"Blood(line)" by Priyanuj Mazumdar
- roifaineantarchive
- 21 hours ago
- 11 min read
(CW: Self-harm, suicidal feelings, blood)
I barely slept last night. Bloody humidity kept me up, among other things. My stomach rumbles, longing for last night’s dinner that fills the house with a stale stench now. An expired pack of pork shoulders and two wilted cabbages rest on the kitchen counter. Expiry Date: 03/13/2023, the label on the package reads. Humans should come with pre-determined expiry dates too. Knowing mine would be terribly helpful.
The brand-new steak knife glistens gloriously in the sunlight. Squinting, I slide the windows shut—they creak like an off-key children’s choir. I turn around, fumbling back to the kitchen, pressing my hands against the counter just in time to avoid a fall. My head is spinning. This can’t be good.
Someone knocks on the door. I rip the pack open, too swiftly, and liquid spurts on me. I look at the mirror. Specks of blood on my cheeks. I can’t take my eyes off. Two more knocks follow, firmer this time. Splashing water on my face, I open the door.
“Come on in.” I greet my sister Runa, only a year younger to me.
“What took you so long?”
“Nothing. What’s with that noise?” I say, covering my ears.
“Sorry, I forgot to take off my payal. Had dance classes this morning.”
She takes off her pair of silver anklets—my mother’s—still as shiny as when she got them. Runa had won her first dance competition when Ma surprised her with this gorgeous, expensive pair of payal. Hot, fiery jealousy burned in my throat as I uttered the words: congrats. I cried myself to sleep that night.
“I thought you’d open the door with groggy eyes. But you seem—wait, why is there blood on your face?” Runa says, furrowing her eyebrows.
“It’s from this packet of pork.”
She continues staring at me. “When was the last time you woke up this early?”
“What’s with the questions? Sorry for making an exception and taking the time to prepare lunch for you. I believe in hospitality, you know.”
“Ooh, what are you making?” she says coyly, tilting her head sideways.
“Sit, you ungrateful child.”
Runa pulls up a dark green stool and sits beside me as I resume slicing the meat.
“You’re going to feed me expired food? High standards of hospitality, I see.” Runa tosses the empty packet of pork into the bin. “When was the last time you took out the trash, dada?”
“Oh, shit! I’ll take it out today. And the meat expired yesterday. Big words coming from someone who eats panipuris every day from gloveless vendors.”
“Hey, what they lack in hygiene, they make up for it with love.”
“Whatever, can you stop acting like Ma for a second?”
“I’m not trying to—okay, sorry.” Her face changes from a sly smile to solemn stare. “I have been slammed these days. Barely getting any sleep. Feels like I keep reaching home later and later every day. Returning from work, then going over to Uncle Robin’s house, sorting out all the paperwork.”
“What paperwork?”
“Nothing. You don’t worry about that. Can I help you with anything?” she says, walking over to me.
“Can you finish cutting this? My hand is killing me.” I twist my wrist, cracking my knuckles. “Cube-sized pieces, okay?”
Runa begins chopping, the sound of the knife thudding—rhythmically against the cutting board, putting me in a trance. In the absence of human noise, it slowly penetrates my ears like an approaching marching band. My heartbeat increases and sweat clouds up my forehead.
“Do you want me to chop these cabbages too?” Runa’s question breaks my daze. I nod.
“So—why did you want to see me today, out of nowhere?” I say to Runa. Since I shifted to this crappy, old one-story with rotten roofs, fractured floors, and weary walls, I have had zero visitors. What my house lacks in habitability, it makes up for it with location. Situated twenty miles from the city, ten from the nearest market, and a mile from the last house—no one would end up here even if they were lost. Perfect for me—keeps people away. Especially the kind whose sole intention is to know what happened two months ago.
“I can’t meet my brother now?” Runa says unconvincingly. “Okay, I just wanted to check in on you. She finishes chopping the cabbage and walks to the sink. “Can you blame me? I am worried, dada. It’s not been long since—you know.”
“Worried?” I sneer. “I don’t need sympathy visits from my own sister. I have had enough of those from other people. Which is why I had to move here—in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
“I just want to help you, dada,” Runa says, almost choking.
“You really think this is helpful?”
“I don’t know, okay? I am—I am trying to figure it out myself.”
She walks up to me and wraps her arms around. I push her to break the hug, my elbow accidentally flicking the knife from the counter to the floor. As I bend down to pick it up, I grab the wrong end and cut my middle finger. A tiny speck of blood emerges. My heart races and beads of sweat appear on my forehead again. I suck the blood off my finger, breaking off the smile before getting up.
