Evoke

The rain never let up, it just continued from one day to another. The steady noise of the water hitting the shed was soothing in it’s own way. The foggy morning, the cool and pleasant smell of the earth brought out a peace in Meghana like nothing else could. She was a homebody, not someone who would enjoy or even be comfortable in a crowd of people. For her, the dances of nature were far more fascinating. In fact, that’s why she had left her home in a big city and settled in a tiny, coastal village.

Everything was quiet around her as she started her day. Her parents had called her yesterday to ask if she was prepared for the Monsoon. She had had to assure them thrice before they were content. Even then, she had heard her father’s muffled voice objecting to the whole thing as she had ended the call. Shaking her head fondly, she went about making her morning coffee. Her parents were tea people, couldn’t live without it and would drink it as many times as they possibly could, she was different in this. Like in many other ways. Sometimes she had wondered if she had been adopted but there were far too many glaring proofs of her being their biological daughter.

As she started on the coffee, she wondered what she should have for breakfast. There weren’t many options if she was being honest. In fact, there were only two options. Either she made some pancakes or she toasted some bread. She was feeling lazy enough that she opted for the bread. In fact, as she put the bread on a pan, she thought to herself, it was the only choice. It seemed the bread would have gone bad after today. What a waste that would have been. Meghana was very fastidious about her food, a trait she inherited from her mother. Her aai used to tell her not to waste even a single bit of the food they had and she was right, food wasn’t something people wasted. Not unless they were rich and had enough of it around to waste it. Or at least, that’s what her father usually said.

As the coffee brewed and the butter toasted, she stood in her kitchen and looked out. She lived almost on the edge of the village and there weren’t many houses around. In fact, she only knew two families, one of them who owned the house she lived in and the other…well, they were very social and had come to her on the first day she had moved in. With food and some help. She had appreciated both and even after almost a year of living there had maintained good relations with both the families. It was rare for her to be so comfortable around people but living in a village where the population was less than thousand and people who didn’t try overtly to intrude on her, she knew she had made the right decision.

Being a writer had it’s perks, especially one who had doled out two fairly good books. She had enough money to invest in living in a village and she also did other online projects. It wasn’t something she had seen as her life. She had always thought she would follow in her family’s steps, work a proper job her whole life, get married (perhaps) and have children ( she dreaded thinking about it). She had never felt any particular fondness for it, in fact, it evoked a feeling of dread in her belly. It would make her hear beat faster and she would start feeling nervous all of a sudden.

She wanted her life to have meaning, something she could be proud of. Working a firm, slaving away at all hours, it wasn’t something she could stomach. Leaving her job as a clerk was the bravest thing she had done in her life. She had always written journals, essays in college, thought provoking articles in her college but she had never thought writing seriously. Not till one day, one of her friends read something she had been writing. It wasn’t anything serious, just something that had taken root in her mind and would let go. She had filled almost three notebooks with the idea, the characters coming to her in waves and the plot itself seemed to move from one character to the other.

Her friend had been the one who had pushed her to send it to a publisher. She had sent it in a small publishing house, they had rejected her but they had told her that she had promise. She had been dejected and almost depressed. Nobody had reviewed her writing like that for a long time. Her mother got to know about it and she nudged her, pushed her to write more, to get her writing edited. One of her mother’s friends offered to look it over. After that, it all seemed like a tsunami had taken over her life. The book was published and it was a hit. She didn’t remain at the best-sellers list for long, only eight weeks but those were one of the best weeks of her life.

From there, she left her job, she decided to leave her home and find a place where she could be herself without worrying about others. She had done it and now, a year later and another book later, she was happy. She was where she had never thought she would be. There might be some things she still had to tackle but for the moment, with the rain coming down, the morning foggy and her breakfast hot, she was content. She was happy. Wasn’t that what people ran after? Happiness?

Meghana smiled as she sat in her breakfast nook near the window and sighed as she tasted her almost too bitter coffee.

via Daily Prompt: Evoke