Surrender

“Yes, I did. I murdered him. I took the knife and ran it right through his chest. I also gagged him so I wouldn’t hear him scream.

“He was two days away from turning a year old. Yes, I had nurtured him for a year and I loved him to bits, but I knew that when he grows up, he won’t be able to see or walk or talk like other children… How did I know? I was his mother. Mothers know. I knew.

“Yes, I know there are mothers who spend their lives looking after their handicapped babies and don’t even wince. I happen to be not one of those mothers. Call me selfish, but I don’t want to bear the load of seeing my child feeling lesser than the others every single day of his life. His soul didn’t need to stay trapped for a lifetime like that. She could move on to more colourful happier lives. And I hope she has.

“So, one night, when he was deep in sleep, I just picked up the knife, covered his mouth with my hand, and stabbed him. He woke up… from my touch or from the pain, I don’t know. But he woke up, and he looked at me. I don’t know what that look meant. Until then, he had never experienced any feeling except love. This was a new experience. I don’t think he knew what it meant. I still wonder whether he thought this was love too. I hope he knows that it was. I don’t think there was accusation in his eyes, but as I looked into them, it seemed like there was a knife in my throat.

“Finally, when he stopped making those screams that I didn’t hear and he stopped twisting his hands and feet in the air, his eyes looked stunned. He had stopped breathing. I took my hand away from his mouth, threw the knife on the floor and sat by his side looking at him.

“Yes, it had been a month when they found me sitting there. How was I alive? I had been eating him. He was a part of me. He had started inside me. It was only fair that he should end there. When they found me, only his eyes were left. Yes, I had eaten his heart too. I had been thinking of eating his eyes for many days now, but I couldn’t. They were his eyes.

“I’m a cannibal, you say? But what I ate was a non-living thing. If I could bring fatal pain to my own child, this was not worse. Haven’t you ever given pain to someone who loved you to bits? Haven’t you EVER done something wrong to make amends for another wrong? Haven’t you ever been selfish? You haven’t, you say? You must be God then.

“So yes, when they found me, I quickly hid his eyes in my dress. Yes, I still have them, but I won’t give them to you. I want to meet his father and cremate them with him. I want his father to slap me, beat me, kill me, and let me cry on his shoulder one last time before you execute your sentence on me. You say he doesn’t want to look at my face? You don’t have to tell me that. I know it. Yet, can you please let him know that this is for our baby? We owe it to him. His soul might still be trapped in these eyes. One night, when I sat behind the bars crying, I thought I saw tears in his eyes too. Yes, I know. Maybe, it was my tears which had fallen there, but maybe, they were his soul’s. I want to release her. And I can only do it together with his father. He was OUR baby.

“All those people outside, shouting ‘Bitch’, ‘Cruel’, ‘Cannibal’, ‘Heartless’ still affect me, although they shouldn’t. I have seen a lot in life to be affected by them. But I am, still. For I know that they have a reasonable reason.

“You know, when I gave birth to my baby, I had been on top of the world. I had never known the feeling of such joy. But then, I hadn’t known that he was going to have to live a lesser life. When I realized it, I didn’t want him to suffer any more. I didn’t want myself to suffer because of him, either. I really thought the agony would end with him gone. I didn’t know better.

“Yes, I ran the knife right through his chest, and I gagged him, so that I wouldn’t have to hear him scream. Did I tell you that as I did that, I also ran a knife through my own throat?”