the Helper's Hand.
Her neck cramped! For the first time in years; her neck cramped. It seemed as if the knot that had been in her heart had suddenly shifted to her neck; tying, untying… like a serpent constricting and relaxing its body around its prey. Her head bent, like it always had been, her feet walking to the same intention as per habit, her robes swishing lightly at her ankles, her arms bent, folded like locks… her heart in a lock.
It is a humbling experience to need help, to ask for some, especially when you have been on your own for the longest time you can remember. It is a let down, or at least feels like one, by your own body, your very own structure of being.
There was no padding on her feet for the eerily cold floor of stone and rock beneath her. How could this ever compare to the marbles she was always dreaming about? But really, that had ultimately made no particular sense. The world around her was shrinking was maybe that’s just the way she liked. The gentle tapping of the rain drizzling on the solid concrete roof hummed a hymn only few were able to tolerate day in, day out. She was one of them… by choice.
She kept walking, rosary beads dropping rather subconsciously on top of the other, passing through her fingers numbed with the cold and completing a prayer. Nobody protested the way God was being remembered here, nobody thought more or less than required, nobody changed the routine and nobody looked at each other while talking. Such a strange little world it was, that for an outsider, it would look senile; as if people outside this abbey had forgotten that there was another world too, a world that existed even when they had shut it out and pushed it in the darkest corner of their brain. The world existed even then.
Strangely, her feet hurt today. Must have been cold sores. But really, she was so far gone in the abyss of selflessness that it seemed rather inappropriate to even look at the cause of such minor discomfort. Step ahead, walk on, off the stone floor, onto the white sheets; crossing the alley, crossing the chambers. Was that flogging she heard? Quickly shutting her ears to someone’s self disciplinary techniques. After all, hasn’t she gotten her own demons from the past?
When she reached her small chamber; one that had no windows and no light and smelt slightly of water logging, she calmly pushed the beads out of her hand and put them on the side of a wooden table; the only piece of furniture she had. She sat on the hard bed, no mattresses were allowed since they provided comfort to the body (and really, we weren’t created to be comfortable!) and bent towards the floor. Still keeping a tight rein on her curiosity, she religiously avoided looking at her feet and tore a long strip from her hem. The hem of the white robe she always wore, the robe that always swished at her feet, giving her the feeling of air bowing at her ankles, the ankles that supported her feet, the feet that had cold sores and the sores, she was determined to avoid.
Later that night, when she didn’t show up at the dinner table (even after the bell had rung Atleast 5 times), someone was sent to her chamber.
Her head was tilted up, eyes gazing at some invisible speck on the ceiling, arms hung loose, almost as if in the surrender of some pinnacle. Truly the strangest thing in all this, were her eyes. They weren’t dead. They held the gaze, still looking, focused, they hadn’t been overcome with that sheen of death yet. One girl, who didn’t really know the ‘rules’ yet or the ‘disciplinary’ punishment for that matter, said something under her breath. Then almost as an afterthought, she remarked to nobody in particular, “she’s looking for Him. Him; the God. She is looking for the God!”
It is a humbling experience to need help, to ask for some, especially when you have been on your own for the longest time you can remember. It is a let down, or at least feels like one, by your own body, your very own structure of being.
There was no padding on her feet for the eerily cold floor of stone and rock beneath her. How could this ever compare to the marbles she was always dreaming about? But really, that had ultimately made no particular sense. The world around her was shrinking was maybe that’s just the way she liked. The gentle tapping of the rain drizzling on the solid concrete roof hummed a hymn only few were able to tolerate day in, day out. She was one of them… by choice.
She kept walking, rosary beads dropping rather subconsciously on top of the other, passing through her fingers numbed with the cold and completing a prayer. Nobody protested the way God was being remembered here, nobody thought more or less than required, nobody changed the routine and nobody looked at each other while talking. Such a strange little world it was, that for an outsider, it would look senile; as if people outside this abbey had forgotten that there was another world too, a world that existed even when they had shut it out and pushed it in the darkest corner of their brain. The world existed even then.
Strangely, her feet hurt today. Must have been cold sores. But really, she was so far gone in the abyss of selflessness that it seemed rather inappropriate to even look at the cause of such minor discomfort. Step ahead, walk on, off the stone floor, onto the white sheets; crossing the alley, crossing the chambers. Was that flogging she heard? Quickly shutting her ears to someone’s self disciplinary techniques. After all, hasn’t she gotten her own demons from the past?
When she reached her small chamber; one that had no windows and no light and smelt slightly of water logging, she calmly pushed the beads out of her hand and put them on the side of a wooden table; the only piece of furniture she had. She sat on the hard bed, no mattresses were allowed since they provided comfort to the body (and really, we weren’t created to be comfortable!) and bent towards the floor. Still keeping a tight rein on her curiosity, she religiously avoided looking at her feet and tore a long strip from her hem. The hem of the white robe she always wore, the robe that always swished at her feet, giving her the feeling of air bowing at her ankles, the ankles that supported her feet, the feet that had cold sores and the sores, she was determined to avoid.
Later that night, when she didn’t show up at the dinner table (even after the bell had rung Atleast 5 times), someone was sent to her chamber.
Her head was tilted up, eyes gazing at some invisible speck on the ceiling, arms hung loose, almost as if in the surrender of some pinnacle. Truly the strangest thing in all this, were her eyes. They weren’t dead. They held the gaze, still looking, focused, they hadn’t been overcome with that sheen of death yet. One girl, who didn’t really know the ‘rules’ yet or the ‘disciplinary’ punishment for that matter, said something under her breath. Then almost as an afterthought, she remarked to nobody in particular, “she’s looking for Him. Him; the God. She is looking for the God!”
