Story theme : Flashback
A
flashback or involuntary recurrent memory is a psychological phenomenon in
which an individual has a sudden, usually powerful,
re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of a past experience.
These experiences can be happy, sad, exciting, or
any other emotion. The term is used particularly when the memory is
recalled involuntarily, and/or when it is so intense that the person ‘relives’
the experience, unable to fully recognize it as memory and not something that
is happening in ‘real time’.
A literary
flashback is an interjected scene or point that takes the narrative back in
time from the current point. Flashbacks are scenes from a time period that
precedes the primary story arc.
Flashbacks
recall scenes of emotional power. They replay memories that haunt the
characters, although they can also be intensely happy moments.
Flashbacks
explain why characters behave in certain ways in the story. They bring out
essential details or crucial moments from the past that has a significant bearing
to drive the present psychologies or decisions of the characters in the story.
*****
The Stench.
No!
Not here, not again…! Ayesha inhaled a deep breath.
‘Inhale.
Exhale. Inhale . Exhale. Slow…concentrate…concentrate only on your breathing…’
Ayesha tried to imagine the stoic voice of her yoga instructor to soothe her
hassled mind.
‘Breathe…’
she told herself. ‘You are 14 years old. You have control over yourself…You
will not throw up. You can’t throw up
here. You cannot throw up here!’
Ayesha allowed her mind to issue strict instructions to her digestive system to
settle down, even as it threatened to spill the contents of her evening snack
and coffee, all over the sparkling floor of the air conditioned bus. She
thanked her stars for being the only passenger at this time of the night…the
last thing she needed was an audience to her spectacle of disgust...
But
the smell! That horrid stench of rotten eggs that assaulted her nostrils with
the intensity of a raging tornado…she knew there were no eggs here…not here.
Not in this spotless vehicle of one of the cleanest cities in the world. After
all, Singapore was legendary in its strict upkeep of cleanliness.
But,
her insides heaved again as she struggled to keep the rising bile from blasting
out of her throat unto the black floor of the Volvo. Why had she stayed up so
late at the University? She could have completed the project tomorrow…but then,
she’d been caught up in the tempo of editing those HTML codes…
Besides,
there was absolutely no fear of travelling alone, at all times of the day and
night here. After all, Singapore isn’t touted to be one of the safest countries
in the world for nothing.
‘Please,
la’ she gasped as she gripped on to
the railing near the Malay man in white uniform, who drove the vehicle.
He
turned sideways to give her a small glance before he turned his attention to
the road.
‘What
la?’ he asked, without looking back
at her. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No,
I want to throw up…, please stop the bus!’ she gasped, patting her chest in a
downward movement, just like her mom did, whenever she had these bouts of
nausea...
‘Oh,
cannot la, I cannot, rules…’ she
heard the driver say with conviction, even as she tried to blink away the haze
of tears that now pooled around her lids, in her breathless attempt to hold
back her churning stomach.
Maybe
the dumbass didn’t understand her English, she realized. This, despite the fact
that she spoke the local version of English or ‘Singlish’, complete with the
tag ‘la’, an equivalent of the Indian version of ‘yaar’.
‘I am
going to vomit now, stop the bus, la!’
she gasped, as she felt the pungent odour of semi-digested Kwetiau goreng, her favourite flat noodles meal rise up towards her
throat.
The
next instant, her chest heaved violently and she retched. The light brown fluid
exploded out of her mouth and all over the front seat, behind the shocked man.
Five
minutes later, she got off the bus at the next stop, although it was nearly
half a mile away from Jurong East, where she resided. The driver didn’t question
her, although he knew it wasn’t her stop to get off.
She
would never forget the aghast look on his face for a long, long time. All she
wanted was to get away from the stink that she had raised within the previously
spotless vehicle.
A
good walk is what I need now to settle my stomach, she told herself, as she
began a brisk stride towards Jurong, in the sweltering, humid night.
And
the gory images arrived, as she knew they would, to assault the confines of her
mind, even as that fateful evening flashed upon her unwilling senses.
How
many more years would it take for her to forget that wretched incident, that
happened two days after her sixth birthday?
She
had loved the blueberry cake that Dad had bought for her. She’d loved the
presents that all the guests had brought, lapped up all that attention like a
sponge lapping up water through its thirsty pores.
