ArShi OS: One Misty Morning

She scrambled up to the seat of the chair, her little, lithe body thrumming with excitement. Once there, she hoisted herself up on the wide ledge at the bottom of the window she had stacked the chair against and sat, breathing a little hard. Slowly, she knelt and leaned forward, grabbing the soft, lacy curtains and pulled them apart, looking down at the view below. Her mother had forbade her to climb on these ledges, knowing that the little ingenious girl would find one way or the other - and well, forbidding her anything was a sure way of making her do it, and now here she was, looking down upon the soft mist that hung heavy on the other side of the window, the winding road and sleeping conifers that lined its edge, a welcome sight. Ever since they had come to visit her grandmother who lived all by herself in this house tucked away in a hill-side, the little girl had never, not for once, been allowed to wander about, explore on her own. It was too dangerous, she had been told. This is not the place for you to be left alone.

She smiled to herself as a man on a bicycle went by, a stack of newspapers stuck behind him, the sound of his bell tinkling away. This was a lonely stretch of road, the end of a sharp turn, and she wondered how people could even dare to venture out on a mist-laden morning such as this one. One wrong move, and it would send you careening over the edge of the road. She shivered at the morbid thought and was about to pull the curtains close, after all, her mother could arrive any moment to find her in this precarious position, when she saw them - a young man and a woman, walking together.

Something about them made her pause in her actions. They were talking, and the woman laughed at something. She noticed that they were holding hands, and she smiled. Walking in the cold, sweeping mist early in the morning, only talking and laughing - how romantic, she thought. The tinkling of another bell caught her attention and she saw another man on a bicycle coming towards the couple. He was heading straight for them, she realized. She frowned and looked at the couple - they did not even seem to notice the man. As for the man himself, he was still on his collision course, apparently unaware of the people ahead.

She watched with wide eyes as the man neared the couple, each party just as oblivious of the presence of the other as before. She grabbed the handle on one window pane, ready to open it and holler, when she saw it happen.

The man reached the couple, his bicycle wheels wobbling and absorbing every bump of the road. The couple walked, the man now with his arm around his companion's waist. And in the next second, the bicycle approached and simply went through the woman's body.

The child's body froze as she saw the couple walk, unhurried, unsullied and the man on the bicycle simply look back once - but why did he, she caught herself thinking - when the woman began to turn. And with eerie accuracy, she looked up, directly at the window the little girl was looking from, who gasped and blinked. When her eyes opened and she looked down again, they were gone. There was no woman looking up at her, the street was empty but for the mist that continued to swirl.

She yanked the curtains shut with force, her heart-beat erratic, a strange prickly sensation running down her spine, from her neck right to her fingertips and in her hurry to escape, she tripped and fell to the floor with a loud thud but she picked herself up right away, ignoring the slight throb in her knee and scampered out of the room that suddenly felt too cold for comfort. She quickly made her way to the warm kitchen, its walls painted a bright yellow and found her grandmother bent over the counter, her baking gloves on. The elderly lady turned around in surprise as her granddaughter wrapped her arms around her, her head barely coming up to her waist.

'Oh dear me, what is it now, sweetheart? Did my Poppy frighten you again?' she asked, pulling off a glove and patting the little head that was still buried at her hip. The loving touch made the little girl look up and shake her head.

'It wasn't Poppy, Gramma,' she answered, referring to the black tabby cat that usually followed her Grandmother around. 'It was...'

Her grandmother glanced at her before pulling off the remaining glove and pushing her shaken granddaughter a little away to kneel before her, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind the child's ear.

'What was it, child?'

With her eyes as round as dimes and her eyebrows in danger of disappearing into her shock of curls, the child answered, '...ghosts.'

Her grandmother stared at her for a moment before giving her a small smile. 'And where might you have seen these "ghosts"? Have we been wandering off doing things we weren't supposed to?' The little girl looked down abashedly and wondered how Gramma always knew. She then felt a tug at her nose and looked up in time to see her grandmother standing up, using the ledge of the kitchen counter as support, her face showing signs of the slight exertion. She took her hand in one of her aged but soft ones and led her out of the kitchen. Finding the room where she knew her granddaughter had been, she entered and switched on the lights, although it was broad daylight. Sensing the girl's reluctance in coming in, the grandmother picked her up in her arms in one swift swoop and carried her to the window.

