Reckless
It's a (somewhat snarky, a tad overdramatic) reflection on the emotional cost of safety as a woman. By the Exasperated Idealist.
About the Author: Dreamer. Writer. Idealist. A pseudonym, because, well why not. That which we call a rose by any other name and so forth. Exasperated, as anyone looking at the state of the world should be.
Is there anything as macabre as a woman’s mind?
I’m interviewing the maid. Well. If you can generously stretch the term ‘interview’ to, in a broad sense, mean a never ending stream of unsolicited information that she supplies while I attempt to interject a question here and there.
They’re not wrong when they say our generation would rather shoot ourselves in the foot than have to hold a conversation.
She’s animatedly narrating a long, rather generously embellished history of households she’s reigned over, with all the pride of an ancient matriarch. I have a distinct feeling that I am, in fact, being duped, that I ought do some more research on what the going rates are in this society, that it is risky to take this verbose stranger at her word.
Then again, this is hardly the first risk I’m taking.
She’s exchanging an anecdote now. Ostensibly with the wall, because I stopped listening a while ago. I’m suddenly so tired, I just want to be done with this afternoon.
No, that’s a lie.
There’s nothing sudden about this. I’ve been tired for years now.
I could stop her in her tracks, tell her the job is hers, it was hers from the minute she walked in, and for one simple reason - she looks like she’d make a dignified, clutch your pearls sort of a screamer.
Because here’s the thing - my very lucid, very logical rationale is that it’s always the maid, right? It’s always the maid who finds the body.
And I can see her being the sort to be quite sensible about it all, frankly, given the situation. You don’t want the fainting sort. You want someone who takes charge, who will take the initiative to call the watchman to come deal with it.
Oh, Suvarna, how horrible! Why would your mind even go there?
Well. It’s hardly fatalism if it’s backed by statistics.
To the neighbourhood aunties I say - not everyone can cloister themselves within four walls and a man, and wrap their whole lives worrying about the two. I refuse to be that person who ties their worth to how well-starched my sheets are.
There is a premium to my independence. In defying the servitude of a six-person dining table, and homework and soccer practice, and the beautiful, broken institute that is marriage as a woman, I’m now a permanent slave to fear instead.
Some days I can’t decide which is worse. Keys clutched between knuckles, triple locks on doors, one ear plug always hanging to the side, patterns in footsteps - is someone following me? - always share your location, call someone each time you sit in a cab, Suvarna, why can’t you stay late to finish this project?
I chose this. But the lesser of two evils is never really a choice - it’s a trap.
And it’s only going to take one day, really. One day when the hyper-vigilance slips, when the tiredness in my bones is louder than the fear. It’s one day. It’s just the one day.
Better women than me have been consigned to nothing more than a stray decimal point on an appalling data sheet.
I’m interviewing the maid. She says she knows exactly how to season anything living taste good, whether animal or vegetable.
I reckon she can make death sound palatable too.