To You Who Never Left by Sambidha Bhamdari
NOTE: This story includes content that touches on the subjects of violence and sexual assault.
Year 2013
“He will be here today.” I took a deep breath and proceeded towards the common sink near the
main caged door.
It has been 4 months since I learned everything you do has a price, sometimes the price we pay is
in our favor or it is against us. The real devil had ruined my family with its dog. It has been 4
months since I have dressed up everyday waiting in the hope that my once lover will come to see
me as I become the perfection to compliment him.
“Don’t you get tired? Waking earlier than the bell, getting dressed before breakfast and then
waiting the whole day without blinking an eye,” asked the skinny lady sleeping on top of the
bunk bed.
“No.”
My cellmate was a 24 years-old, strong upright lady with a swollen stained ink finger on the
right and a tattoo on her left hand that said, “Be yourself.” When I first came in, a “senior
inmate” smashed a plate in my head because I did not bow to her.
No one touched me after I fainted but Miranda, despite being skinnier than me, dragged my body
back to the cell and laughed, “You are awake I know. That senior has been dragged to the
window room. You have successfully removed her from this station.” That birthed an unexpected
friendship between the lady who killed and the lady who was said to have killed.
“Register number 78214. Proceed to the front. You have a visitor,” announced the radio stationed
on the hallway.
Miranda ran across the dining room to the dark corridor where the newest un-detained prisoners
were located. It was a long hallway with only one light fluttering its glow, fluttering like the
hopes of most detained prisoners. It lit a second and then fluttered for an hour showing the
darkness in its finest and the light in its dimmest.
“Finally, the day has arrived. The day you always wait for.” she screamed, gasping for air.
“Finally.”
I was escorted downstairs to the visitor lounge and there he was, the perfect guy. Tall dark black
pulled back hair, fit with a tight suit waiting to explode, hands wrapped like a present and eyes
full of sadness. Sadness!?
“Why are you sad, love?” I asked as I settled down in front of him.
“Hi.”
I felt a cold sensation on my cheeks, as if it had rained just there, just a few drops of rain and
heavy emotion. “I don’t want to see you cry,” he said as he wiped the rain from my eyes to my
cheeks.
“Hey! No touching.” Screamed the horny police who had been on duty for the last 3 days.
“He hasn’t seen his girl in 3 days. Jealous bitch!” I cursed out trying to ignore everyone else but
him in front of me.
“Luna do not.” He claimed.
When I heard Luna, I could feel pain burning inside me as if thousands of needles pierced
through my heart. I remember the last time he called out my name, it was with so much love but
now all I could hear was pain and anger.
Year 2007
It was the first day of class. Taking my sweet time I looked into the small mirror in the hallway
and said to myself, “You are amazing. I love you. May this year be the last in this school and the
happiest.” After that I took the longest dark stairs to class hoping no-one was inside.
That was when I first laid my eyes on him, April 7th. The first streak of us being alone in the same
class. I could smell new copies and books, freshly painted blackboard and a strong perfume
mixed with it. The perfume smelled fresh, crisp, and warm. How can a perfume be warm? I
thought. But it was a smell that smelt close, like someone who I knew forever. Maybe I was
longing for this smell and the peace it brought to my blazing heart.
He was the only person in the class who stayed with his eyes closed and hands wrapped like a
present resting himself. The fluttering curtains in the background moved slowly letting little light
shine on his eyes as he squinted in the light and relaxed in the dark.
“I know I am exceptionally handsome, but can you please stop staring at me?” he commented.
“I prefer the sleeping quiet you over this narcissistic attitude. And I was looking outside the
window behind you for your curiosity.” I replied, trying to hide my excitement from looking at
him.
“Hi, I am Luna. Like the moon.” I said to calm myself.
He laughed, “Hi Luna, I am Sky. Like the blue thing with clouds.”
Sky always has Luna, maybe we are meant to be like the sky and moon I thought to myself. That
was the start of my fairytale.
Year 2013
“Luna. Why did you do it?” Sky asked me again.
“I didn't do it. I am ready to go to trial and look into the eyes of the judge with innocence. You
think I can really kill someone and still be stable enough to have a conversation with you?” I
cried in defense.
“Sky, I want you to find Olivia. She was the dog’s mistress. She had told me she wanted to kill
me and him for ruining her life. She was the first person to find him dead in the apartment. Her
dream of killing him and ruining him has been true.” I pleaded.
“Time’s up. You can meet your lover boy on your court date,” yelled the same horny police
hurrying his final prisoner back to the dorm.
“Sky.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
Year 2010
“I want you to meet Cerberus. The new tycoon who has joined the society. He will be leading the
new project,” announced the 75-year-old man proclaimed patriarch of the family sitting at the
head chair of the black dining table filled with delicious food.
