Word Count: 1396 | Reading Time: 5 min
Her skin was crawling with insects. It felt like hers but wasn’t. The dryness made her itch all over, she wanted to scratch her flesh away but her nails had become too fragile.
She ran her fingers on her hands, arms and legs. Visibly there was nothing wrong with them, but they surely felt strange.
She walked to her room to tell her husband, he assured her that her skin had always been like this. That she was just homesick.
Could be that his hands were more callous than hers? May be her skin was not as strange under his touch.
She dabbed more oil on her hands and neck, hoping it would cause the itching to subside. It did, momentarily. Only for it to return with vengeance. She went about her day squirming in pain and discomfort.
One day later, her skin began changing colour as well—an even darker shade of brown. She went to her husband again, hoping that this time he might be able to see the change. But he was adamant: her skin had always been brown. Perhaps it was just the sun exposure in the village. She simply wasn’t used to it.
The day after, she woke stiff and aching. She even had trouble getting out of bed and found flakes of skin on her bed and pillow. At lunch, she held her arms out to her husband to show him the spots where her skin was flaking off. He told her it was coming off because the skin was probably dead. Gently patting her face, he told her that his mother had gone through it, too, at some point. He also took her on a walk in an attempt to help ease her stiff joints and aching body. It didn’t work.
The day that followed was extremely difficult. She had a lot of trouble moving, working around the house. Her fingers refused to close. When she tried to wash her back in the shower, she felt countless bumps and nods, pointy and hard. She was so overcome with misery, she couldn’t even muster the strength to talk to her husband.
The days that followed became progressively easier. She lost the ability to keep food down. Throwing up was a struggle with a stomach too stiff to churn so, she stopped eating altogether. Initially the hunger bothered her but slowly that, too, subsided. It was also a relief that she now had to cook for her husband only and not for herself. Now it was less time consuming. Her hands thinned and darkened even more, bones protruding under the shroud of flaking skin, veins stark against her minimal flesh, blue-green in most places, colorless in some. Her nails had fallen off long ago, slowly but painlessly, as if they had never belonged to her . Her hair, too, had begun falling and she now had green growth sprouting from the bald patches.
Somehow, her transitioning body felt more familiar. She draped herself in vibrant sarees with stone embellishments to make the green growth less obvious. If she covered her face well, it looked like there was nothing wrong with her. Perhaps, there was nothing wrong with her. It could all just be in her head. She could be going crazy. Maybe every woman loses her mind at some point.
One day, she woke up with twigs in places where her fingers used to be. Though she didn’t panic, pouring water was impossible with twigs for fingers. They got in the way. Seeing her struggle, her husband offered to trim them with a tiny saw; he was precise. He measured and marked before he cut and even waited, watching her pour water, over and over, with freshly trimmed twigs-for-fingers. He also took the time to measure and trim again until she was able to successfully pour water for him from the pitcher.
Things became much easier after the trimming. Her skin, now fully resembling the bark of a tree, was the deepest shade of brown she had ever seen. The nods began unfurling with young little leaves. Eventually, she had to stop leaving the house because the discomfort of draping herself in absurdly elaborate sarees consumed her.
Her husband didn’t seem to notice but she had this insatiable thirst for water and loose earth. She wasn’t as bothered by her appearance anymore as she initially had been. It now felt like her truer self. As if she had always been like this. As if she had always had twigs for fingers and bald spots.
However, she feared it was difficult for her husband to sleep in the same bed. She felt she was too loud, with so many leaves and branches rustling around every time she turned. But her husband was adamant that she was just as she had always been. She didn’t quite remember what she had always been but she believed him.
Moving around the house wasn’t painful or uncomfortable anymore but it surely was time consuming. She started waking up early to catch up with the day’s chores. It worked for a while, giving her more time to navigate from her room to the kitchen at a leisurely pace. It also kept her from becoming too stiff by laying down for too long.
Some parts of her were still soft, still malleable. She could use her arms to pick pots and pans. Could slightly bend her knees, which allowed her to move around. But her thirst for water and loose earth was becoming more intense with each passing day. It was as if the earth was calling her It wanted to hug her, take her into its womb.
With time, getting out of the house became impossible. Her leaves and branches got too big to fit through the door. She started to hide behind curtains, watching her neighbours go by. It made her feel good.
One day, when she could no longer hold the urge to be held by something familiar, she hesitantly asked her husband to dig her a soft spot in the courtyard. He asked how big she wanted the circumference to be. She suggested standing in the middle and for him to keep digging until the edges had reached beyond her branches and leaves. He did as she asked.
The soft spot became her favourite place to be. She began sleeping in it. Felt a sinister connection to it. It slowly became harder for her to move out.
Then one day, her husband came home and she could no longer move. She half expected him to come closer so she could tell him—her voice was barely a whisper now—that she may have taken root and that he would have to manage on his own from now. But he didn’t come to her. Simply ate his food and went to bed.
She saw that night turn into day. She did not expect him to panic but she had hoped that he would come to her, ask her for food or, at least, tell her what to cook and how to cook it. But he was probably too preoccupied.
That day, he left without breakfast. She wanted to go to the kitchen but the earth wouldn’t budge. It had taken her in. The relief was unmatched.
That evening, her husband came home with food he had bought from the market. He sat at the table across from her in the courtyard and ate it alone. He then washed the dishes, put them away and went to bed.
She was introduced to a different kind of loneliness that day. Her leaves felt heavy and uncomfortable. She felt the weight of time wearing her down. She wished for her voice so she could scream.
A few days later, her husband came home with a new woman. The new woman became responsible for his food and chores.
The new woman cooked food in her kitchen.
The new woman slept in her bed and donned her sarees.
The new woman had no trouble pouring water from the pitcher.
The new woman also sat under her branches and read books. She finally had someone come near her, but her voice was gone now. She could no longer speak. She could only watch in horror and despair as the new woman started scratching her body, writhing in pain and discomfort.