Power Of Tears

The delicious aroma of the pancakes was floating all over in the air, along with her sweet humming. A tender smile was playing on the face of that 24 year old woman who was making pancakes for her 3 years old daughter as her daughter loved eating pancakes for breakfast.

"MOMMA!..." Her daughter's scream widened her eyes in terror whereas it halted her heartbeat completely. Switching off the gas stove immediately, she dashed out of the kitchen and went to their bedroom.

"FLORA…." She shouted, panicking as she opened the door of their bedroom where she saw her daughter sitting on the bed who was covering her tiny frame with a big duvet. Her daughter's big round eyes were looking here and there around her in fear which turned her confused.

"What happened, Flora?" She asked, stepping inside the door. Her daughter looked at her, hearing her voice. 

"Why did you scream?"

The little girl peeked her head out from that duvet and again scanned her surroundings with her beautiful sea-green eyes which she had inherited from her mother. Her behaviour turned her mother confused.

"Ora, what happened?" She called her by her nickname but the little girl was busy checking her surroundings until her eyes finally landed on that thing she was searching for. Her wide eyes enlarged more.

"Momma, cockroach," she pointed her little hand towards a certain direction. Her mother's gaze followed that direction and she saw a cockroach on the floor. So this cockroach was frightening her tiny baby so much? She sighed and turned towards that cockroach.

"It's just a cockroach, Ora," she said while bravely walking towards that cockroach until she heard her daughter's next words.

"Momma, it has wings," and that was it for her mother's bravery to fly out of the window. She ran back towards the bed and got up on it. She also got under the duvet with her daughter.

"Did you see it flying?" She asked and the little girl nodded which enlarged her eyes. Both mother and daughter were terrified of flying cockroaches and then that thing happened. That cockroach took out his wings and started flying around that room.

"OH...My GOD…." She screamed out of her lungs while hiding her daughter in her embrace tightly as the cockroach continued to fly. Both the mother-daughter duo's screams resonated all around the house until they saw that person stepping inside the door 

"What happened?" She saw her friend, Niova, entering with a visible tense reaction on her face.

"What happened, Aniya? Why are you and Flora screaming?" She asked that mother-daughter duo who were still hiding under that duvet. Like every other normal day, Niova had come to their house to meet them but she heard them screaming at the top of their lungs as soon as she entered the main door.

"Because of that cockroach. Look, it's still flying…oh…my…" Aniya again covered herself and her daughter with that duvet as that flying cockroach again came into her vision. Niova gave them a stunned look after hearing the reason behind their ear damaging screams.

"You both are screaming like an earthquake has come just because of this one damn cockroach, Ani….?" She sounded startled.

"No foul language before Ora, Niva and that cockroach is flying," Aniya defended herself.

"Yes, aunty Niva. It has wings," Aniya's little version agreed to her mother. 

"You both…." Niova sighed in disbelief and then opened the windows of that room. The cockroach finally flew away from the window.

"Now come out, my drama queens. Your enemy has flown away," she taunted them. Both the girls peeked out their heads from the duvet and only after finding their surroundings safe and sound, they both removed that duvet from their bodies.

"Thank you so much for saving momma and me, aunty Niva. You are our prince," the little girl clapped in excitement. Niova chuckled and picked that tiny doll in her arms. She pecked her pink cheeks.

"Of course, my princess Flora," she answered, making the little girl giggle in her embrace. Aniya beamed by watching them and then started folding that duvet.

"Momma, I am going out to see if my friends have come or not," the little girl informed her mother and then dashed out of the room.

"Ani, Flora is only a kid, so her fear is understandable but what about you?" Her friend's question halted her hands from folding that duvet. She looked at her friend and Niova immediately understood her answer in Aniya's silence.

"I have Katsaridaphobia," she answered. Aniya had a phobia of roaches because of her past. In the initial days, it used to be really very bad but with the growing passage of time, she had learnt to overcome her fear but had still not succeeded in overcoming it completely. 

Niova didn't question her about that topic furthermore because she was aware of Aniya's past and her side of the story which was extremely brutal and barbaric, just to even hear.

"Momma…momma…momma…" Flora came inside the room while chanting her mother's name. Her enthusiastic smile was telling Aniya that her friends had come to play with her.

"Oliver and Lena are here momma. Can I go outside to play with them in the garden?" The little girl requested her mother. Oliver and Lena were her best friends and they lived in her neighbourhood. 

"No, first eat your breakfast, Ora," she walked towards her daughter and then picked her up in her arms. The little girl pouted. She wanted to play.

"Then you can play with your friends as much as you want," hearing her mother and watching her smile, Flora tittered and nodded her head. Aniya beamed at her and then went to the hall with Flora and Niova.

After eating her breakfast with her friends, Flora was playing with her friends, Oliver and Lena, in the backyard of her house which her mother had turned into a small garden for her by planting beautiful and colourful flowers and even some vegetables.

All the kids played together for a while and it tired them a bit. Flora and Oliver sat on the bare ground but turned confused when their friend, Lena, didn't join them.

"What happened, Lena? Why are you not sitting?" Oliver, the little 5 years old boy, asked the 4 years old girl, Lena.

"I'm wearing a new dress today, so it will turn dirty if I sit on the floor," Lena told her friends while showing her blue frock to her friends. 

"New dress?" Flora asked, excited. 

"Yes, my papa brought this dress for me tomorrow," Lena's words filled Flora with more excitement. The youngest one stood on her feet and circled around her friend Lena to take an overview of her new dress.

