Sunday, April 6th 2025
9:56 a.m

She slept in. "Typical", the voice scorned.

Then she woke up panicking, tossing her blanket on the other side of the bed. "It was a hot night, when did I get this?" she thought. Half asleep, already halfway to the door, only to realise then- It was Sunday.

She lazed back to the bed. The guilt crawled in first, then doubt, then at last- the relief.

Scanning the room, hoping to fix things, she realised that everything was at its place, neat. Except for herself. Her phone was dead, she didn’t care. The fan was clicking slowly over her head, her cat stretched at the foot of the bed, the curtains moving to the rhythm of the morning breeze and her t-shirt, soaked in sweat.

She slept for another hour. No alarm. No one to wake her up. Her family had left for a vacation the night before. The roof had finally stopped howling and the walls, healing, for the first time in years. "This is what I always wanted", she thought, breathing in the rare silence of her home.
Pulling herself up, walking to the bathroom she suddenly paused. She hadn’t known this feeling. Like a thread running loose from her chest. It was even stranger to think and decide whether it was good or bad.

She stood by the sink, already plotting out her whole day. The toothbrush clinked against the cup. She rinsed. Spit. Washed her face. Tied her hair back in a bun that would come undone by the time she cleans her already clean room. Then she took a moment into the thought, tied her hair in a braid.
"I haven’t done this in months. I hate it brushing against my neck. I hate that I still haven’t learnt to tie the perfect braid. I am twenty-four. I am useless."

The mirror stared back at her. Eyes puffy, her waves already struggling to break out of the braid, wrinkled t-shirt. Her face, visibly different that morning. Her fingers mapping out the flaws, freckles, forced smile lines on her face. She couldn’t stop wondering if the asymmetry of her face was just the two people, she grew up to be. Almost the same, but always different. She could never understand what she wanted or who she was.

This was her. Calling her name to the mirror. It was familiar, yet strange.
This was her. The twenty-four-year-old woman standing before the mirror with a slightly asymmetrical face. The left half of it, unbothered, calm, assured of her actions, efforts at creating a better life, the eldest daughter who learnt the deficit finance of life, the teacher her students loved, the co-worker who made everyone laugh, the friend, the lover. And the right half of her face, uneven, imperfect, the side she slept on, she cried on, she dreamt on, for years. The poet, the growing woman. Clinically anxious, mildly depressed.
She tried to pose a smile; the right side faked it better.

The silence of the kitchen drew her closer, the one place at home she almost always avoided. It was never quiet, filled with early morning call outs, bittersweet disagreements for lunch and unspoken details for dinner. She was scared that all that action and thrill wasn’t something for her, she was scared of getting into any more arguments than her heart had already buried in.

She didn’t know how to cook without crying about the mess, she didn’t know the answers to their questions when she was asked about it, she didn’t know how to get past them. The kitchen was never a place for her to hide or find herself, all those years.

She kept getting lost between the action and the long long sentences that fogged her head. Whether to cook or starve until noon as usual. Whether to sit and write or cry over the overwhelming silence. Between indecision and action, she chose to warm up some milk and have cereals. She liked tea, loved coffee. But the first made her dizzy and the latter left her numb. Sitting alone on the kitchen floor, she found a little peace of mind in a bowl of warm milk and classic, plain corn flakes.

She opened the cabinet out of curiosity, there were all sorts of jars, spices and what not. In the well organised rows of pretty jars, she couldn’t notice anything but the glass jar with a bright yellow plastic sticker wrapped around it. The lemon sherbet. The shade, the flavour of her almost quiet childhood. She felt a cool breeze rush around her.
The soft clinks might have woken up her little cat, he followed the hint and padded into the kitchen, brushing against her leg, demanding to be fed with a kind blink. The two returned to the bedroom. The cat followed her like clockwork, tail high in excitement. His little bowl was refilled with kibble and his fur with her warm touch.