No lady was allowed to look at the face of the men in the family regardless of the standing. After
the food was presented on the dining table everyone moved over to the room beside the kitchen.
This room has a big white sofa with a sitting arrangement stable for 10 people, a large television
and two plants together. The two-plants placed together were a succulent plant and an ivy plant. I
always interpreted the two as the greener and the less greener, the greener succulent plant was
the showing of men in the family: the ones who earn like the money, who grow the money like
plants. For another was a less green plant, dried ivy that showed the women in the family dying
with insufficient life because the succulent plant is flourished by sunlight and ivy has been left to
dry. The ladies were pushed into the living room’s pure white sofa to listen to the patriarch.
“Come inside,” growled the aggressive pet of the patriarch.
I hurried to the shadow of my mother and grandmother hoping no attention could capture me, but
I could feel a kink of darkness peeping into my soul. I could feel shivers in my spine and a gut
saying, “Danger! Threat!”
Hanging my head counting the lines in my mother's shoes hoping to calm my nerves I was
dumbfounded by a quote announced, “Cerberus is going to choose a bride amongst the girls, and
we will be a family expanding the family with power. You can go and choose.”
“Luna”
I slowly raised my head and there stood the villain of my life and the hero of the family. Standing
with a long kurtha covering the hands with another white shawl in the plainest and whitest color
ever seen, shining, and reflecting the aura of hierarchy, and fingers decorated with gold rings
stood my maternal grandfather. The lord of the house.
As shining as the devil lord was; darker the person behind him stood, the devil’s dog, Cerberus.
He was 35-year-old, with hundreds of prominent white hairs trying to cover with hair dye, teeth
colored yellow, bugs on the tip of his nose opening and a very strong stench of body odor. I
could feel his eyes trying to pierce ready to hunt me like an animal and not as a potential
marriage person. I could see three heads like the devil from Greek Mythology, his first head was
the rich man, second was the grin he held the greed of money and power, and the third was the
lust ready to eat untainted white flowers.
“Her,” he said with a grin.
“She is my own grandchild and still in college. You can choose someone else if you want,”
perused the lord.
“Hm.”
That night I could still feel a strong scared feeling in my stomach. It was a butterfly feeling but
then again it was like a warning sign telling me, “Be safer than sorry because a stitch in time
saves nine.”
But for all the cards who betrayed me, I was pushed into the wind of darkness. The first dark
night of my life.
“You are so pretty even when you sleep. I cannot wait to feel your insides.” I heard whispers.
I got up suddenly to myself half naked and this disgusting man on top of me fondling my body. I
screamed on the top of my lungs. The warmth of my lover being eaten alive by the dog forcing
on top of me. The caresses were being eaten by rough grasps, soft kisses on the forehead were
eaten by licking tongues, and my dignity was eaten by my grandfather’s back. I saw everyone on
the door, my family in the door being blocked by my grandfather. I kept on screaming and
fighting the strong hands, the strong body on top of me but I failed when I heard, “She is yours.
We will have you guys married by the end of her semester.”
I stopped fighting.
Those words by the real Devil (my own grandfather), the muffled cries of my mother, my
father’s hands on her mouth. I was stripped of everything that night.
The next morning, I was naked. I was alone in my room, the room of terror where even the walls
were wiping off the nightmare. I walked to the white cupboard in the corner of the room, the
favorite color of mine was nowhere like me, I was stained. I was no longer an untainted white
flower rather now I was tainted with red blood. I looked at my body in the tall mirror. There were
three fingerprints in my neck, buried deep into the sick staining purplish blue, my nipples were
sore, trembling even with small, wished wind, thighs covered in dried blood and a single blue
bite in my stomach. It looked like someone tried to claim the territory. I took out the green box
placed under my bed; it had the finest knives I had collected for my dream but now these knives
were the sole salvation for my sanity.
I cut the single blue bite on my stomach, screaming in terror muffling under the white towel.
Then took a wet bandage covered in antiseptic liquid, ran downstairs to the backyard, and tainted
all the white furniture, plates, and belongings in red. The red that showed the blood I shed
yesterday and the blood that pushed me to the edge, the Devil.
I ran to school after pushing the lord in a deep sleep of red paint over him. That day was the final
day when I felt Sky’s hands trying to cuddle, but the nightmare flashed in my eyes. I screamed in
terror but couldn’t tell him why I did it. The only way I could protect him was from keeping the
truth in me, from not letting him be eaten by the horrors that have eaten me.
