Terms of Enchantment

Harder than it looks.

Parul has never been more frustrated with witches and their shenanigans more in her life. In the last month alone Labonno has teleported unannounced inside the house multiple times a week. She seems enthusiastic about matching Parul up with a man.

“You know, I have read bloodsuckers are nicer, they ask before they get inside a house.” Parul has scorned at Labonno once.

“Well bloodsuckers don’t wait around to collect their debts” Labonno snapped back.

Parul didn’t say anything, it was already worse that Labonno was invading her private space more than normal. She didn’t wanna start an argument again.

“Why are you sending that hand icon as soon as you get a match? that makes you look lazy and desperate.” Labonno said looking over Parul’s shoulder. Parul was just swiping on a dating app.

“I mean what else am I supposed to do?” Parul asked meekly.

“Don’t text them first. Ever” Labonno was stern. “You are looking for a husband. Not a lover.”

Parul wasn’t expecting this line of thought from Labonno. “Are they separate? I thought you marry someone you love.”

Labonno was chuckling. “No silly girl, you marry for social status, not love. If people married for love, the world would have been very different.”

“I’m sorry, I wish to be married to someone who loves me. That’s the dream of every girl.” Parul retorted.

Labonno laughed. It was a dry laughter. As if she was frustrated with the naïveté of Parul. “Do I need to remind you that you were not even planning to get married, you wanted a husband to get the adoption process going.”

“Yes, but since I’m getting married, I thought…” Parul interjected but Labonno cut her off. “I’m not done.” Labonno continued, “Your government allows couples to adopt, that is the social status you get from being married. Your focus should be getting my debt paid off. Not side quests like love.” Labonno took a pause but held up the right index finger to not let Parul cut in. “Also, you don’t find love when you seek it out. You need love to find you. Which is not gonna be possible for you given how you spend all your days cooped up in this tiny home”

Parul had no words to say. Labonnos words cut deep, but at the same time there wasn’t any lies in what she said. Parul couldn’t argue back so she decided to focus more on the app and started swiping aggressively.

Soon enough, the app showed a message saying Parul has exhausted all her available free swipes and whether she would like to buy a premium subscription to continue swiping. Parul heaved a sigh of frustration.

“Maybe I should buy a subscription.” Parul said to herself. She then turned to Labonno and said, “Maybe it’s time for you to go, there’s nothing more gonna happen. I ran out of swipes and I’m not gonna pay money for matches”

Labonno didn’t say anything. She just teleported with a crack. Parul heaved a sigh of defeat and lied down on the floor. Trying to get a match while someone was looking over her shoulder has given her a lot of anxiety and it was only now dawning on her that this situation is likely to get even worse.

Parul didn’t realise how long it has been till she got a notification from her phone. A match has texted her back.

Parul looked at the message from the notification. It said, “girl you look hella fine, what do I do to call you mine?”

Parul cringed at the message, and instantly took a screenshot of the notification to send it to Labonno before realising that witch doesn’t use a smartphone.

Parul opened the app, and quickly typed, “Awwwwwwww, you can put a ring on me, and call me whatever you want.”

As soon as she sent the text, the match started typing. the three dots kept popping up and down for a good amount of five minutes. Vanishing in the middle for couple times. The waiting was crucifying. Parul’s mind raced around to figure out what possibly could he be writing that takes so much time. After a while a sole word popped up.

“Bet”.

Parul was confused. All that typing to write just this? She didn’t know what to write back to this message. She thought for a bit, and typed out, “I don’t mind if you take me to dinner first though.” and hit send.

She immediately got the response from the app that “You can’t send messages to this person anymore”. It took a bit of time for Parul to realise she has been unmatched. Parul was angry now. Why bother writing something that you obviously don’t mean? She through her phone in frustration and decided to make herself a bowl of cereal. She kinda missed Labonno now. She really wanted to know how would Labonno react to this interaction. She hurried back to her phone again and picked it up to take a screenshot for reference. Then she realised the app deleted the chat as well when the dude unmatched. She was inside the chat window so the app couldn’t say anything to her face, but once she exited the app, it made sure to make it look like no such interaction occurred.

Parul went to the app store and gave the app a one star review out of spite. It was late. She needed to cook dinner. So she decided to be mature, and hurried off to peel vegetables. She was seething, but she was also looking forward to venting to Labonno.