She plugged in the phone to the charger and sat with her cat as he enjoyed his breakfast. Watching the clouds sail across her window, she zoned out. The cat demanded more food, signalled as he bit her foot. She jumped in surprise and pushed him away. The moment she regained it; she broke down into tears.

"Sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m so sorry. My baby. I’m really sorry. I am."

She didn’t understand what made her cry like that- if it was the bite, the silence or the clouds sailing off freely, leaving her behind. She found the cat looking at her with his kind eyes, then licking her foot as if in apology. He then jumped on the window grills and joined her little hobby of watching the clouds sail.

She wondered what she would look like to them, if there actually was someone in the sky as she used to imagine as a kid. Maybe

"Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa with an orange cat, wrinkled t-shirt and dry lips almost breaking into an awkward smile."

Just then, her phone lit up. Charged enough to come back to life-

11:08 a.m
4 missed calls.
2 messages.

One from her mother. One from him.
The spell broke. The silence cracked.

She opened his message first. "Wouldn’t take much courage," she thought.
Him
| Good morning, Babe. I miss you. You didn’t call last night. Are you okay? It’s okay if you need some time alone. I’m always here with you, okay? I love you. |

She smiled. This love is kind. Replied with an assuring message and a red heart. Then went on to open the next message. Almost scared, overwhelmed.

Mom
| I’ve cooked some rice for you. Eat. |

Her smile changed, didn’t vanish though. Instead, it softened, bent into something kind, something almost forgiving.

She stared at the words for a while. They weren’t warm. They weren’t as poetic as her. But they were true. Cooked. Left behind in an old pot, warm, just for her.

"Maybe this is love too, she thought, just written in a language I had to learn backwards."

Her mother loved her too but maybe she thought, "maybe our parents weren’t taught the words we use, they show their love in little, almost invisible acts. So, no matter how bad my parents are with words, they need to be forgiven for that because they weren’t taught this language of soft words, I taught myself."

And for the first time in weeks, she didn’t feel unloved. For her, love travelled distance and years in just a day from two very different directions.

She felt a sudden calm in her chest, without much thought she pulled out her laptop and thought she’d finally write something. She’d been busy trying to find a new job, move away from home, change her life, and wear herself out with all sorts of possibilities, good and bad and worse.

"What am I gonna write about? What’s left? I feel so hollow. Maybe there are no poems left in me, no words. Or maybe there’s so much piled up that it’s scared to find a way out now. Blind. Lost."

Aria.

That’s all she wrote, and paused.

For the first time in years, her name didn’t sound like a question, a contradiction, or a complaint. It sounded plain, yet whole. Uncomplicated.

She could hear voices inside her head, Aria, spoken by different people, in different moods. Her family, her friends, her colleagues. Some warm, some careless, some sharp like chipped glass. Each tone carried its own weight. Expectations and disappointments, too.

Too many voices. Too many versions of her. All strange, almost.

She folded into herself and cried again. Not out of pain this time, but from the quiet heartbreak of finally realising that all this time she could only hear herself through others, until then.

The bell rang.
It was soft, almost polite, as if it didn’t want to interrupt the quiet, she had built around herself. The cat, just awake, stretched like a ribbon and followed her to the door, curious and elegant.

She opened it to find a parcel in the hands of a delivery boy who looked as tired as the day.

“Aria?” The man asked.

"Yes." Finally, the first exchange of the day.

“Beautiful name. Same as my daughter.” He added with a smile.

She thanked him in a voice that still carried sleep, closed the door, and sat on the hallway floor, legs crossed, the package resting in her lap like a beautiful secret.

She tore the packaging, curious yet careful like a little girl opening her present.

A book.

But not the one she had ordered.
She checked the receipt, the sticker, the barcode—as if hoping life had made a typo.
She had ordered While They were Gone by Elizabeth Black.

But in her hands lay Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman.
Her first instinct was to groan. To frown. Maybe write a strongly worded email to the seller.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she looked at the cover, the bright lively yellow she had been missing in her life. That book had been on her list for months. A pause on paper. A breath in book form.

Something in her softened. Maybe this was meant for her.

