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The evening was invading, the sun was bidding his adieus to the bright red sky and welcoming the darkness. The once cheerful day was eventually engulfed with darkness, a darkness Lady Torento was in love with. 

Everyday Lady Torento was impatiently waiting until the moon invaded the sun, and darkness hovered inside-out, all over the place as if she were fond of misery. Her very self was suspicious. How can a lady as beautiful as her fall in love with darkness? Why would such a pleasant lady become so fond of a black and white world rather than flamboyantly exaggerating over the insanely colorfulness of the world?

“Oh. . . what a lovely day it is!” said Mrs. Maradona. “My my how lucky my eyes are to witness such a bright sunny day!” replied Mrs. Sunny flaunting her new clutch gifted by her husband for their 4th anniversary. Lady Torento was never eager to be a part of these morning conversations, not even when Mr. Torento was there. The neighborhood ladies used to whisper, “Mrs. Torento’s husband is very strict, and he doesn’t even allow her wife to come outside and enjoy this wonderful life away from home” and another responds, “Yeah, yeah, one day during a Christmas gathering I saw how Mr. Torento dragged Mrs. Torento out of the gathering, I heard that he use to scold her a lot for talking with outsiders or when she associate with any neighbors, how awful is to feel trapped inside ones own house?”. “And then one day puffff. . . everything changed at a jinx, and Mr. Torento was no more, god knows what happened to him, but good for her I guess, at least she is free now!” said the lady living right next to Lady Torento’s house. 

After three long months from Mr. Torento’s disappearance Lady Torento finally decided to step outside the house. Quite unlike herself she was wearing a long purple frock with rose buds embroidered from bottom to top. She looked at the surroundings; the big green trees swaying to the sound of the wind, the horns of vehicles consecutively beeping one after another, people walking around giggling merrily, like a newborn baby who is exploring the extravagant colors around coming out of the black and white box where the beauty of life and nature was obscured beneath the walls of entrapment. She roamed across the park, the long roads, around ponds, admiring everything she had never seen before. She finally breathed some fresh air after ions and ions of breathing ruthlessness inside Mr. Torento’s walls. She felt as if she was ready to conquer thousands of Torento’s now that she saw how beautiful the real world is. She wondered why Mr. Torento did not allow her to witness this beauty, not even once. Before marriage everything looked perfectly normal, life was felt as if it was a bed of roses full of wonderful things ahead, but right after the day they got married, bed of roses turned upside down, her life was a thorny shrub all set to pierce through her soul. 

Suddenly she felt that everyone around her was looking at her. She felt that Everyone around was whispering, it felt like everyone was talking ill behind her back. She was stricken with a stream of consciousness, “Am I ugly? Did I do something wrong? Do they think that I killed my husband? Will I be punished?” she started panicking, she felt nauseous, her heartbeat was rising gradually, sweat ran down her body, she started walking as fast as she could as if someone is coming after her, following her, she ran, and ran, and ran as fast as her feet took her to the house. 

On the way she met Mrs. Maradona who looked concerned seeing Lady Torento’s condition, “Darling are you not well, do you mind if I accompany you to your home?” Lady Torento knew that it was not a good idea, yet the situation was such that being accompanied by someone whom you know, felt convincing rather being taken away by a stranger, she thought. And she was not in a condition to think ahead of her, she allowed Mrs. Maradona to accompany her to her house. “Are you on any kind of medication darling? I saw you on the way when I was going to the market, and you looked perfectly fine. What happened so suddenly? Argh, you might have felt lonely walking alone without your husband, oh poor soul, he looked after you so well, didn’t he?” asked Mrs. Maradona looking at Lady Torento poignantly. Lady Torento did not know how to answer or what to say, she felt as if her tongue was going to be swallowed on its own, and that she was on the verge of being muted forever. “What should I say? How should I answer?” She thought. “Ummmmmm. . . . . .yes. . .. I guess. . … yes, he did look after. . .. me. . .. so well, that I am not used to talking to anyone except for him, I am sorry.” “Oh, I understood,” sighed Mrs. Maradona. 