Her sea-green eyes gleamed with happiness. 

"It is very pretty," the little girl complimented. Oliver joined the girls.

"My papa had also bought these new shoes for me on my last birthday," Oliver extended his feet and showed his shoes to his friends. The girls looked towards it.

"He has even bought me a lot of toys and a very beautiful watch," he informed them. The girls smiled at him.

"Yes, my papa has also bought a doll house for me last week," Lena said happily and then looked at Flora.

"Did your papa buy you a gift, Flora?" She asked, innocently. Flora shook her head in a 'no' because it was always her momma who bought gifts for her. Her papa had never bought something for her. In fact, she didn't even know where he was.

After that conversation, the kids played for some more time and then Oliver and Lena left for their homes which were in the neighbourhood.

Aniya was mopping the dining table when she saw her daughter stepping inside the hall. 

"So what games did you play with Oliver and Lena today, Ora?" She asked but the little girl didn't respond which was very unusual for her because Flora used to hype up very much just at the mere mention of her friends. 

Aniya looked at her daughter and saw her climbing up on the sofa. She sat there in complete silence and didn't even try to switch on the television like always. It made Aniya confused. 

Cleaning her hands with her apron, she walked towards her daughter who was sitting on the sofa.

"Ora, did you have a fight with your friends, baby?" She asked, sitting beside her on the sofa. Flora looked at her mother and shook her head.

"Then? Are you hungry? Or are you feeling any pain somewhere?" She immediately started checking her as her daughter's medical health was really very fragile.

Flora again jerked her head, turning Aniya more confused until

"Momma, has papa ever bought any gift for me?" Those words of her daughter froze Aniya till her core. She had never asked her about something like this before. In fact, she had never even tried to ever ask her about her father then why today?

"Why, Ora? Do you want a gift, baby?" Surpassing her own emotions, she tried to find out her daughter's motive behind that question of hers. The little girl again declined by moving her head in a 'no'.

"Oliver and Lena said their papa has bought them a lot of gifts. They were asking me if my papa bought any gift for me or not, momma,"

Aniya's heart ached, hearing her little princess's words. The curiosity to know about her father was gleaming in her doe eyes. She wanted to know about her 'papa' but how or in precise what could she tell about her father to her when she herself didn't know who her father was. Yes, Aniya didn't know who the father of her child was and it was just because of her past. She used to be a prostitute but she was forced to be one.

From the day Aniya had started understanding things in her life, she remembered she used to live with a couple in Germany whom she used to think of as her parents and they had also never done something to her which would make her feel otherwise. They had given love, warmth and care to her throughout her life until one day, which changed her whole life.

Aniya was 18 years old, when one day, she was returning to her home from her college but there she got drugged and abducted by a group of men. When she opened her eyes, her life had changed completely. She found herself in a brothel where she continued to get forced over and over again with different kinds of men who bought her body for their pleasure. She was tortured both mentally and physically.

She screamed, begged, pleaded for help but failed to ever escape from that cruel place and eventually gave up on her hope of ever escaping. She accepted that as her fate and continued to sell her body for almost three years but things again took a turn in her life when she turned 20. Aniya found out that she got pregnant and that was where her hope for escaping from that place turned into her zeal.

She wanted to escape from that place because she didn't want her child to be born in a place like that. She didn't want her child to suffer that pain she had to endure. She didn't want her child to accept that gloomy world as her fate, so she again tried to escape and this time, her fate was in her favour. She succeeded in running away from that brothel with all that money she had earned in those 3 years by trading her body.

After running away from that brothel while carrying her child in her womb, she tried to reach her parents but there she got to know that her parents had sold that house to someone else almost three years ago, from the day she had gone missing. There she received another shock but she knew she didn't have the time to drown herself in that pain. She needed to run away from there as soon as possible because the people of that brothel were searching for her. 

Aniya decided to leave that country with all that money she had earned and with the help of a specific someone, she left that country and came to live in Italy.

Here she started building a new life for her and her unborn child. After working countless jobs as a waitress, librarian, even maids and cleaners, she finally received a well settled job in a small company as a junior assistant after her daughter turned one. She thought her pain had ended finally but that was not true. 

When Flora turned 1 and half, she got diagnosed with a severe heart defect which the doctors failed to identify at the time of her birth. Aniya took Flora to a very big doctor for her treatment because she was not ready to give up on her daughter at all and from that day, Flora's treatment was still going on and Aniya had full hope that her daughter would recover very soon.

"Momma, sorry," Flora's voice took her out of her thoughts. She saw Flora holding her ears.

"I will never ask you about papa's gifts again but don't cry please," the little girl's words made Aniya realise that she was crying. Just the mere remembrance of her past had succeeded in bringing tears to her eyes.

Sighing, Aniya wiped her eyes and cupped her toddlers face.

"Our tears are our power, Ora, because it makes us remember how strong we are that we have never given into our fears," she tried to make her understand.

"Really?" Flora asked, engrossed. Aniya forced a small smile and then pecked her forehead.

"Our tears make us stronger, Ora," she hugged her daughter and closed her eyes. Flora buried her face in her mother's neck and spoke.

"Then my momma is the strongest," 

Tears started glistening in her eyes more aggressively at her daughter's words. Was she really the strongest to endure everything? All she knew was that she was capable of enduring anything for her daughter and to what extent? She was going to find out about it very soon.