She carried it to her room, cat trailing behind like a question mark. Sitting by the window, legs tucked under her, she opened the first page.

“For anyone who’s ever felt invisible, insignificant, or broken. May you find solace in these words”
-Dedication, Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine

She read it once. Then again. Then closed the book. Maybe this was exactly what she needed to read.

Her phone rang.

“Hello,” she answered, already smiling.
“Did you just wake up?” her mother asked without greeting.
“It’s almost noon,” Aria replied, leaning into the familiar rhythm.
“I’m sure you haven’t eaten”
“I have”
“You are lying. Go eat something before your body starts filing complaints.”

They argued like they always did, but lined with concern. Aria didn’t let it stretch into something bigger, though. Not today.
In the kitchen, she opened the pot. Fried rice, cooked by her mother before she left. Her favourite cheat meal for a lazy day. She smiled. She sat down, no phone, no show, just a plate of food and silence. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten alone.
It was heavier than she thought, the silence an empty home carried.

She was relieved but it almost felt like a burden.

After lunch, she tried reading again. I should start reading this book today, She thought. But her mind drifted after five pages. The words felt distant, her thoughts louder. Also, she knew if she started reading it that moment she wouldn’t stop until she finished reading and that wasn’t what she wanted from a good book.

"A good book should be long enough to be read in a day and to be stretched for a week."

She sat there for a while, staring at her little book shelf. She had read almost all of them but in that moment, she remembered nothing but the names of the characters that stayed, and Eleanor Oliphant was to be one of them.

"Sometimes, it isn’t the story that stays with you—it’s the character. Not what happened, but who felt it. Today might not be remarkable. But it is mine. Entirely mine. And that is enough."

She let the thought settle like sunlight on her skin, gentle and fleeting. I should write that down; she reminded herself before it slipped away like so many others. She smiled at Eleanor, read a few more quiet pages, then slid the book back onto the shelf. Until tomorrow, she whispered.

Then she turned to her comfort show, her go-to sitcom, Modern Family. She curled into the couch, pulled the blanket over her like it could hold her the way no one else could. It mostly did, on colder nights and sometimes summer nights too. She watched their messy, chaotic, beautiful love play out. And it made her feel a little less lonely.

She dozed off like that—held, not by arms, but by the weight of familiarity.

Evening came in slow.

She woke up with a softness in her bones. Fed the cat. Watched him eat like he hadn’t been munching just an hour ago.
Then, she stood in the kitchen. She didn’t know where half the things were placed. This was her mother’s empire and she felt like Gulliver scanning through the cabinet full of jars. She realised that her mother never forced her into the kitchen, she guided her, yes. Never forced. Just then she recalled how she once had said-
“I didn’t want another version of myself forced into you. But the one I wish I could have been.”

She wanted to try something her mother would like, something that felt warm and home like. Daal. Chapati.

She hesitated. Thought of everything that could go wrong. Too much salt, not enough water. Chapatis like maps of undiscovered countries.

But she did it anyway. Slowly. Carefully. She didn’t burn anything. Nothing exploded. The world wasn’t upside down as her mother would have speculated. She clicked a photo, sent it to her group of friends, her boyfriend, and her family group.

The responses came in like warm air.
Her friends cheered.
Her boyfriend said, “Proud of you.”
Her father sent a thumbs up.
Her mother, a smiling emoticon.

She smiled at the screen. The food tasted better despite the little flaws.

After dinner, she stepped outside with the cat. The sky was velvet. The street lamps poured quiet gold onto the pavement. She looked up at the moon like it was listening. It always did.

She walked slowly.
Watched shadows.
Breathed.

When she came back, she rushed to her room, sat in her bed with her little companion. Opened her laptop.

Paused. Then began to type. Not for work. Not for anyone. Just for herself.
Just to see what words might come out when the world wasn’t watching.

She started typing-
“Draft One: Deleted
Typing…

Sunday, April 6th 2025
9:56 a.m.…………”

Then, she slept in. Unusually right. Into a gentler night.