Ashika was sad that day. Ashika did not know sadness before, or after.

Nirav gave her a friendly push and said, 'You are a stupid one.'

Ashika ambled through the rest of the day, multiple times she checked the empty classroom, the last row, the unoccupied benches, but she could not find her. In the corner, standing near the door, she could sense her class teacher chuckling by herself. And a slow disappointment sprouted inside her head; you are a stupid one, careless, careless idiot. You should never ever keep any marbles, you should give them all away. You'll never keep them safe . . .

In the rickshaw, other kids played a make believe game, and Ashika did not join. She sat farthest near the window and looked for her Em — on the road, up in the sky, in somebody else's hands perhaps, inside one of these passing cars, could she be in the bus? How would she look up into a bus . . . Had the school sent her to a garbage pit already?

The kids became louder; one of them was meant to act dead apparently, and he moved, and breathed, 'Out, out, disqualified!' Stop breathing! Close your stomach!'

Ashika's stomach started to contract, breaths fast and short, squelching mouse-like whimpers, she did not know, but her toes and fingers curled into her feet, hands sweaty and head aching.

Rahul you are stupid! You are spoiling the whole game, stop LAUGHING! Louder noises, louder dread; and now Ashika could only see in blurs.

She had lost her Em. Em in her pencil box, Em in her pocket, Em sometimes in the washing machine, Em must be scared right now, angry and confused, but scared most — of all places Ashika used to forget her at, that must be the darkest and scariest one. Maybe Em waited.

When Imran dropped her at her doorstep, and her mother opened the door, Ashika clung to her legs and did not move or talk.

Hiccups did not make it difficult, and her mother knew instantly what 'Eh . . . heh . . . m . . . Ma! Eh . . . Eh . . . Em' meant.

But she did not understand Ashika's sadness. For mother a marble, was a marble. It was not a she, and she was not Em. 'Dad will get you another,' she said.

And her father thought so too, but he did not say it. Outside, afternoon turned to night, and waiting Em turned to forever-lost. Her father stood there smiling down at her, his promise of buying her another one, lingered in questioning silence.

Even if he did buy her another one, would it be a she? Would it have scars like she did, would it have an eye, would it be the same emerald green. And even if it turned out to be a she, with scars, and an eye, and the emerald green, would she be her Em?

Her friend Zarene had scratched an eye on Em, round circle, and a smaller inside, said 'Here, now with this eye, I'll always know everything about you.'  She had then ran off, into a van, onto a road, inside a new city. And now Em was gone too, and no one understood, Ashika's sadness was not sadness, it was grief for a death.

And no one ever comforted her, and no one ever told Ashika that dead ones are never quite dead, that dead ones turn into stars and wink at you during nights and play hide with you in mornings. But everyone did tell her, that it was just a marble, and she was just silly.

So Ashika grew up, knowing she was just silly to cry over things that were just, it.

~ for that innocent voice inside that feels too much,  for too much.