OS: Forever and Always! (Page 34) - Page 24

Recapitulating her notes one last time, she carefully places them in her brown file embellished with her name engraved in calligraphy. She neatly places all her textbooks and rest of the files on top of the brown file at the very corner of the wooden study table and switches of the pink lamp. When she glimpses the wall clock hanging just above a collage of her family's pictures, she slaps her forehead at the sight.

It is about one in the midnight that she gets up from her chair and heads to her wardrobe which when opened showcases finest of pastel colored Churidaars with a mesmerizing collection of white and sky blue being the highlights. A lemon and white shaded dress, she picks out and neatly places at the rim of the couch.

There are a number of things formulating through her mind as she looks around in her perfectly set room, with everything in place and all ready for tomorrow morning. She reminds herself that she is not going to turn up late for the morning lecture, anyhow. Totally blank in the head, she decides to hit the bed.

She covers herself in the blanket and hugs her knees inside. If at all, she is to sleep, she makes out that tonight is going to go the regular way for now that her mind feels void and there is nothing to keep herself busy, she comes to know that no way, she's going to avoid what is coming her way. She pushes her legs down and keeps her hands to the chest, closing her eyes.

Breathing heavily, like she is made to run around the city without a break like a superhero she senses a teardrop leaking out of her perfectly shut eyes and stopping at the bridge of her nose. Silence, as she always believes helps her let go and hence, she continues to let the tears flow without once moaning. And does not know when, falls asleep hugging the pillow.

A beam of light cuts through the darkness of the woods and falls on her brown-streaked long tresses. The sky, though unruffled is far from sight because the deep green creeping and crawling long branches of trees keep it veiled. The serene breeze regulating in the forest seems to be running itself across her hair and making the open strands fall right on her nose, disturbing her fine hazel-hued eyes.

With every step she keeps, she victoriously lets a smile play on her face which gradually digs deeper into her cheeks showcasing her dimples as she ends her journey from the dark out in the sunshine. She feels as though walking on a path of thorns, she is just above the ground giving an opportunity to her inhibition to be shed. She feels as if she had been in search of timeless harmony, an eternity of beauty and an immortal feeling of love which she now has attained.

Walking ahead on the path she chose for herself, she looks about if there were anybody to accompany her but in vain she essays. She looks about there again, but this time awing at the beauty of the morning sky and the aura that surrounds her. Giving way to an immense feeling of pleasure, she leaves far behind the pain that has always kept her haunted, and so on she walks with the memories of a loved one and only the loved in mind.

Pain is part and parcel of life, she believes and tries to revive the moments of pleasure that they had spent together. She marvels at that vivid a picture of friendship and attachment that forms in front of her eyes when she reflects back in time. With a heavy heart, she accepts that she has always tried to defy what she felt and again, the good feeling gets replaced with a dark and ugly feeling.

The feel which now acts on her is that of helplessness. She sits under a shadowy tree with her eyes closed. Every memory brings a different expression to her face. On the first day of high school that they first met, how he would always tease her that she would burst out crying. And all she could see would be, the same lad laughing even more obnoxiously.

When they first danced together at the night of the prom as young seventeen year olds, hefty and muscular he lifted her up in his arms while she felt she was attacked with some serious fit for his touch, made her feel a lot different, a lot weird and it was hard for her to overcome a feeling she knew nothing about.

When on the first day of college, he surprised her again with the anger glowing on his face seeing people scornfully eye at her. A person whom she believed had already crossed all due limits of insensitivity actually told her that she need not change herself for the new people she was around. That perhaps is the only time she felt he acknowledged her importance in his life. With every passing day, she recollects she found herself growing firmer with the same feeling and alas, she gets hit by the remembrance of that profane night which she never wishes to think about, ever in her life.

It was her twentieth birthday and she decided to let him know everything about the petty feeling she'd been troubled with. She was just to tell him when he pushed forth his heavy feet and reached the garden taking relatively faster steps as if wanting to escape the premises. On following him, she witnessed something she never had. There was this scarlet colored pain rising in his eyes, fat tears running down his cheeks and an unfamiliar name on his lips. From a world she was not aware of!

That was when she realized that she was never to get him, though she liberally let the feeling of empathy and oneness that they shared that night seep into her. She let his touch; his sorrow and his mournful cry become a reason for her soul to rejoice, for he had let out the sensitive young man in him to her, punching his way through the loutish exterior. Holding her hands to his face, he mourned all night perhaps for the first time, indifferent to her condition.

Needful of a hug, when he felt content in her abode, she let out a sigh and caressed his back. She knew what the petty feeling was now and everything seemed much clearer. However pained and cut within she felt still, she understood that the pain was part of her life. And he was whom she lived for. Even though, he overcame the sorrow the very next day and outshined everybody displaying his dimples yet again, he himself figured out that he brought about an irrevocable change to her.

To see him happy, she would essay as much as she could. To help him understand calculus again, she would not sleep all night! She never tried getting over, for she always believed in making most of the time she had and not wasting it, anyway. Life was the same though accompanied with a little change. She was his, forever and always!

Her cell phone beeps and wakes her up. Going through all the birthday messages left, she jumps out of the bed and as she stands in front of the mirror, she wishes herself a happy birthday.