Priya was in the marketplace when it began. She was negotiating with a vegetable seller when she suddenly felt a strange sensation at the base of her spine, a sort of pulling ache that made her quite uncomfortable. Distracted, she allowed the vegetable seller to get the best of her and paid at least twenty rupees more for her purchase than she should have done. But the strange sensation waxed and waned, sometimes relaxing its grip upon her, other times tightening up so much that her breath was taken away and she found she had no option but to stand still and wait while the ache washed over her.
She had no choice, she decided, but to cut her trip short and walk back home, slowly due to the combined effects of her partly-filled bags and her aching backside. As she walked, she tried to figure out what could possibly have stimulated this. Had she somehow pulled a muscle or bruised a bone? Was this a far-too-early start for an arthritis like that which afflicted her grandmother? But no, none of that made sense, and so she was still feeling puzzled by the time the elevator in their high-rise deposited her at their floor.
Gratefully, she went inside her flat and left the bags behind as she moved to their bathroom in search of medicine. Two painkillers went into her mouth and she stood slumped against the sink, closing her eyes and hoping that they would quickly begin to work. She placed her hand against the aching spot and that was when everything really changed. She felt a tender bump beneath her hand.
Perhaps an insect bite, she thought? But it was rather large for that, protruding at least a full centimeter out above the surface of her skin, right there just below the base of her spine, at the beginning of the cleft of her buttocks. And then another wave of aching hit her and she felt it, Priya felt the lump surge outward, out and down, growing about a millimeter more.
This was no bite. This was no bruise or sprain. This was something growing from her body at the base of her spine. This was clearly part of her, her skin, she could feel it and feel herself touching the lump from both her fingers and the skin of the lump itself, not like a wart or mole that simply stuck above with no nerves of its own, but like the end of a finger or a toe.
Now this was something that she had no frame of reference for. Priya felt frozen, unable to process what was happening to her. As she stared into the mirror at her frozen face, thoughts feeling slow and muddling, the aching ebbed, then surged again and she felt it grow another millimeter. As she waited through another cycle, she thought the medicine must be starting to kick in, because the ache at least was starting to become less distracting. The lump was definitely binding in her panties, though, which she addressed by simply taking them off for now. She pulled her trousers back up again, however, and tied them loosely at the waist.
Priya decided that she might as well begin the cooking that she needed to do for Sumit and herself. She washed and chopped up vegetables for her khichuri, then got the dal and rice out and got going on a fish curry as well. All food that would keep well in the refrigerator and be good to store for Sumit's dinner when he would get home from his shift.
As she worked, the pulses came and went and she became increasingly aware of the pressure of whatever was growing at the base of her back within her trousers. Her salwar kameez was loose enough there so that it was not constricted, but she could definitely feel the growing length each time another pulse of aching came.
Beyond that, her architect's brain was also kicking in, starting to calculate and figure. As Priya continued to cook, she also noted the time each pulse was coming, tracking them and finding it was regular. Approximately every three minutes, that focused ache intensified again. If that thing was growing at one millimeter every time, then that meant that it was growing at two centimeters per hour. Would this continue at a constant rate? If so, then she would soon likely know much more about the form and nature of whatever was going on with her.
It scared her, frankly, and one part of her very much wanted to call and interrupt Sumit at work, ask him for help and medical advice. But another part of her was feeling awkward and embarrassed, especially since their marriage was still young and they were still getting to know each other. It was only five months since they'd made their match, and although so far Sumit was shaping up to be just the sort of man she'd wanted for a husband, this might be some sort of body problem that could mar her beauty and she was nervous because she did not know how Sumit might react. On the one hand, as a doctor he was dealing with people and their bodies all day long. On the other hand, his family was quite conservative and she was still not sure how much he had grown beyond their views. What was good for his patients might not be good for his bedroom. At least his parents were with one of his other siblings right now, and she did not have to be dealing with their scrutiny in the house as well.
Priya continued to distract herself through cooking and then taking care of other household chores. The ache was continuing to rise and fall, but now in addition to the medication dulling things, she was just plain getting more used to it. After she'd finished her self-assigned tasks, she sat down to eat a lonely dinner by herself, still missing her old mealtimes with her own family, left behind when she and Sumit married. She also missed Sumit, as she often did when he was on the evening shift, though she did not miss her in-laws much. Still, even her mother-in-law's carping about her cooking would have made a good distraction from whatever was slowly growing down below her back.