Muddy Feet: a short story

Dusty wind and muddling dreams were all working on her bemused mind, with wind stamping its mighty imprints on every path whether trodden or untrodden, and dreams, on the other hand, were making her lose any sense of path. She does not know where she was or at least her feet didn’t, and yes. Suddenly it started to rain heavily but she did not notice it until the muddy path turned into a small pool of water. She stopped and looked at a nearby tree for a moment and then she started walking again. The brutal claws of mud reached were clutching her knees now, and the gashing rainfall had made her eyes so dampened that I could not look at the deeps inside her lashes which were full of water drops now.

She kept walking for half an hour and her legs started quivering but even then she did not stop. Her feet were like the two lazy cats tumbling here and there in the mud and her face… o why do I mention her face? Yes I know it was her face that made me write this story or perhaps it was her feet-I am not sure. Perhaps you want to know who I am but I would advise you to focus on that poor girl because this story is about her, not me.

So I was telling you how this encumbered girl was not ready to stop walking and how the hostile nature was making me know more and more about that girl. Yes I don’t know her but the way she was affecting the nature around her was making me feel uncomfortable. Her every step was making the weather worse.

Look at her hair that is like a rough rope of fiber now but what I want you to see is how her hair is reaching for the mud on the ground, if you can call it a ground after this much raining. It seems as if she belongs to that mud and dirt and her cat-like feet were perhaps born in that same mud.
After an hour mud was all over her and her legs were like the handles of two brooms being sunken in the water. Suddenly, she stopped and looked at me. (Yes here I come.) I got so confused and afraid that I couldn’t say a single word.

‘What has brought you here?’, she said and suddenly I remembered that today I had fought with my husband and left the house without telling him, and when I came to that road which leads to the jungle, I did not hesitate for a single moment before entering it. But this story is not about me so back to that girl. . . I looked at her for a few moments and then, surprisingly, I heard my voice, ‘I am here to escape from the people who are really dear to me, for whom I sacrificed all my life but for whom I am nothing, like this mud.’ She didn’t say a single word and looked at the mud for a while. I wanted her to walk, I wanted to follow her blindly, I wanted her to take over myself.

She, or perhaps those muddy cats, I am not sure though, started trailing on the mud again and I, like a loyal puppy, was so blithe to follow her. I don’t know after how many hours the rain stopped and the sun, like a possible suspect, took over the sky reluctantly. The winds stopped blowing, it was all so still over there and so was she. She kept standing there for hours until it started getting dark. So, when she turned back at me, I could only look at her fading silhouette and I instantly knew that she won’t let me follow her anymore. She started walking again and winds started to blow with the each step that she took. I kept standing there for some time and then I walked back home.

My husband was shocked to see me soaked with water and mud but what made me shocked was the fact that he was waiting for me.
‘You need some rest’, he said.

‘My feet are tired. I wanna wash them’, I heard my voice.