'Now, darling, tell me what happened?' she asked gently, placing her granddaughter on the wide sill, smiling reassuringly. The little girl looked up at the old, but serene face, her eyes wide as she recollected. She began speaking in hushed tones, trying not to look out of the window she sat against as her grandmother listened to her patiently.

***

She revelled in the feel of the calluses on his thumb, as he held her hand. It still felt the same after all these years, after the countless times their hands had joined, fingers intertwining.

"We should go back soon, she might grow anxious on not seeing you," he said, breaking her reverie. She smiled, thinking of the bundle of joy that was sleeping soundly by their bed, just as they had left her when they had slipped out quietly after she had slipped into slumber.

"Don't worry, Ma's there. I really needed to get some fresh air," said Khushi, sighing as she rested her head against his arm, a twinge of guilt running through her. She heard him chuckle and looked up to see him looking down at her. "What, Arnav?"

"Inspite of all your complaints, motherhood suits you very well," he said, before quickly tugging her nose lightly. Khushi squealed and moved away, hitting his arm. She grumbled as he pulled his hand out of her hold and brought it up to put it around her shoulders, drawing her close. Khushi quickly looked around although the road was empty at this time of the morning, foggy as it was.

"Khushi?"

"Hmm?"

"What would you want the inscription on your tombstone to read?"

She stared at him, wide-eyed. "What sort of a question is that?" Arnav shrugged and jerked his head to indicate her to look at the cemetery they were now walking past. Khushi rolled her eyes at her husband. He always had the strangest things to say.

"Hmm," she said, her voice sounding mock-thoughtful, "since you seem to be so eager to get rid of me, I think I'll share the inscription with you." Arnav looked at her from the corner of his eyes, something he did when he knew he had to maintain a straight face because he knew the next thing she said would have him laughing.

"I think it should say, 'Together, Forever, Free'." He never broke his stride but stared at Khushi with so much affection after the words were out of her mouth that she could do no more than reach up to clutch the hand that rested in her shoulder.

They were lost in each others' eyes, in their love, in the infinite idea of death - the screech of the jeep's tyres that swerved too hard at the corner ahead never registered until it was too late.

***

'Was it true, Gramma? Were they really ghosts? The cycle would have hurt them, if they hadn't been, isn't it?' the little girl asked, swinging her legs impatiently. Her grandmother stayed silent for a minute and looked steadily at her granddaughter, who felt compelled to look back unwaveringly. Her Gramma's gaze reminded her of Dumbledore's piercing stare, only her eyes weren't blue and she didn't have a beard so long, it had to be tucked in a belt.

As the unbidden thought of her Gramma wearing purple robes, bearded and bespectacled, came to her mind without warning, the little girl giggled and quickly clamped a hand on her mouth, looking up at her grandmother guiltily. Just as she was about to apologize, she heard a door open and close and her mother's voice filled the house.

'Mommy!' cried out the girl and jumped down from the sill, her grandmother's call of caution unheeded, all thoughts of potential ghosts forgotten as she ran to her mother. Her grandmother chuckled softly to herself and turned back to the window, tugging at the curtains to pull them apart. She looked down at the street below and tried to imagine the scene as her granddaughter had described. She stood motionless for a moment, before a bird flew down to the ledge of the window and sat down, the flapping of its wings startling her into reality. It looked directly at her with its dark, beady eyes, glinting with the moisture of the air in the dulled sunshine. The old woman smiled softly, the crinkles around her eyes deepening.

'Together, forever, free,' she said quietly, her voice almost a whisper. The words seemed to linger as she pulled the curtains close and turned around, and the bird flew away.

A/N:

Now, that you have read this story,

I leave it up to you.

Think, imagine, create a theory,

Of how this could be true.

(Do share your thoughts. ;) )