You can be the Witch!!

His hands were trembling the first time he took her into his arms, she felt weightless, cottony pinkish- reddish soft toy with real eyes, and a real nose, and lips with a shade of cherry red. Wrapped in a yellow blanket, trying to stretch her arms and lips. Her toothless jaws exposing the little pink tongue below and suddenly his eyes were full of tears.
“She is a part of me!” he thought and looked at his wife lying on the adjacent bed, and she was smiling back to him as if nodding “yes she is”.
“Thank you” he lipped the words and sat next to her. She too had her eyes moist, droplets about to flow down and he kissed her forehead. Like always, he put all her scattered hair behind her ears and just wiped that flowing drop. “This is the best gift ever; I could have never asked for anything more” he said. It was a very silent moment with them looking at each other, with a tiny life hidden inside the big blanket lying in his arms.

Suddenly, everything was now different, life was getting customized as per the new member. From leaves to holidays to parties. And he was just amused watching it all. Never less life was same for him in many ways yet different. Watching her grow was the most beautiful thing, he sometimes wondered if he was similar when he was growing up, if he tried eating almost anything and everything he saw while crawling, if he too kept on looking at his parents when they kissed each other and just momentarily ignored his presence, if he too smiled the way she did and snatch all the tiredness in a flick of a moment.

He got a poster made which said “The Day I held you in my arms I realized, that’s the biggest thing you did for me. You made me a dad and now you don’t have to do anything special or extraordinary. Daddy loves you” with the first click of the dad and daughter as the background image. She loved the poster immediately but disliked him for putting her away from it, but as he was putting it, in her would be room, she envisaged how mean this duo is going to be to her in the near future.

Life kept moving with its pace but it felt like it was suddenly fast. It was just a month back that they were celebrating her fifth birthday. Some balloons and buntings were still hanging in her room. It was ten in the night and she had still not slept, and what stopped her from punishing (of course mildly), was the dad as the partner in crime. More than being weird, it made her furious. She entered the room calling her name, loud, just to see them play something she had lost the patience to decipher. She wanted to interrupt the play but looking her dressed in a white frock, her birthday dress apparently, and finding it soiled with multicolor spots she turned more furious and he could see that on her face.

“Did you tell your mom what we are playing today?” he smiled at her, with an expression which said “take it easy”, but she wasn’t able to take it easy that moment.
“Mamma, we are playing snow white and the seven dwarfs, today…” she kept on narrating so many things around her game, but she did not hear a word, all she felt that moment was that her lips were like the lips of one of her favorite Disney character “Nemo”, yes tiny and curvy like a fish, the shine from her eyes was transferring to her own and the glitters of happiness was shimmering around. There was this sudden peace around the room and her soul was in sync with the little kid’s imagination. And he could see that calmness spreading on her face, in the air she was exhaling and in the sudden softness of her sight. He had always loved her transitions, those expressions still were powerful enough to make his heart skip a beat, and then something happened to her, the expressions changed!

“Isn’t it late snow white, we need to go to bed, you can ask your dwarfs, you need to sleep now” she said looking at him, asking him to ask her to now stop the game and sleep, but the look wasn’t furious, she had a soft pleading in her eyes, and he replied with a kinky smile and she tried to get furious but this time she couldn’t.

He lifted the little girl in his arms and took her to bed, she changed her dress and then they both slept on either side and switched off the lights in her room to make her sleep, and just when she was sure she had slept, she quietly got up to switch on the dim light to wrap up all her toys. The room was actually a mess, he got up too to help her wrap it all up (he had to it was after all he who had done it with her) and just when everything was done, she stood at the edge of the bed watching her sleep. And he came and hugged her from behind, one hand on her stomach and one hugged her neck, smelling the fragrance in her hair. And she held his arm, leaning on his chest, together they were watching her over.

“Do we really have her for real?” she said.
“Yes, we do” he said,
“But this wouldn’t have been possible without you” she replied
“Yes indeed” he nibbled her neck “do you want another one?”
“Very funny” she shyly smiled, trying to get away, in vain though, he was holding tight.
“You shouldn’t encourage her so much to be in this dream world, it so cruel out there, we should gradually prepare her, else one day it would hurt her to find out the reality in a bitter way” she said
“She is just a kid of five, let her enjoy her childhood, we would do it when the time is right, do you remember how you were till she was born? Let her have her time. You watching her over is natural, but don’t you think you need to watch over the one who gave her to you?” he said.
“True, she is five and that story she was telling me about, was kind of fascinating” she said, ignoring the latter part of his request.
“And you want to be a part of our game?” he asked, knowing she would say a yes.
“Yes!” she smiled and so did he, with a difference of his being mischievous.
“But there is no role for you, she is snow white and I play the dwarfs” he teased her. And she was suddenly sad, wishing to say I too want to play and just then he said “if you really want to play, you can be the witch!” and just drifted away to save himself from her but in otiose, after a little running behind each other she was in his arms, gasping for breath and laughing out loud, just to realize they need to slow down else the sleeping beauty would wake up.

Manowara Chowdhury