A Joyful Pain

This is a short story I wrote two years ago, and is to be published in the next issue of our department's magazine EduVoice! :)

A Joyful Pain

She laid her exhausted head on her tired torn pillow, with her eyes wide open, staring at the wall 

before her

For those who saw her, it seemed that her eyes were following a ghost stretching on the rough stones, peeking at the world through the thin cracks. But the ghost didn't find it enough to peek; it slid through a crack, just to find that the world that existed outside would never visit an inhabitant of this dull room, not even in dreams. The ghost must have left by then, for her eyelids dropped for a few seconds before going apart again. Had the ghost reappeared? Had it carried a glimpse of that world to the miserable inhabitant of this gloomy room? It might be so, for she didn't only stare, but half raised her weary head. It may be that the ghost's load was not tempting enough for her to crane her neck, or it may have been that the ghost gave up every attempt to enjoy what was called'' the world". But, looking closer, it was not a ghost she was staring at, but the ancient, rusted bucket placed in a corner of the room. Her eyes were following water drops dripping from the cracks of the rotten, gray ceiling. It was amusing to see how the drops followed one another, falling into the half- full bucket. Maybe she compared them to the line of sufferers who would, at dawn, fall into the bucket of eternal darkness. With every drop, dawn came a step closer to her, bringing with him the eternal relief. This melancholy tune of the sufferers' dripping made her heart contract. How could she believe it? Was it even believable? When does death start? Where does it start? How? She shuddered at the thought of 

shedding blood. Does death require blood shedding?

"The fools! They think I'll die at dawn", she murmured. A strange smile could then be seen on her pale, tired face. A hysterical laugh followed; a laugh that seemed to stop the time, to fill the bucket. Moaning followed, then murmuring, cursing, and gasping.  She was now sitting on her knees, shaking the iron bars with all her might. The jailer rushed to her cell and pushed her inside with a punch on her face. She retreated, with blood covering her face. "Honored are the dead whose blood oozes on their death bed! Nay! Honored are those who bleed after their death!" Her words found their way through blood, through her spiritless mouth, through her shrinking throat. Her blood was soon washed by grieving tears, by her savage weeping, and by her vigorous head shakes.

Then arrived the unwelcome visitor. The fatal visitor! The vital visitor!

Oh rude, hateful, awful, savage, barbarous steps!

Oh sweet, soft, kind, just steps!

Lost till the very end!

She was hastily driven out of her dungeon till she arrived at the threshold of her world.

All those who saw her at dawn wondered how and when she shed the blood covering her dress, and how she smilingly bent her wet head over her wet body, staring at the blood stains on her dress, or rather, on the ghost of this world, which kept intruding hopelessly into her eternal happiness.