Chapter 17

Blithe

@nancy56

Faded#17


Memories don't fade. They are categorized. They play like a film in your consciousness, paining you or making you happy. They cause delusions, they replay reality. But remember that they never fade, that you are an infinite creation with infinite capabilities- and what you experience is your viewpoint, which can be altered only if you give it one last chance.

I brewed basil leaves in water, waiting for them to crack and transfer there healing powers in the water and then to my son. I could have read books that medicine students carried in their hands for short inferences in and out if I had the power to, it doesn't matter if I would slip on a physiology or anatomy term, or if I won't get lines written together- it would be about saving my son. 

'Shravan!!!' Kavita screamed, but before she could decide to pull out him altogether from his bedroom, he was running down the floor of the mini duplex with Suman in the queue. It's never better to make your mum wait- whether you are a lousy teenager or an Army Major.



'You won't believe what Avinash did back there, berries and eggs, mashed up. He came up with a bizarre idea of gaining calories.' Shravan laughed at the memory.

'Not that I will hate to taste it, but still wasn't it, um- G-R-O-doubleS?' Suman folded her nose in surprise.

'If that seems gross, then don't ask me what I did to them, I boiled cardamom and aesophoetida, made them take it with green tea leaves, and we didn't have anything to segregate the leaves. So practically it was sticking back in their necks and they hated me, but I made them drink it for 7 days straight until we had a real tea supply.' Shravan remembered his own recipe which had no interest in anybody's taste.

'That seems healthy though.' Suman balanced the teacups and Kavita sat on the chair with her son.

'I would trade my heaviest jewel, but won't drink that thing ever.' Kavita huffed focussing on the new basil tea she had prepared. 

'Ouch!' Shravan voiced, followed by a chuckle.

'Take a sieve next time. It's handy.' Suman advised, slipping some tea in her mouth.

'That shall be your responsibility, I hope you take over soon. My son hardly gives two cents of attention to my instructions.' Kavita eyed Shravan until he started making circles on the table cloth.

'That's just an attempt to defame my..' Before Shravan could complete Suman nodded her head and accepted the responsibility. 

'He barely can get his wits together, for a good personal life.' Suman concluded as a matter of fact.

'Then marry my son.' Kavita let the words sink until Suman choked on her tea and Shravan raised his hands in suspension.

'Hold on! Hold on!' he got up from his seat 'I am still here I guess, I am not invisible, am I ?' He questioned with his arms crossed around his chest. He bent down a bit, murmuring in his mother's ears 'You are taking away my chance?' 

'So, you think of proposing to her after 253633378329 years? The proposal of love and wars are in the open. I was just giving you a push.' Kavita mumbled in her son's eardrums, as he looked at her as if she were an alien. 

'What have you done to my mother?' he asked Kavita as she rolled her eyes.

'You don't know how your father and I got married, do you?' She laughed and Shravan did see something extraordinary in her- which he had carried all his life- the transparency and honesty of carrying love for the ones he cared. It's just that he had buried it deep inside him.

----------

'7 years ago' Shravan felt his eyes moving in a thin liquid 'I found someone who could linger in my senses all the time without a second's halt.' He stood on his one knee corresponding to the arm that had fractured. 

that's dangerous Suman lipsed, laughing a bit. 

Shravan shook his head in a no. 'I have been too late in realizing that it won't change, even if the earth stopped spinning. I have been too late in realizing that the girl was responsible for all my accolades, for the job I am doing and can't leave till the day I am done. So, Suman Tiwari, how would you like to be present in every second of my life, to stand by me and allow me to stand by you? To et me clap the hardest on your every reward, and to let my children grow under your shade? Will you marry me?'


Suman couldn't help but shiver in happiness. She could feel the ground beneath her crack in heaven. The man who stood in front of her was the prince not in disguise but war bruises, who surely rode the horse of her dreams. At this, she felt that her legs shall go all wobbly, that it could be fatal to stand and not pass out in happiness.

'Yes! Yes! Yes!' she shrieked and could hear Kavita Malhotra clap the like a room fool of audience howling.

Happiness can't be measured or can it be? 

Shravan rolled his head, flashed the brightest grin he could. Seconds later, he closed his eye and pouted- or as for Suman, the cutest he could behave - he mouthed -'I don't have a ring..' 

Suman could have given him, her right arm if it was needed to seal this proposal. She was speechless, her words making a hurricane in her mouth, but she could barely get over with them. 

She lifted him, with one of his hands, and jumped in his embrace whispering an I don't care a damn!

'I love you! I love you! I love you!' She announced like a hymn, the more she said it out loud, the more pious she felt. 

Rings, diamonds, rubies, and sapphires could be traded in cents for something so unearthly, like her lover's arms. She could feel revolving around the world, maybe spinning too, if it all hadn't stopped for a standstill.

-------------------------------
Epilogue- Scroll down~