Emerald Colored Lake

[I realized this post might appear vague and incomprehensible. I went overboard with my incoherent blabber in this one. :)

So, just to simplify, its a letter written by a girl who has been sent to a mental asylum. The letter is addressed to her elder sister. Hopefully, this knowledge would add more meaning to the post as you read it.]

Dear Aapa,

I am happy. I have finally got wings. I am learning to fly. This morning, I flew across to the mountains through a haze of cold fog that settled between the earth and the sky to dissolve the boundaries between them. I kept flying until my wings slowly melted in the warm morning rays and I landed onto an emerald colored lake, where I fell asleep, because the water was so still.

These days I sleep a lot, and dream a lot. Ammi used to say, dreams are like bubbles. I believed that, until recently, I stretched out my hand and felt a dream.... D-R-E-A-M....and guess what, it wasn't that fragile.

I love my new home. I feel free. I no longer see the world through a window. Here, they let me step out of the door into the garden, and bathe in the sun. Remember how I was scared to laugh because then I always had to cry later on? Here, in the garden, I laugh a lot, because the others join in to laugh and cry in chorus with me, so that the balance of the universe is maintained. Balance between laughing and crying, between loving and hating, between windows and doors; there are many such balances-this is what a friend here tells me. He is wise. Sometimes, I also join in to cry when someone else feels like laughing. You know, its not really that bad to cry.

And yes, thanks for sending my favourite butterfly to me. When she lived in the painting back home, she never flapped her wings. I always wondered why. My wise friend tells me, may be she flapped her wings whenever I flapped my eyelids. So now, I have befriended the butterfly. She doesn't play that trick with me anymore. She seems happy too. Sometimes we play hide and seek. But then she cheats me and flies out of the garden. I am not allowed to go there. So, I get angry and shout at her. The nurses then give me an injection. Its a sting, like the one that occurs when I bite my palm with the corners of exactly two teeth. And then, I get wings again.

The other day, it rained while I slept. And when I woke up, the garden was full of my favourite scent. I tasted a little bit of earth. I felt very happy, very free. Then I went back to sleep. My friends here tell me its because of the medicines. But I think its like a blessing - that I don't need to identify where D-R-E-A-M ends and R-E-A-L-I-T-Y begins.