled her and from then on she always slept with that book by her side. Two Christmases passed by and time flew on in a jiffy. Amanda was doing pretty well in her life. She had almost managed to pull her self together and all she needed now was to tame the bouts of loneliness she had at night. Her career was looking good and she had met a nice man at office. Although she didn’t wasn’t to jump into a relationship she liked spending time with Donald, her new friend. Donald was divorced too and he was always compassionate to Amanda. He would listen to her and sympathize with her grief of losing her beloved son. Amanda was feeling good at heart except for the fact that Adam’s fifth death anniversary was drawing near. It was 21’st August 2004. Adam was down with pneumonia. It wasn’t an incurable disease; the doctor said there wasn’t anything to worry about. But Adam’s condition grew worse, the coughing fits and the fever increased. Amanda and Richard tried their best, they took him to the best Children’s hospital in town, spent sleepless nights beside him, and got all the medicines that he needed but nothing worked. Adam didn’t respond to the medicines he was given and after a week of suffering, he gave in to the illness. Amanda remembered the listless www.WritingRaw.com 4 Writing Raw The Next Step in the Evolution of Reading Literature body of the child lying on the white hospital bed, his little folded hands placed neatly on his chest, the children’s blue dress with pictures of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on it. She thought he was sleeping peacefully and hoped that he might wake up and say “Mommy”. But he never woke up. When they buried him couple of days later, his skin had turned pale yellow and his eyes had sunk. Amanda had wished to walk away from the funeral and run to some obscure place. She couldn’t look at the dead child, it was too much for her to believe that Adam who had been playing peek a boo with her a little while back was no more. Amanda had joined yoga sometimes back and the oriental exercise did work wonders for her. She felt relieved and peaceful. Her instructor, Ashley Haugen, was a pediatrician by profession. Amanda simply adored her. She was five feet six, thin and spiritual. Ashley had learned yoga at college and had loved it so much that she opened up her own yoga center soon after she finished her M.D degree. Ashley was happily married with the best neurologist in Chicago, Dr. Marc Robinson, for five years and had a three years old daughter named Alisha. Amanda never missed her yoga lessons and the afterward spiritual talk with Ashley. In fact she was the only friend Amanda had. One day in a bout of depression she confessed to her that since her son’s death anniversary was drawing near she needed to get away from Chicago because he felt she couldn’t relish the pain of losing him anymore. Ashley had always told her that she should let go of Adam now, that it would be good for the little boy’s spirit too. It wasn’t good that she was incarcerating his spirit and was unwilling to let him go. Amanda had thought over it again and again but didn’t have an answer in her mind. Every time she thought of letting Adam go, she felt weak. She felt if she let him leave her life, it would be an act of betrayal. Such thoughts would inevitable usher in her haunting sense of loneliness and depression and she would rush to Adam’s room, pick up the little red book, and plead him to forgive her for thinking like that. On the eve of Adam's fifth death anniversary Donald took Amanda out for a dinner. She didn’t want to go but Donald somehow managed to drag her out. They went to a cozy French restaurant round the corner and while Amanda was looking vaguely for words to speak, Donald proposed to her. Amanda was shocked. But deep down inside she had wanted to hear those three words spoken by somebody. In the last five years she had fruitlessly hoped to hear them from Richard, but he decided to be numb. Amanda's eyes were filled with tears as Donald brought a bright and clear diamond ring from his pocket and for the first time in five years, the tears she shed were happy ones. www.WritingRaw.com 5 Writing Raw The Next Step in the Evolution of Reading Literature Amanda reached home contended. She knew she had done the right thing by answering Donald in the affirmative. She realized that a new relation might be a bold move but may be that was the medicine she needed to cope with her wretched life. That night when Amanda went to Adam's room she couldn’t find the little red book in the dresser. She was surprised because she never misplaced it. She looked for it everywhere— in the dresser, in her closet, in the guest room, living room—everywhere. She couldn’t find it. Confused and broken, after an hour of fruitless search, Amanda went out on the porch to have a cigarette and clear her mind. She knew she had to find it; it was the only memory of Adam's that she had with her and she refused to let it go. As she was about to light the cigarette, her eyes suddenly fell of something under the maple tree in the lawn. It was a figure, a figure of a child. Bewildered, she shouted \"who's there?\" The figure moved forward a little, and under the misty glow of the moon Amanda saw who it was. It was Adam. He was wearing the same Chicago White Sox dress and cap he had worn in the picture. He looked the same except that he was luminescent and misty like the moon. Amanda stared at him agog. She didn’t know what to say. Heaps of emotions mingled with pain and despair over losing her son coiled and recoiled in her mind. She wanted to cry, but the tears had frozen. Amanda thought she was seeing a dream, a beautiful dream of the person she had wanted to see forever. She wanted to run and hug him and kiss him, but her feet were frozen too. Instead of moving, she just stood on and continued staring at Adam. The child began waving to her; his little hand swayed gently from side to side. He was holding something in his other hand, something red. It was a book, the little red book. Amanda waved to the child. She decided to give up her search because she realized it was finally time the little red book went to its rightful owner. © 2009 Barnali Saha www.WritingRaw.com 6