She starts to tread
softly down the wide stairs leading to many interwoven narrow pathways. Ahead
of her lies hundreds of intertwining, never ending serpentine pebbled conduits
appearing and disappearing into one another around the bend to meet the next
one. Like a huge jigsaw puzzle, this place has an entrance, but hard to know
where the exits are, not visibly linear anyway. The princess suddenly faints,
and the voices abandon her.
“Is this disease in the
head?”
The handsome psychiatrist
of 30 years endeavours to find out, as the young princess of 18 sits up on her bed
later. Looking outside at the melancholy sun-set, she decides that this evening
is a reflection of her state of mind undoubtedly. Mourning becomes her as she
looks out at Alhambra which turns red, and tetchy in the departing sun. Nevertheless,
the nurse stands by her bed with a herbal concoction in a silver chalice, so
she would take it. She takes the goblet and swallows it with water with a bit
of water also handed by the nurse in a cup.
“These voices are
driving me crazy,” the princess said.
“You might have to take
more medicine. That’s what they are for.”
“No medicine has ever
worked for me before.”
“They will work, this
time. I’m sure of it.”
“Tell the voices to
leave me alone,”
“Tell me more about
them.”
“They call themselves
the three sisters.”
“The three sisters?”
“Yes, that’s what they
call themselves. The three sisters.”
“Hmm?”
“Why am I being haunted
by these ghosts of the past.”
“You are unwell,” said
a psychiatrist nonchalantly.
“I see three ghastly
sisters dancing at sun down wearing blue, green and pink flowing robes each. I
hear them each whispering to themselves and to me.”
“What are they
whispering now?”
“Oh, about the same.”
“Can you tell me what
these sisters are saying to you?”
“Oh, these are devils,
ghosts, saying vile stuff.”
“Like what?”
“They are here now.”
The princess space out.
It clearly indicates that she is having another psychotic episode. The room is
gradually getting darker, as the sun dips on the edge of the horizon. A kind of
deathly light is cast slowly. It feels as though the princess is trapped
between two worlds – the world of the living and the dead. She smiles an awful
lot suddenly. And then she becomes grim. Hands on her ears; she shakes her head
nodding it vehemently.
“No.No.No. Go away!”
she screams.
The nurse tries to calm
her down by putting a supporting hand on her and back massaging it slowly. But
it doesn’t work. The princess is inconsolable. She shuts her almond eyes close; silent tears ooze
down her two temples.
“I cannot do what you
say, I can’t kill them. You’re horrible, Pink. How could you?”
“Blue, is it true? What
they say? Someone’s trying to kill the seven Nasrid princes’? Awful! It’s
awful! Owwwww!”
“What’re you saying,
Green? That I should pray, not take this potion? You say, do not take those
pills. Push her away. Push the nurse away. Come, come away with us. We will
show a new land... a land of wonders...”And the whisperings carry on.
The princess wails for
a while and then she pushes the nurse. Suddenly, she is strong. Her delicate demeanour is replaced by a shade
of purple unsightly colour. Her voice changes into that of a shrieking
Nightingale. She pushes the nurse which causes for her to hit her head down on
the cold marble floor. The nurse faints. The psychiatrist is met with the same
fate too. They are no match for her newfound aggressiveness.
TO BE CONTINUED....
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