Vacation

Vivacious birds in vivid colours stole her eyes, on a joyous day, before the pre-mature night. Rachita was on vacation, a vacation to the land of her dreams. Canopies crowned the jewel of earth, brook babbled creasing the heart of heaven, laced cobras miles of offshoots, peacocks twerked to the rhythm of heat. It was Aravali, the line of peaks, near Delhi in 2006.

She was sitting next to a rugged rock, streams of water passed. Her heart rhymed to the mellow tunes of nature. The sky started darkening, hundreds of screeches filled the air. All of a sudden, rhymes and rhythms dishevelled. She gazed at the darkening sky, thousands of eagles started joining each other, forming an umbrella over the forest. Scavengers arrived in the land of life. Puzzled. Scared. Her heart pounded harder than the heaviest. Smell of rotten flesh replaced fragrances of wild flowers. Green trees started melting in a self putrefying process. Rotten leaves, branches, flesh of birds started falling over her. She started running randomly towards any space that seemed free. But, the hell had already covered the celestial sky. In mid of noon, it was as dark as mid-night. Eagles attacked her with their sharp, pointy beaks. Blood oozed from her pierced skin. She had no way apart from jumping into the brook and she jumped. Her skin started peeling like the cover of a boiled potato. She was flowing with the stream of water. Along with her, trails of blood followed her cascading path. Meanwhile, the eagles kept on attacking. She was getting nearer to a massive fall, a fall of folklores that comes into existence for a single day after every hundred and eight years; on the day when night has its new moon. The legends of land dictate that the Goddess Cha of jungle changes her skin after an interval of hundred and eight years. The time when she leaves her old skin for the new one brings catastrophe to the whole jungle. Trees, birds, animals die within a fraction of second; decay; dissolve; while the river changes its course and a fearsome fall of Cha appears.

Involuntarily, unconscious, like a lump of dead mass Rachita fell into the fall of Cha. Silence roamed. Complete dissolution. Not a single life left, eagles disappeared, sky cleared. A serene river appeared in tranquil. A massive fountain of water, rattling like the tongue of a venomous snake with unsurpassable power of creation thundered the sky while rising from earth. Droplets of water like millions of gleaming diamonds fell over the impalpable remains of past. Seedlings sprouted from seeds, birds hatched from eggs, new lives appeared. Lions roared, crickets chirped. It was life ones again. But….but, what happened to Rachita is not known. She could have died, she could have lived, though it is certain that she disappeared. A few miles away, in a village, smeared in blood, separated from the umbilical cord, a baby cried.

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Note: Written for the prompt “vacation” of IBQ