“Are you okay?”
I don’t respond.
#
“Do you think about dying?”
“No.”
“Really?”
The sky is deep scarlet. But judgment from my therapist feels more off-color. Maybe sinking our teeth into judgment comes naturally to us. The pale-yellow room with light furniture contrasts with the vibrant sky outside. Nature outshines the world we have built for ourselves, almost always.
“I mean, doesn’t everyone?” I say.
“Do you?”
“I haven’t—recently,” I say. It’s a lie. Most people I know are consumed by death, or at least with avoiding death. When you're fixated on not dying, you've already embraced some of death. I don’t say that to my therapist, of course. I may be depressed, not dumb.
“Last session, you had told me that something happened recently that was perhaps, traumatic for you? Would you like to talk about that today?”
“Do I have a choice?” I say, laughing nervously.
“We always have a choice,” my therapist says.
“Okay, well, I guess I have commitment phobia—when it comes to the whole living thing.”
“Could you expand on that?”
“Well, recently, I—I, it’s fucking crazy to even talk about this.”
“It’s okay, take your time.”
“I don’t need time. I just, I can’t bring myself to say it.”
“When you don’t say things, you give them power to weigh you down.”
“That’s not—I,” My breathing is slow, labored, slow. “I tried killing myself.” My eyes close in reflex. Heartbeat amps up. Ears are on fire.
“Have those impulses returned recently? Do I need to contact someone, maybe?”
“No!” I say, a tad stronger than I intended.
“Okay, that’s fine,” my therapist says calmly. “Did something happen recently that, perhaps, triggered these impulses, or escalated them?”
Something gnaws at my chest, pressing against it. It hurts. My head feels light, lips charred. I really don’t wanna answer that. But how do I dodge it without coming across as a serial escapist? “I guess,” I say, after a while. I draw the line at a lie a session—more than that is just wasting money.
“Do you want to talk about that?”
My therapist’s question feels like a command again. Like I don’t have a say. Maybe, we never do. Maybe, that’s the lie life sells us. Maybe all the choices we make are really commands in disguise.
#
I grab the flat, sapphire-colored bottle of gin, Queen Victoria staring at me. A birthday gift from Runa. When I turn it upside down, nothing spills. Shake, shake, shake. Nothing. I need another drink.
Someone knocks on the door. Did God send one of his angels to deliver alcohol? My pipe dream is short-lived as I find Runa standing outside, cheeks red and sweaty.
“Oh, it’s you?”
“What is wrong with you?” she says, storming inside and slamming the door shut.
“A lot of things. How much time do you have?”
“Where’s your phone?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t—oh my god, you stink. You’ve been drinking?”
“Just one—” I say and pause, “bottle.”
“What the hell?”
“It was your gift. So, thank you.”
“How dare you?”
“Jesus! You need a drink, too. I would offer it if I had any left. That reminds me, could you be a lamb and get me some gin? I’ll pay you.”
“No! I will not. Look at you!”
“Did you come here to give me shit? Because I’m in no mood for that.”
“You called me!” Runa says, visibly irritated.
“I did?”
“You weren’t saying anything on the phone. I just heard all these weird noises, mumbles in the background.”
“Oops, sorry about that!”
“I was worried. I called, like, twenty times.” She falls back on the dusty, old, gray sofa in my living room. “I might not be a warrior, but I’m a worrier. I worry about you.”
“That can’t be—” I stop midway and run to the sink in the kitchen, reaching just in time to throw up. God fucking knows what comes out of me, but gurgling clean water and washing my face, I walk back to the living room. “Sorry about that. I feel weak.”
“You can’t be doing this anymore. I can’t be running after you all the time.”
“Oh god, can you get out of your ‘mom mode’, please?
“I cannot,” Runa screams “Because our mother is dead, dada. She’s dead. So, spare me if I am trying to look out for you.”
“You know what’s one thing I don’t miss about Ma being gone? The constant badgering, the manipulation, the guilt trips. The fucking guilt trips. You are a boy, why did you run away from the football field? You are a boy, why do you want to dance? You are a boy, stop crying over a few spanks.”
“You think I am manipulating you?” Runa stares at me in disbelief. “You are so incredibly self-absorbed in your own misery that you refuse to look around you. You refuse to even acknowledge the fact that Ma’s death has disembodied our lives into two. And you want me to get out of the ‘mom mode’? How about you get out of acting like a fucking child first?”
I smirk. “Do you know what it’s been like to constantly think about killing myself? Waking up every morning and thinking—hmm, do I want to kill myself today or just get on with the rest of the day?”