On the day I got married to the devil’s dog, Sky stood in the crowd filled with people waiting to
congratulate me. As he approached me, my heart raised. I wanted him to catch my hand and take
me with him. Alas, this was no Bollywood movie like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge where the
hero is given the happy ending as the heroine is released by her father to elope with her lover.
This was not a movie written for cinema rather it was reality. He congratulated the devil then the
dog and he held my hand, he gave me a small letter.
Year 2013
“911”
“What is the problem?”
“The devil’s dog is dead.”
“Cerberus!? The devil’s dog. Is this some kind of a joke?”
“No, he is dead. Location: 2475 Glendower Place. The door is open.”
The cops came into the horror house. In the middle was his dead body in a pile of blood. A girl
in her red dress was sitting on the sofa murmuring, “Finally! finally!” And beside him was me,
sitting down on the floor in a white dress. Beside the body on the two sides in blood were written
two things, “Free” and “Devil’s dog is dead.” My hands were covered in blood and so were the
white cupboards. And I was arrested.
The girl in the red dress jumped and laughed, “It was her; it was her. It was her. I am Olivia. My
name means peace. I am the symbol of peace. It was her. She killed him, it was never me.”
Year 2013
Two days after the murder, a full report was released by the Police Department.
Homicide:
Injury: 47 slashes in the body
Cause of death: Loss of blood followed by a heart-attack
Time: 12:00 pm
Date: December 3rd, 2013
Suspect 1: Luna- the wife
Suspect 2: Olivia- the mistress
“Hello Luna”, said Miranda.
“Hello Ms. Lawyer.” I replied.
“You knew I was a lawyer?”, she asked.
“I knew the day you took me to the dorm. You forgot to hide your hands, the third finger on your
right side has a swollen and deep pen ink mark. Maintain your posture and talk diplomatically
whenever the warden arrives for inspections.”
Miranda kept on nodding. She took out a briefcase and called in a bald guy. They took the wires
from the briefcase, attached it to an EKG machine and calculated my heart rate or more to catch
the lie in act. A polygraph test. I took a brief look around the room. There was a mirror on my
right side, a mic on the table and the bald guy across from me.
“And a hard-working paralegal aspiring to be a lawyer usually has these marks," I added.
“Olivia was caught last night. A witness called in for the proof. She was found with all the funds
of Cerberus and a knife that matched the details of the slashes.” Miranda quoted.
“Hm. I liked Olivia; my mother-in-law hired her the year I got married. She was found sleeping
with the devil’s dog long before my marriage with him. Everyone hinted about their relationship.
She was promised marriage and love but all she got was to be a homemaker without the legality.
It is a pity.”
“Guess what I found; the knives were a gift to Olivia from you. Is it a coincidence?” she added.
“She cooked the best meals, so I got her a set of knives from Aritsugu. I knew she hated me, so
those knives were to cut the hostile feeling. Everyone did hear her scream,” I replied.
“The same ones that you have?” she added while making eye contact with the bald guy.
“Yes. They were the best to use from personal experience, so I got her the same one.”
“Did your husband complain of the weakness in his legs and hands to you?
“He did but it was diagnosed by a doctor in New York as the aftermath of the accident a few
months ago,” I replied.
“Did you cause the accident?” I flinched as soon as she said this.
Her eyes rose in excitement but in a calmer tone and a tear running down my cheek I replied, “I
lost my child in that accident. Even if I hated the devil’s dog. He killed her too.”
The bald guy rose from his chair and the mirror in the room shifted. “She is innocent.” He
claimed as the judge behind the mirror came to view.
“Release her.” The Santa-Claus looking judge commanded with a smile at me.
I am standing in the middle of the courtroom as the verdict is announced, “The defendant Olivia
Cerberus has been found guilty of manslaughter and will be serving 15 years behind bars with
the possibility of parole. She has been charged because this was not a calculated murder but a
defense against the crime towards her. The victim Cerberus consistently raped the defendant,
embezzled her inheritance money, and failed to acknowledge the contract of fidelity with her that
states he would marry her. We also understand another victim Luna, who was framed by the
defendant. Luna will be awarded $2 million from the State of California.”
I took a deep breath and made my way towards my car when the sky above me smiled. I could
see both the Moon and Sky together. In the end, I was not just the moon but also the ivy that was
dried in the dark window panel, yet no one knew the poison the ivy held.
Under the free sky, I picked up all the courage in me and opened the unopened letter from Sky
while looking outside to the ocean. It said, “I forgive you. I’ll love you, always.”
I took a deep breath and threw a dark sealed bottle into the ocean, this was the answer Miranda
was hounding for, the real reason behind the accident in New York and the real reason for weak
muscles to help Olivia.
“Thallium. The silent killer.”