The Ground Beneath My Feet…

This is a post I wrote 3 years back when I was trying my hand at creative writing… It was lost in cyberspace until recently when I chanced upon it… Hope you like it…

For the uninitiated, 15th of August is the Indian Independence Day…

I woke up with a start… Somewhere in the background i could still hear the fading, monotonous booms of the clock in the clock-tower striking 4…

i lifted my bedsheets and stepped out… a dank stench of saliva and sweat lazily wafted from the folds of the quilt which was providing me the only consoling warmth in the damp room…..

I looked out of the barred window of the small cell… It was still dark outside… The radium dials of the dilapidated clock looked like an eerie face staring at me from where it sat on the wooden shelf….

I took out a folded sheet of paper from beneath my pillow and stared at it…. The criss-crossed pencil marks on it indicated it was the 15th of August… I smiled… Today is the day i’ll earn my freedom… One more hour… Just one more hour to go….

The compound was waking up to the murmurs of the inmates… I sat on my bed and retrospected… I laughed… and then i cried….

The doors of my cell opened with a clang… I looked up… Slowly as if in a haze i got up….

The cold water brought me back to my senses… Someone rapped on the door of the bath… i grabbed the piece of cloth and rubbed myself dry… I was getting late….

I walked down the narrow lane towards a small, heavily ironed door… My ears caught on to the faint strains of the national anthem wafting in the breeze from the directions of the courtyard and my right hand went up in an involuntary salute…. I was marching towards my freedom…

I stood there… still…. savored the gentle touch of the cold morning breeze against my face… The dawn was breaking….

A veil dropped on my face and the ground beneath my feet gave away…. The light faded into darkness…. I was free at last….