“Unbelievable! Look, I know life has been difficult for you. Especially of late.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“And Ma is gone now.”
“It has nothing to do with Ma.”
“I know she wasn’t the best mother to us. Especially to you.”
“You have no idea.”
“I do. I know that you always wanted to pursue dancing, but she refused to let you because—I don’t know, she was afraid of what other people would think. She wasn’t always perfect—”
“Look at you defending her. Big shock! You did that when she was alive, you are doing it now that she’s—dead.” It’s the first time I have said that my mother is dead. It doesn’t feel real. Like I am playing a character, and my dialogue is for dramatic effect.
“I am not. She wasn’t nice to me all the time, too. But she’s the only parent I have known. I have never seen our father, dada. I know you have. My mother has died, but my father was never alive.”
Just as Runa finishes her sentence, I march to the kitchen and rest my hands on the counter. I feel delirious, my head spinning in two different directions. The steak knife is right in front of me. I pick it up. Placing it on my left forearm, I gently brush it against my skin.
“What are you doing?” Runa shouts from across the living room, darting to the kitchen.
“I caused so much pain to Ma. I am causing pain to you now. But the irony is, I don’t feel pain, Runa.” I move the knife from left to right, digging it into my skin, leaving ample time for a neat, red line to appear. “I feel nothing at all.”
Runa lunges at me, grabbing the knife. “Are you insane? You think you are the only one suffering, don’t you? Have you ever thought of me?” She screams, her voice pricking my ears. “I have been driving myself crazy fighting off relatives who all want a piece of property Ma owned. Trying to preserve the last of her legacy from greedy, bloodsucking vampires who have the audacity to call themselves family. But I’m losing it. In the middle of all this, I forgot that I lost my mother too.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me anything?”
“How could I? Before I could even process that Ma was gone, you—” Her voice quivers, but she stands tall, and despite the difference in height, I feel much smaller. “When you tried to kill yourself, I was the one who had to call the ambulance.” She catches her breath and holds back tears.
I stay rooted to the kitchen floor, unable to move or speak. Runa walks to the door. “I am done looking after you. I am done being a mother to you. I am done.” she says, turning to me one last time.
I drop to the floor, caressing the newly formed cut and blowing air on it. The itch makes me rub, rub, rub, blood streaming down my wrist. Runa’s words linger longer than the cut.
#
It’s been three days, three long days since Runa and I last talked. Day before yesterday, I woke up in agonizing pain—my head throbbing from all the drinking and my wrist stinging from all the cutting. In the evening, I sent some passive-aggressive text messages to her: “Yesterday shouldn’t have happened, but you triggered me.” When she didn’t respond, it changed to: “I’m sorry about yesterday. I feel ashamed. Forgive me?” Yesterday, my pain was unsalvageable, and I decided enough was enough. So, I called her. More times than I have ever called anyone—the entire day with gaps of half an hour in between. Still nothing. I dropped her one last text, hoping emotional blackmail might do the trick: “Please don’t stay mad at me and pick up my calls. Give me a chance to explain at least. You are the only person I can call family.”
But the moment I opened my eyes today, I couldn’t bear it. So, I’m here, standing in front of her apartment: Apartment 303. I avoid confrontations like Indian aunties avoid minding their own business. But today is different. I need to tell her that I will do better. That I have started therapy. That I will get better. I will be as much of a father to her as she’s been a mother to me.
Resting my hand on my pulsating heartbeat, I ring the bell. No response. Ring. Nothing. “Runa, it’s me,” I say, knocking on the door. Nothing. Remembering the spare key I have in my wallet, I take it out and unlock the door.
“Runa, are you there?”
Not finding her in the living room, I sit on the gigantic red sofa. She might be off to work—what day is it today? I can’t tell, honestly. This is only the second time I’m at Runa’s place, which says a lot about me as a brother. Should I order something for her? Those Toblerone chocolates? Or some mutton biryani from Karim’s? Or maybe I can grab some fresh daisies from the vendor downstairs.
Getting up to grab a glass of water first, I notice her bedroom door slightly ajar. Taking a big gulp, I knock. No response again. “I’m coming in, okay? Don’t blame me—”
I slip on something as soon as I enter Runa’s bedroom. The glass shatters to the floor too, shards of it seeping into my palm. A pungent, repulsive smell hits my nose. In front of me, a line of blood drags from my feet to the bedframe. Against the bed are two legs with matching silver payal and a steak knife near it. I get up and turn my head around before I can see anything else. The line of blood ends where I stand.
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