The Lazarus Bond by Debiroopa Banerjee

The girl screamed. It was a cold rainy night like stuff from ghost tales, and the icy chill made it worse. The leaves from the nearby trees hung themselves in solidarity; the solitary black cat roaming about made its quiet exit too. Nothing disturbed this abundance of dampness. The silence amidst the noise was bad and could only be described as a hollow feeling.

The scream shattered it all. It came out as a quiet wail which grew louder. The girl was locked in a glass cabinet. Her hair was long and limp, her dress was new and her eyes shone with the deepest black. The streaks on her chin reminded her of the endless hours that she cried. She looked around desolately and found drag marks on the glass pane. The slow fluttering inside her chest sealed her despair. The box was suffocating and elusive. A boy of few summers walked by, stopped and stared with unseeing eyes and moved away. The reality of it made her scream more and more; her voice became hoarse and the only sound was that of the rain.

The streets once empty suddenly started filling up with people. Scores of strangers started trickling in. The girl waited with bated breath but nobody noticed her or the agony. She understood. The look of vacancy was replaced with effusive calm. As the glass hearse pulled away with the girl, the visible metronome of life was stretched to the lone cat that came out of hiding.