Womanhood

That Day:

On one end of our bed, I am sitting and laughing uncontrollably and on the other end is my elder sister, terrified and confused. My sister has been trying to take me away to a separate room since a few hours now. She is determined to make me understand something. She often tells me that I should enjoy these few years before I start bleeding. From the looks of her face it seems she doesn’t expect me to understand. But I understand fully. I have bled before too- when I fell down while playing in the field or when I accidentally cut my hand while attempting to imitate my mother in the kitchen. How can she possibly ignore all those glorious wounds? I have complained to my mother a few times and so today my sister has taken up the task of explaining the whole bleeding process to me. Ignorant naïve fool, hah! Let me hear what she has to say.

Today:

On one end of our bed, I am sitting, terrified and confused and on the other end sits my elder sister, giving me a comforting and reassuring smile. “You are a woman now”, she says, as I begin to recall and realise all her words I earlier used to ignore. So I am a woman now. Hmm.