An Embrace.

An embrace is sometimes all that we need. Breathing and melting into it, drowning into its sadness. Maybe, or maybe not ? Else, how do you manage to get past the enormous loss of a loved one. It is a tad bit uncouth, although I don't know whether on God's part or destiny's. This month, 3 of my students at the school have lost their fathers. I won't say I know what kind of a storm is whirling inside them, because I don't. Their loss is humongous and I can't even begin to imagine what pain they must be going through. Living through a time like this at an age where football seems to be the most important thing in the world is unfair. I don't know whom to blame, but what I do know, is that nobody deserves to go through a time like this. Just the thought of losing anybody around me makes my eyes water. They say, its just a phase, I don't trust them. How can you get past a phase where somebody loved you more than their own lives ? How do you forget your first super hero ? How do you gather the strength to make it all seem better when clearly it won't ever be the same ? Nobody can.

I pray for them and wish them all the best in life.

Closure

She could not operate machines. Not then. Not now. She always alleged Technology eats away the little joys that make me happy. Squinting into the wide screen with eye brows meeting in the middle and typing around the haphazard arrangement of alphabets gave her liquid pain across her cheeks and an acute sting in her skull.  She preferred pens, ink pens, for their sheer simplicity and beauty. She loved filling them with ink when they ran out of it.

She took out her aged diary, dotted with tiny speckles of her daughter's mischief, picked up her pen and started doodling little hearts in red ink at the torn corners of the page. It brought back memories. Memories of happier times. Memories of innocent smiles. Memories of him, and them. One abstract thought, and she tore the page off. That painting hung in her living room for a very long time now but ironically it was a metaphor today. The sky had stopped pouring. The dew drops wanted to fall off the frail stem, demanded closure, but something kept them desperately dangling.

A tear fell, hot as acid, and scarred the flimsy white.

Nostalgia won. Again.

She wrote. And then, some more.

She could not find it in her heart to forgive him for dying on her. She felt cheated. He promised to grow old with her and watch bad TV throughout the day's length. Why did he have to break it ? Time moved too fast for her to keep up with its pace. They said it'll be painful for a few months and then her life would adapt itself to this subtle change. Why hadn't her pain subsided ? Four long, wistful years had rolled by. Hadn't she suffered enough ? These questions itched her fate and she couldn't scratch it. Once again, there were no answers. She didn't know what to feel anymore. It was a tiring task. Right and wrong agreed with each other. Her face broke into infrequent tremors of grief, pain and wishful longing.

She too needed closure and somehow it hid itself well.

A sudden squeak of wood against the floorboards and a barely audible thud. Her husband was home. She could hear him hang his trench coat behind the door. She had been a faithful, loving wife to her husband all these years yet somehow she cursed herself for betrayal, a part of her cried for a different destiny, mourned the irreparable loss, everyday.

She got up and hid the brown diary back into its place.  

Life is a Dance [55Fiction #4]

They said 'Dance isn't your cup of tea'.
I retorted 'Life is a dance and I will live it gracefully'.

The eager reporter left and she waltzed around the room with her last performance, glimpses of her first ran inside her head.
The woman in the mirror was proud of her and nothing else mattered.

***

-- Dedicated to Tao Porchon-Lynch. A dancing star at 94.

Happy Birthday [55Fiction #3]

"53 years of marriage and you still remain the most beautiful woman who has ever walked this earth for me"
 His wrinkles accompanied his signature cheshire smile.

"Sir, your coffee, less milk, no sugar".

"Happy Birthday sweetheart"

He pressed the picture to his lips and with two neat folds, kept it back into his wallet.

Painful Escape

This is the diary entry of a 41 year old woman who wants to walk out of her marriage of 20 years, away from Tanuj, the man who never loved her, and into the arms of Akash, the man who acquainted her with true love. Her twin daughters have made it clear that if she does so, she will be a childless woman for the rest of her life.


Dear Diary,

I haven't written you in a long while now. and I've truly missed you. Its time, its time for me to make a decision. My stomach is clenching even as I am writing this, its like somebody is rolling a dough inside it. Its a hard dough. My girls, they are merely 19. Would it be the right thing to do at this time ? I can't afford to lose their love, their warmth, if at all they have some for me. It all feels wrong, and right, both at the same time. I have never been this confused in my entire life. And if I don't make a choice now, my heart will grieve till eternity. Akash has given me all the support and love I was expecting from Tanuj, I had rented my heart and soul to this marriage, but it just isn't working. You are such a patient listener. I wish you could drop a word of advice in desperate times like these.

Silence is engulfing me from all sides, its making me nauseous, its becoming hrad hard to write. See there, I made my first spelling mistake in you. Is this pen trying to humor me ? But I can't stop. It all has to escape my system and pouring it down into the depths of your diaphanous pools of white paper is my only rescue plan.


Last night Tanuj came to my bedroom around 1am. I was wide awake. I sat upright and he sat next to me cupping my hands in his. I thought he was going to lure me into staying or beat me into the argument 'How did you even think of such a thing' but his words were the last things I was expecting out of him at that hour.


He said 'When you first told me about Akash, I was writhing with pure rage. The man in me felt defeated, as if his manhood was being raped off and he could do nothing about it. My wife was falling for another man and I was just a spectator watching the proceedings. But I've been thinking about it since past one week and your facts still hold their truth firmly in place. Why did we never realize that we were falling out of love ? When did it happen ? We have been sleeping in different bedrooms since a decade now. I dismissed this earlier using the excuse 'Everybody needs their own space'. I was such a fool. Anyway, I came today to tell you that you shouldn't stay because of the fear of this society or our girls. They seem to have taken more from me, they will live. I have never given you the love,the care and the support a woman deserves from her better half. I've failed you miserably but now, when somebody else is making you happy, I will support your decision. I owe you that much.'


He said the last words slowly, meaning every syllable of it. He didn't wait for my reply and strode out of the room. I was left dazed. These words were as close as Tanuj had ever got to my heart in these 20 years of our marriage.


But as I'm writing you right now, Tanuj's words are making more and more sense. Why should I worry about this hypocrite society when they don't care one bit for me ? They don't know what I've been through. I dare them to walk a mile in my shoes and then return to have a balanced argument. I have lived 20 years succumbing to my parent's will and 21 years to the man who never loved me. If I have to make a decision it has to be now. Or never.


I'm leaving you unfinished today. The next time I write you, I will be a happy woman.
And by the way, my first wrinkle started to surface today.


Love.