In a while they were at the doorstep of Lady Torento’s home. Right at the doorstep Lady Torento fainted. Fortunately, Mrs. Maradona was right next to Lady Torento, and she grabbed her without letting her fall to the ground. She then took her inside the house and made her sit on the sofa in the living room. She then found her way to the kitchen to bring a glass of water to Lady Torento. While heading towards the kitchen Mrs. Maradona noticed that the house looked clear and clean like the sky after a rain, the whole surrounding did not look like a house where a lonely woman whose husband left her lived. The house was decorated with flower vases, ornaments that looked so new, which gave a party vibe to the house which was quite terrifying. She finally found the kitchen at the right end corner of the house, she had to pass three bedrooms and a small dining area to reach her destination.

“It’s quite a big house for just two people” she thought. Mrs. Maradona found a glass and filled it with some water and turned to walk to where Lady Torento was sitting. Lady Torento startled and stood up as if she had been attacked by an electric shock. “Where am I?” She looked around and realized that she was at home, she finally felt at ease, and leaned back on the sofa, and she saw Mrs. Maradona. “What are you doing here!” screamed Lady Torento who was horrified to see Mrs. Maradona in her living room inside her house. “What are you doing here! Why are you inside my house!” Mrs. Maradona was confused for a second, and then she told how she ended up inside her house. Lady Torento apologized for being rude and told her that she felt as if her head was throbbing inside and that she needed to rest for a while. “Oh, then I shall leave, I will come by to see if you are okay” said Mrs. Maradona and headed towards the door.

 Then suddenly she heard a loud thud from upstairs. Both of them looked at each other, one looking suspicious and the other with a questionable face. “Is there anyone other than YOU at home?” Mrs. Maradona asked, looking at Lady Torento suspiciously. “Ahhhh, its nothing, mmmmm. . . . I . . . I. . .might have forgotten to close the window” said Lady Torento sweating all over her face and trying to wipe and hide the sweat from been seen. Mrs. Maradona was not convinced yet decided to leave anyways and headed back to the door to leave this insanely terrifying house. Just as she was going to open the door once again a much louder thud was heard, and this time it was not only the sound, but someone was also screaming “HELP!” 

Mrs. Maradona looked at Lady Torento and ran upwards without thinking twice, she was startled at the sight, she was shocked and could not move from where she was, for one second, she forgot where she was.

“Please Help. . . me. . . PLEASE! She will kill me. . . PLEASE!!” the man begged.

“Mr. Torento!” exclaimed Mrs. Maradona, “What happened to you? Who did this to you.”

After a moment of silence, “My wife. . .” said Mr. Torento whispering to Mrs. Maradona, “My wife is sick, she is suffering with an extreme condition of personality disorder. . . sometimes she is afraid to be in crowds, sometimes not, sometimes she is so in love, and sometimes she is furious. . . her moods are fluctuating like the waves of the ocean, three months before I asked her to avoid talking to strangers, with her condition she does worse things no one can imagine of, and quite unlike other days she seemed to be off that day, and she was furious, she took a champagne bottle and hit me hard, and the next day what I know is I was tied and hidden inside this closet.”

Mrs. Maradona was petrified.

“We have to hurry up, she might have skipped her medications and her condition might have worsened, she is not in her senses anymore, we should hurry up, we should leave right NOW!” 

Mrs. Maradona, still looking petrified, ran to Mr. Torento and started untying him. “Bang!” Mrs. Maradona held her head with both her hands and looked back, Lady Torento was standing behind her with the bottle of Champagne, she could not think of anything else, she collapsed straightaway.

 In a few minutes Mrs. Maradona came into her senses, her head was like half dead, unable to lift it, Mrs. Maradona slowly opened her eyes to see whether Lady Torento was still there and whether Mr. Torento was there. No one was there!

Mrs. Maradona tried to get up abruptly, her hands and legs were tied. She tried to untangle them. But no that was impossible, she heard Lady Torento’s voice downstairs, she was screaming, she was telling all sorts of things to Mr. Torento. Mrs. Maradona then looked around the room, searching for something sharp and then saw that there was a cellphone lying under the bed, maybe Mr. Torento’s or Mrs. Torento’s phone fell down while quarreling or maybe it was her luck, she thought. She tried to crawl slowly without making any noise, she did not want to alarm Lady Torento, knowing her condition. She managed to reach the cell phone. Yet she could not use her hands to do anything. She somehow tried to press the keys using her teeth. “Teek. . . teek. . . teek. . .” pressed Mrs. Maradona.

Someone answered. “PLEASE HELP ME!” 

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