Let Her Go

Disha put her eye to the keyhole; a curve adorned her lips. She knew this little girl playing inside. Those tiny eyes made her smile from ear to ear. The 5-year-old was humming a nursery song. The talking doll in her hands used to be Disha’s favorite. She pushed the door. It didn’t open. She pushed it harder. But it remained locked. The smile lingering on her lips vanished into thin air. Her heart began throbbing. She had to save her. But where was the key?

She ran around the house, helpless and frightened. Words refused to move up her throat. The letters spiraled round the tip of her tongue. Why could she not take the girl’s name? What was her name? The letters disentangled themselves and slowly fell onto their respective places. And a name formed before her eyes - Disha.

She cowered back in terror. Memories threw her 20 years back. It was the day her sense of childhood was killed viciously by a man. Every inch of her skin had burnt in the flare of his lechery. A wave of horror jolted her back to the present.

Disha staggered to the door. Her hand fell unknowingly onto its latch. And with a slight clank, the door opened. It was unlocked the whole time! Her legs froze. She was standing at the door of her brutal past. Shockingly, it didn’t torment her as much. Did she just extricate the 5-year-old from the shackles of her pain-stricken memory ?