Soma had
eaten her cake that evening. He smiled that charming smile at her before
thanking her parents profusely for inviting him into the house to participate
in her party.
Soma
uncle was a kind, soft-spoken man. He gave her chocolates every other day,
called her sweety, chocolatey, milk chocolate…oh the names he called her always
made her laugh.
That’s
why she’d agreed to accompany him to the shop to buy something.
It
was strange, try as she might, to this day, Ayesha could never recall what it
was that they were supposed to buy that day.
Soma
had stopped the white Omni van on the road with parks on either side. He closed
all the windows and switched on the AC in full blast.
‘Uncle,
why did you stop?’ she asked, still licking off the remnants of the 5-star he gave
her earlier.
‘To
play, sweety. Let’s play a new game shall we?’ Soma smiled.
‘What
game uncle?’ Ayesha was beginning to feel cold, the AC made the interior of the
van frosty. But why was Soma uncle sweating so much?
‘A
game where you do something to me and milk will come out, sweety…like magic!’
His voice was a croak now.
‘Magic?
Wow, then let’s play uncle…’
But Soma
proceeded to remove his pants down to his knees.
‘Shame,
shame uncle…’ she cried in embarrassment.
A
raucous laugh emanated from him then. That was the first time she realized that
his eyes had taken on a different hue, a feral tinge…
He
pulled out a dirty white towel that had turned yellow with age or maybe
grime…and tied her eyes shut with it.
‘Uncle…why?
What are you doing?’ Her little hands tried to pull the thin cotton cloth off
her eyes. He held both her wrists in his huge grasp and pinned them against the
upholstery above her head.
‘It’s
a hide and seek game, sweety! You can see the magic afterwards, okay?’ His voice came in short gasps as if he
couldn’t breathe, as he pushed her flat on her back on the rear seat.
‘Excitement,
the bastard was excited that he would forcibly extract a blow-job from a six-year
old child,’ Ayesha exhaled harshly, as the venom of hatred spewed itself around
her mind.
She
walked faster now, heedless of the beads of sweat that coursed down her face
and back. How innocent she’d been! Tears threatened to pour down her cheeks, as
she made her way on the red-tiled pavement. The ghastly visions continued, as
if the flood had unleashed itself, with no way to stop its assault on her mind…
The
stench had been unbearable. That horrid odor of rotten eggs assaulted her tiny
nostrils, even as she felt something slimy being forced into her mouth. She
gagged then, and wanted to retch the 5 star, the vaangi baath, the orange juice
she’d consumed after returning from school…she wanted to throw up everything.
But, he didn’t allow her to.
She
heard the church bell go Gong-Gong-Gong in a gruesome, unholy rhythm as the
organ in her mouth went in & out, in & out, as if to match the holy
call of the divine…
Hard
fingers grabbed her head in a rough movement and tightened around her hair, she
tried to scream in pain when a black shadow descended over her senses…and then,
there was nothing.
Cold
water. She felt icy cold water on her eyelids and opened them into blurry
upholstery, before focusing on him. A raw agony hit her then, with the force of
a sledgehammer being driven into her gullet. She closed her eyes shut in dreaded
horror, but yanked them open when two rough hands grabbed either side of her
head, crushing her little ears against her scalp and turned her face into…those
eyes! Those dilated pupils that reminded her of the ruthless hunger in the gaze
of wild animals on National Geographic channel.
‘He
wasn’t human, he never was…he only wore the mask of one,’ thought Ayesha in
suppressed fury, as she gave a vicious jab on the push button that allowed pedestrians
to cross the road at the traffic light. Cars whooshed by like tornadoes on
fire, as she shifted from one leg to another on the pavement, waiting for the
green pedestrian light to glow. And the images in her mind continued their
gruesome dance…
‘Don’t
tell anyone! Anyone, understand? You know what I’ll do to you, if you tell
anyone what happened here?’
His
face was so close to hers, she could smell beedis and something else…sickly
sweet and nasty…on his breath. She tried to shake her head to indicate that she
wouldn’t, but he held on in a vice-like grip, his nails digging painfully into
her scalp. She could only stare in terror at this new face, this glaring
monster she didn’t recognize anymore.
‘I’ll
cut you up! Understand?’
He
let go of her head then. And moved his right hand over his left, in a chopping
motion, like she’d seen the butcher do while mincing meat, the time she’d
accompanied their house maid to buy mutton at Russel market, a few months ago.
