the blue door

Meghna slammed the blue door and her father gave her one of those glares that she never forgot for the rest of her life. Cars have feelings – she chanted inside her head.
At the end of the corridor her five-year-old brother was playing with her colours. He had taken the reds and mixed them with the oranges and created a masterpiece on their mosaic floor. Ma would come and clean it up at some point of time.
She went to her room and stared at her new drapes – they were pink, fading to white with miniscule flowers printed on them. The massive rosewood secretary’s desk with a bottle green leather top was covered with her books. The desk was not hers though. Her grandfather left it and when he died, her room was the only one that had enough space for it. She had adopted it. Meghna went and sat on the chair and stared at Noddy staring back at her. Her tennis shoes were not dirty but she wanted someone to wash them. She liked squeaky-clean shoes; she liked the way the mirror in her room made her look like a super star and she surely like Pete Sampras who was covered with red kisses.
Her bedroom door had a gaping hole where the keyhole should have been. But Baba had taken it out because he didn’t want her to lock herself out.
And now 20 years later, she’d locked herself out.
In fact, no one even heard her.
Her bedroom didn’t exist anymore and neither did the blue car door – but she couldn’t get in. She was locked out – and forgotten.