Bondibu.
The name infused her little heart
with courage, warmth, and happiness. Bondibu. Her bestest friend. Bondibu. Six
year old Pihu’s sole guardian and protector.
She had known Bondibu since she
was one year old. She had stopped sleeping well. One night she had woken up
crying in her crib. Howling, from the nightmare she had dreamt. Her Momma had
come running to her. She had cradled her back to sleep, before she could tell
her Momma about her fears. But the mother must have felt her daughter’s
terror. The next morning Bondibu was waiting for her near her crib. “He will
protect you. Always. As will I,” Momma had said. And Bondibu had been with her
ever since.
One day, just before her sixth
birthday, Momma had a fight with Da-da. Well, they quarreled most of the time,
but this had been THE BIG FIGHT. Then he had left the house. And then Momma was
found hanging from the ceiling fan in their bedroom. Or had she already been dead
before Da-Da had stormed out? Momma ceased to be no more. Pihu didn’t know what
had happened. Not that it mattered anymore, since she found herself alone with
Bondibu in an orphanage on the day she turned six. She cried into her pillow
till her tears dried. And she wept before she slept.
The orphanage was a good place.
Well not a bad place at least. The nuns running the place were kindly. But they
insisted all the children attend the church on Sundays. They didn’t realize
that Jesus bleeding on the cross reminded Pihu of her mother swinging from the
fan by a rope. Only sometimes the rope wasn’t a rope at all. It was a huge
black snake that coiled itself around Momma’s neck and forced the life out of
her. The same black snake that had tried to strangle Pihu in her dreams before
she had met Bondibu.
Time went by. Pihu started school
in the nearby convent. She grew lonelier as she grew older since she had never
been able to make friends. She had outgrown her only childhood friend, who now
sat in a desolate corner of her tiny world. By the time she was fifteen, she
had forgotten that Bondibu did even exist. He sat silent as he watched Pihu
folding back into herself.
Pihu’s bad dreams had returned
the year she turned fifteen. The old black snake had now metamorphosed into a
strange beast with burning eyes and big fangs. Something vaguely familiar. Something,
she was quite sure, she had seen in her past but couldn’t remember when. She
stopped sleeping well again fifteen years after it had stopped forever. She had
strange nightmares in her restless sleep, and she saw terrible visions in her
waking hours. She went to the head nun of the orphanage for help. “Keep faith
in the Lord, my child. Pray, and He will make things right,” was the answer she
got. But the more she went to church, the more Jesus reminded her of her Momma.
And the more she thought of her Momma, the more the beast taunted her sleep.
Until one day, she was startled out of her never-ending nightmare to see the
vermin standing right next to her bed. Dirty,. red fire was pouring out of its eyes.
Or what must once have had been its eyes. Its fangs dripped venom all over her
coverlet. She whimpered in fright. She remembered Bondibu in that moment of
abject terror, and begged for his help. The very next moment she realized that
a plastic teddy bear the size of her hand couldn’t possibly help her. But
Bondibu burst out of the desolate corner of Pihu’s little world and started
growing in size. He grew till he was twice the size of the beast. He bellowed
at the beast and grabbed it in a bear hug. The fire started to burn out from
the monster’s eyes as it seemed to collapse and coalesce into Bondibu. Pihu
felt safe and went back to her nightmare.
It was the sixth month of the year, with six days to go for Pihu’s sixth birthday. She woke up to the sound of raised voices coming from her parent’s bedroom. Her parents were at it again. The voices became louder until her Momma’s voice was suddenly cut off. She groggily rose out of bed and, with Bondibu clutched to her chest, tottered into the master bedroom. She saw Da-da’s hands around Momma’s neck. His eyes were smoldering bits of ember and his foot long fangs dripped venom as he slowly chocked the life out of Momma. Pihu realized that her father was the beast, the serpent that resided in her soul. She screamed as the darkness descended upon the world and her guardian angel died in her heart.
