The Fire

A long bus ride from school to home in the evening was always terrifying. The journey till the last stop and waving goodbyes to all her friends was the same old routine. These things were bearable but the bus conductor’s annoying behaviour when nobody was around terrified the 13-year-old Aadya. As the bag on her shoulder slipped slowly as the seats got empty one by one, so did her beautiful pink uniform when everyone had gone. Her mistake? Being a woman!

The bus was full, not a place to keep her bag which was filled with new textbooks. She stood, as usual, trying to hide from the conductor but he found her as always, like leach finding blood. He smiled the same old wicked smile. That day Aadya was shy and her face was red and tired. She tried to hide the pain that was turning her to a woman from a girl. Her skirt was bloody and she tied a sweater around her waist trying to hide it. As most of her friends had stopped attending the school, she was left alone in the bus filled with new faces as it was the beginning of the new year of her school.

Everyone had left, it was just her, the conductor and the driver. She grew anxious, she knew nothing about what was happening to her, she sat quietly like a goddess! The time had come, she knew what would happen. Both the driver and conductor took turns to abuse and rape her despite seeing her blood-stained clothes. The pain was unbearable yet everything seemed so quiet for she knew the fate of them. She saw them with burning eyes for few seconds after they were done and got down the bus like thunder and lighting. As she got down, she cut the diesel pipe of the bus and lighted it. Boom! The fire spread and burnt both of them alive, while she saw them slowly burning just like the way she wanted them to burn. They had chosen a quiet place filled with dense trees to perform their act now. That very place helped Aadya to avenge her dignity, respect and femininity back!

She was glad that she wasn’t a quiet smiling goddess but a goddess with immense power to destroy evil. She untied her messy hair, smiled the smile of contentment. As she went home and realized that she was actually turning to a woman. Puberty, adolescence she understood that her body was going through some major changes. She quickly bathed the blood off from her body and soul. She sat down in the dark silently like the ghost hiding. The silence was occasionally filled with the screams of the men as they were burning alive. She smiled as she heard them and sacrificed all her sufferings to the very fire that burnt them alive. And sighed becoming the woman that goddess herself chose Aadya to be!