The Blue Diary

By Sreemoyee Mitra

Kleptomania is both titillating and dangerous. Yet Millie found her share of happiness in it. There was something about stealing silly things that Millie was very attracted to. It was never for money. The boiling of the blood.. the pumping of the heart.. the adrenaline fueling up her veins, she felt alive! It has been seven years since she first took something. She took anything she found abandoned in any place. From hair ties, clips to pens and key chains, her collection had it all. She felt they were parts of those peoples’ lives she took from, it was as if a token of their love. She felt attached, something she lacked her whole life.

She was very small when she lost both her parents and was shifted to an orphanage. Although surrounded by many people, she felt disconnected. She longed for warmth. Once she visited a therapist, who told her that her kleptomania came for her longing for people wanting to be with her. Truth was bitter and Millie could not bear it. She smashed the door behind her when she fled from there. She is not crazy, she thought to herself. Since 5 years old she was always very firm about being loved, justified her weird actions when Sister Martha presented her to any fitting family. She once even went to a family but lacked the love she needed. She stayed at the orphanage till she moved out for college. She was a good student, getting scholarship came easy to her.

Even after getting this job, she chose to stay alone, despite Reema’s constant effort to live together. She liked her colleagues, but they never understood her, they were full in their lives, all they could offer was apathy and friendship. She needed to feel like home. Disappointed, she was all alone. She found comfort in her collections, her books and her imagination of a perfect life where she was with her parents. She made stories around the things she took. Stories she felt was part of her life.

It was a busy Monday morning. Millie was, as usual, heading off to work. Little did she know that today, her life would take an unexpected turn. Every day she walks for seven minutes from her home to the metro station takes the metro at 8:26 a.m. and goes to her office. Like every other day, she took the metro and got seated. It usually takes her an hour to reach. Along the way, she contemplates the people in her couch. It brings her joy. People, their behaviors, their conversations, attires, hairstyles, gazes, the books they read, the songs they immerse themselves, wish she could hear them! She looks at people as different stories. She watches two sisters, a mother and a daughter, a father with his daughter; she dreams of a life like that. Huh! On reaching office, she felt morose while opening the laptop. Wish she had a sister, like the two girls in the metro. They were chatting like two birds. Huh! She gasped and focused on her laptop. It was a busy day and got late today than her usual time, it was already 9. She felt scared. She thought of getting an uber but felt it would take longer time. So she took a shared cab to the metro station. On reaching she saw the station was quieter than usual. Most of the people she sees everyday has gone home. She felt both scared and disappointed. She boarded the train hoping to find some interesting people to study but what luck! There were only 2 couples, immersed in each other, 4 elderly men, and a young lady engrossed in her phone. She sat down on the aisle side of the bench reached for her bag to pull out the earphones. The music gave her company while the train went on through different tracks and the tunnel. It went quieter as there were few people in the compartment. After a while she looked across to the next couch of the train. As it was a relatively empty one, she could see there was only one girl sitting on the ladies bench. She could not see her face, as her face was buried inside “How to kill a Mockingbird”. She had thick black framed glasses and carried a blue bag. Something was peeping out of the bag that fascinated Millie. It was some book. Millie was intrigued. So she stood up from her place and very casually went to that couch and pretended to stand beside yet distant from her. She still could not see her properly. She noticed her shoes were very dirty and her hair tied up in a messy bun. It seemed like the girl did not care for her appearance. The woman, Millie guessed was in her mid 30s, intensely involved in her book and did not notice Millie at all. When the train stopped at a station, and announcement was made, the woman hurriedly stood up and grabbed her bag in haste, not noticing that Millie had already tactfully taken her book. After she got off Millie gave the book a good look. It was not quite a book; it was an intricately designed blue colored diary. On reaching home, Millie lied on her bed and studied the diary. The first few pages of the diary was blank, after page 19, Millie saw that the diary contained poems. Maybe the woman is a poet. She went on to read the poems and as the pages progressed, Millie got more and more enchanted by her writings. They were poems of solitude, mendacity of life, cacophony of traffic and how it disrupts the rhythm of life.. What a brilliant woman! Millie thought to herself. She felt slightly bad for taking it. Somehow she felt the poems were very close to that woman and now she has lost them. Never in her life, not for once, have Millie ever felt bad for someone for taking something because she took insignificant objects from people; things that didn't hold much importance to them, but mattered to her. But this diary that she took? She feels that she has taken a part of the woman. Maybe this is a slice of happiness that she gets every now and then when she writes them down. Drowning in her own thoughts and guilt, Millie thought she should return the diary but could not figure it out how. Delhi was a huge city and to find a woman in there is like playing cards. But Millie was adamant and wanted to fight the odds. She got dressed the next morning; took the dairy and headed to the metro station. She boarded the same metro as every day and hoped that she would see that woman again. But if only, it was that easy. Every day, Millie used to take the diary with her and hoped for the best. She was so focused on handing over the diary that she did not even think about what she would say to the woman. But as days passed by, the task seemed impossible; it felt like she could never meet her. Days slowly turned into weeks and months.

Millie has changed as a person by now; she became so obsessed with returning the diary that she stopped stealing things. She has stopped taking of care of herself, left her office, took another job and even changed her flat, and now only sinks herself in books and plants. With time, she grew into an ignorant lady who was absent minded and could barely remember her cereal box, but remembered to give the diary. She became so possessed by that diary, the woman that she even bought a similar bag to her. She felt like she now knows her, she is her friend, a person to hold on to life. She felt, she was the only person who might actually be caring for her existence. She now, never felt alone. Even though it had been 7 years, she happily took the diary every day. At this point, she even hoped she never finds her. The thought of an ideal friendship is often broken by an actual conversation.

Like every evening, Millie was returning from work, but now she has fewer stations to travel. Even though it had been 4 years since she has shifted she often misses her station. She was reading a book, “How to Kill a Mockingbird”; she has read it quite a few times these 7 years, yet, was fascinated each time. It was a comparatively empty metro today as it was quite late. But nothing bothered Millie. She had eyes set on the book. The train went through the tunnel as usual. Millie noticed someone had boarded her couch. But unbothered she continued reading. Suddenly when the train stopped she realized it was her station from the announcement. Hurriedly she jumped off the train only to realize the chain of her bag was unzipped and the diary had slipped out. She turned back at the train in horror, but the gates had close. As the train started moving, Millie stood in utter amusement and shock as she saw herself, 7 years back, to grasp the diary and putting it inside her bag. The train passed by. She was dumbfounded. How is that possible? Has she lost her senses due to her obsession? How could she be there? And then something occurred to her. She went to a mirror in the station bathroom and looked at herself. It was as if the missing pieces of the puzzle were solved. She looked at herself, looking, precisely like the woman she saw 7 years ago!

So… all this time, it was herself! She was her one and only friend. She was and will always be alone in this world. She hugged herself and burst into tears, slowing breaking down on the floor.

By Sreemoyee Mitra