Isabel wanted to take some rest. She was tied up all those years. She forgot to look after
herself. The love of work has evaded her plunge into relaxation. Her daughters were the
archaic thing she was thinking about. She had always told herself that it was high time to
refresh her frustrated mind, rejuvenate her suffocated body, and revive her troubled soul. All
she yearned for was a moment of relief aloof from hectic arrangements. On that rainy day, she
switched on the television, watched her favorite soap operas. Then, she rushed to the dark
kitchen to get some crunchy cookies. When she opened the fridge, the captivating smell of
grilled chicken made her taste wine in her spinning hair. Hungry, she was, and lonely as the
children were at the nightclub. Bringing grapes and bananas made her feel good. It was an act
of internal cleanliness. She sat by the window, in pink pullover and jeans, barefoot, dreamily
staring at the passers-by. She marveled at the speed with which they were heading to their
apartments in the Chinese neighborhood. She thanked God for being alone after all those
absurd days, filled with busy schedules. She waited and waited for her daughters to come
home; but they did not. Maybe they came late that dizzy night. All she remembered was a
profound sound of deafness. Sluggishly, she longed for going to bed to not replicate the same
sad stories of her agonizing past. Had she the will to get up sane, she would have slept
without the sleeping pills. She kept edging into a surreal torment. A sense of grim aberration
caught her into a spiral of delusions. With a delirious monologue, a lapse of guilt wrapped her
like a bandage placed around the ankle of a gutted football player. She had enough money, yet
she had sufficient agony, too. She just wanted to fall asleep. Like a defeated soldier, she threw
that asexual feminine body on that ancient bed. Covered with her fluffy blanket, Isabel dived
into another realm that was for the first time her own… Dreaming about the extreme version
of absurdity as she was the true victim of her skeptical deals. Scattering the sly ingredients,
stepping down the prison-like castle, crushing the homemade poison, time was not on her
side. She usually fought to the last minute, undermining the slightest combat going inside of
her psychic pursuit for order. But that crazy night, she wanted to readjust the scrambled
puzzle of her threatened life only.

Published on January 1st, 2023