‘I’ll
cut you up into little, little pieces...chote
chote tukde…chak-chak-chak-chak…and fill you in a bottle,’ he finished, as
his lips twisted into a vicious smile.
Ayesha
watched the hand go up and down on his broad palm; wide eyeballs followed the malicious
motion in mute horror…chak-chak-chak-chak…
The chilly air had formed copious tiny
droplets of water on the windscreen, but Ayesha only knew the intense heat of
sheer terror, as her breath began to come in small convulsive gasps…
Darkness…the
blessed cloak of darkness settled upon Ayesha then and when she did wake up
hours later, mommy was cradling her, rocking her to and fro, a torrent flowing
down her cheeks.
‘My
baby, oh my poor darling…’ Mommy’s voice broke as she valiantly tried to hold
back the sobs emanating from her abdomen. Dad was on the phone with someone,
his voice barely recognizable with vehement rage…
‘Yes,
inspector, the rascal worked here for four years, he drove our car, helped
around the house occasionally…no, we don’t know where he could have gone, he
lived somewhere in Murugeshpalya…’
She
settled into mommy’s embrace to return into the soothing darkness.
She
hadn’t known then, all those years ago.
She
hadn’t known that she would throw up in any vehicle with the AC on, for years
after that incident. Isn’t that why she avoided travelling by AC buses or even
the famed Singapore MRT? But today, it had been late and she’d decided to risk
it one more time…
She
hadn’t known that she would be terrified of bio laboratories for life and avoid
them like the plague, for fear of coming into contact with those display
bottles…
She
still avoided drinking from bottles and would go thirsty for hours on end, because
all she ‘saw’ within those harmless plastic containers were pieces of pink
flesh…with the whiff of putrid eggs…
She
hadn’t known that the stench was the demon that would hound her, lingering just
below the surface of her existence, to prey on her peace and sanity…all her
life.
Dad even
shifted his garment business to Singapore because the psychiatrist advised a
change of scene for his lovely daughter. Had it helped? She’d never know, perhaps
she didn’t want to know.
The
wall clock cuckooed ten times as Ayesha unlocked the grill gate and then the teakwood
door behind it, with her spare key-bunch. She stepped into the spacious 3 BHK
apartment and called out in her usual gaily tone, ‘Mom…I’m home.’
*****
Some portions of the above story are based
on a chilling true incident, as recited to me by the mother of a girl, who
turned 12 recently. The girl was subjected to recurrent sexual abuse by a plumber
employed by her school, within the premises, when she was six. The trial
against the perpetrator and the well-known Delhi-based school in Whitefield,
North Bangalore is still pending in court. The names of the characters have
been changed to protect the identity of the child.
The story uses the theme ‘flashback’, where
memories of a past trauma feel as if they are taking place in the current
moment. It is possible for victims of sexual assault to feel like the
experience is happening all over again. During a flashback it can be difficult
to connect with reality. It may even feel like the perpetrator is
physically present.
*****
Child sexual abuse* can result in both short-term and
long-term harm, including psychopathology in later life. Indicators and effects include depression,
anxiety, eating disorders, poor self-esteem, somatization,sleep disturbances,
and dissociative and anxiety disorders including post-traumatic stress
disorder.
A statement released by Loius Georges Arsenault, UNICEF Representative to India states, “It is alarming
that too many of these cases are children. One in three rape #victims is a
child. More than 7,200 children including infants are raped every year; experts
believe that many more cases go unreported. Given the #stigma attached to
rapes, especially when it comes to children, this is most likely only the tip
of the iceberg.
According to data
compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (#NCRB) for 2015, 8,800 cases of
rape on children were registered across the country under the Protection of
Children Against Sexual Offences Act (#POCSO). In 2,227 cases, or 25.3 per
cent, the offenders were found to be employers or co-workers.
In the case of
children, the data reveals:
·
Neighbors were the biggest abusers in such cases in 2015 - 3,149
(35.8%).
·
In over 10 per cent of
cases last year, children were subjected to #rape by their own family members
or relatives.
·
In 94.8 per cent of cases, children were subjected to rape by
someone known to them.
·
14,913 cases were registered under #POCSO in 2015.
*Sourced from Google.
*****
Spotting these charming ducks sliding past us with nonchalant grace, in perfect tune to the soft instrumental music in the background, was one of the highlights of the visit.
