An incomplete picture

I don’t know why we forget how happy we were, how much we loved each other and how perfect we found the world to be. Perfection isn’t a perfect word after all. We loved, got bored and decided to move on, to track back our derailed life.

We parted sweetly yet sometimes we remembered how once we thought we would be together forever. We smiled and did what we had to but missed each other when walking in lonely alleys with no umbrellas it rained down on us. Yes, we wished someone was waiting for us with umbrellas in the bending. It was a wistful thought that took us as afar as our door steps with smiles.

A cup of coffee and a little jazz put us to sleep. Suddenly in the middle of the night, a chilly breeze woke us up. We locked up our open windows and embraced our cozy blankets. The next morning, life was a new leaf. We forget each others lost company and stopped feeling melancholic. In the middle of another month and we were back where we had parted with a glass of gin in our hands watching the trees in our garden drenching in rain.

But we were afraid to complete the incomplete picture we decided to hang in our hearts. We had parted happily and a re union would spoil perfection. There were a dozen other things to do than bask in the joy of an ex lovers smile. There were noisy relatives, boisterous neighbors, never ending business assignments, music and yes parties where you drank so much you always ended in a new bed. Time flew and we were happy, the pictures we had of each other seemed to be fading. We danced to tunes we once had danced together. We could even watch the movies we watched together crying on each other shoulders without feeling a thing. We were finally moving on. Just then someone rang our doorbells. We were surprised at the sudden intrusion in our fun. We hurriedly opened our doors to find each other looking into each others eyes. We stumbled and realized it was someone else. They reminded us of each other. We welcomed them in to our lives. The light in their hair, their voices reminded us of what we once used to be. We made life long commitments and walked the aile. We waved at the world and yet before we said ‘I do’ we closed our eyes and saw each other.

Days became months and months were years. We welcomed new souls into our lives and cultivated our dreams in their eyes. We laughed when they did and cried silently when they were ill. They grew up and reminded us of ourselves. They loved, were hurt, broke down and we tried helplessly to soothe them with words. Then someone walked in to their lives and the tears stopped. There was music everywhere-wedding bells. We joined in the celebration and danced until we realized we were young no more. More happiness followed with the sprouting of little buds in our family tree. We couldn’t help being proud and happy no doubt. Our age struck the time bell and we knew it was time to leave. Lying on our death beds we looked out of the window with satisfaction at the setting sun. Our life was well lived but before leaving we wanted to take the best memory with us. We observed the fading rays of the sun and all we remembered was each other. Along with our best memory, we closed our eyes and promised ourselves that next time we would never paint an incomplete picture.

(P.S: Thanks to zade for the two pictures)

Moving on: The second time around

Deception.The word was not new, but it had a new meaning for me now. My feet turned cold and I was sweating. I stood fixed to the ground, unable to move. I don’t know how long I stood there in that awkward position. I remember Harry taking me by the shoulder to my bedroom. As night enveloped the sky, the room grew dark. My eyes took sometime to attune to the darkness.

He asked me, “Are you hungry?”

I did not answer. And then he crossed the room to turn on the lights, hesitated, and walked out of the room saying, “Take care. It’ll take some time, but you’ll be alright.”

The bed was stone cold, and yet I could feel something burning inside me. The streetlights cast shadows against the windows. Every time a vehicle drove by, its lights illuminated the room, instigating flashbacks of the time I spent with her.

I loved her, and knew I always would. But why did she leave me? For whom and for what? I should have seen it in her eyes — the desperation and irritation every time I talked to her about having children. She turned away and said, “I’m not ready yet.”

She had even started smoking again, a habit she had given up after we were engaged. She was so happy the day we were engaged. Was it all a lie, all those sweet promises? Those vows we made with each other — “We’ll give our lives to fulfill them!” What did I not know then? And even if I had, would I ever have risked wooing her anyway?

I was an insomniac, but now I knew I would be a depressed insomniac. That night was only a preview to other sleepless nights I would confront. I stopped visiting my friends. The shame was too much for me to bear.

We were named the perfect couple among all our friends. Our married life was perfect. I was the loving husband and she was the ideal homemaker.

But she had secret desires I never knew about. She had fallen out of love with me and felt “caged” — that was what she wrote to me in that little note, leaving it with Harry, my next-door neighbor. She was going away on a trip with a friend. She would not be coming back to me and did not wish that we should ever meet again, either.

Did I even know the person who wrote the note? Was it the same woman who welcomed me in her arms everyday?

Deception : Source

Preordained by love

“Why have you come here?”
“I don’t know.”

No one speaks for sometime after that. She gets up from the chair and walks to the window. As usual, the ugly contaminated river is making its way under the bridge past the pubs. But today the river looks more impure, a reminder of her own miserable life. Sheila’s drunken voice echoes in her head.

“No one can fall in love with us – no one. All men are the same, each one with his imperfections and woes. They don’t come to us like they say that they’re lured by our beauty, but to pour their lust on our bodies. We are but toys in their hands. Diseased and jailed in this trade, we aren’t meant to have a life; only survive on the Rupees they throw at us to quiten our hungry stomachs.”

The man in the room, however, hasn’t touched her but claims to love her – which is even worse.