Once, I had a kitten, it had a striped grey and black body with white gloves on its paws. His name was Tiger. One day, Tiger ran out of my home before it turned barely three months old. When I caught it home again, it was a month later.
It was sickly, I suspected that it ate rat poison during its voyeuristic expedition to the outside world. I knew he did not have long to live. A week later, spent its last moments curled up in its basket, and passed away…
I remember its curled up body, resting in the softness of the fabric in the basket… freed from pain at last.
. . . .
Like animals, humans too, have a tendency to curl up when we are in pain.
There is an armchair in my home that I regularly curl up in, since I was a child. When I have a toothache, or tummy ache, I would seek out the comfort of the familiar smell of the armchair, and curl up like a ball, my head popped onto the leather surface like a hospital patient. The leather smell eases my anxiety, and diffuses my pain by absorbing it into the wood structure of the chair, it felt akin to hugging a tree for comfort, the smell of eucalyptus leaves… a respite from the harshness of realities.
“Don’t you ever sell the set of Italian carved leather arm chairs” my dad instructed when I turned 18 years old. “They are part of your inheritance, to be used for many generations.” I nodded, how can I ever give up something so dear to my memories? When I was a playful child, I would put my legs on the arm of the chair itself, and rock it while watching television. “Put your legs down from the chair!” My mother screamed from across the room. “It is so unladylike.” I would stick out my tongue and continued to defy her commands, till she physically moved my two tiny legs down and closed it together, to sit like an obedient child. “Sit like a lady.” My mother says, before I sped away to the next chair and defy her wishes again, and prop my legs up on the arm of the chair like tom boy, or “ah lian” as she calls it.
. . .
When I stayed in the states for a month, there was a similar armchair in the serviced apartment I rented. I would spend hours in the safety of the huge chair, consuming books hungrily from my iPhone. I did not want to leave the armchair; the summer heat was unbearable, people had a hot and fiery temper, and when I tried to do my daily chores; I was harassed sexually by strangers. After all its Las Vegas – an inhospitable place for humans, rather, it is literally a desert that only cactus and scorpions can survive in. The armchair provided the best comfort I could reminiscence about my home, where I can feel safe, where I can read endless of story books… absorbing my mind in the world of fiction, an imaginary world where there is no pain or suffering.
By reading novels and putting myself in the shoes of the character, I am no longer part of the world of pain and suffering, but in a new world of mystery and intrigue. A world that I can imagine and create in my mind, and define the rules and order… I could choose where I want to be; I could be Alice, the White Queen or Red Queen. I can be a vampire slayer or a seductive vampress. In the armchair, I am comforted by my soul, I am in touch with my imagination… I feel no pain no more, a world of no responsibilities… a world of endless freedom, a world where the skies and earth do not meet.
The world that Tiger tried to find, but could not find – till he curled up in the basket and left for the imaginary happy world.
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AVERRAL writes under pen name Scarlet Risqué. She stars in Scarlet Queen YouTube with over a million views. She holds a degree in business. The RED HOURGLASS is ranked Top 50 Espionage Thriller on Amazon. She is currently writing the sequels to the Hourglass Series. Grab a free copy of her novel now RED HOURGLASS on Amazon |
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