Part 1
The fate in my hands is a cluster of cracks
My Beloved is the sole truth, I -the false whacks
My Beloved of the Mighty grace
My Beloved, My Love!
Around my camel's neck,
as the caravan bells ring
I embark to seek His fling
My Beloved of the Mighty grace
My Beloved, My Love!
~ Lover's don't finally meet somewhere ~ They're in each other all along ~
Rumi
There was no escape for her, not even for her gritty eyes as the vision of the endless sand refused to fade away in them. Harsh reality don't fade away, it keeps you as a prisoner until you start to fade away in it's cruel prison, she thought tiredly as her knees gave way beneath her. But hope just won't let me sacrifice myself to that harsh reality will it, it will keep on pushing me to be punished by a far greater downfall, she thought as tears burned behind her sand encrusted eyes.
Exhausted, she fell back on the soft bed of sand which would soon become her grave, she had thought tiredly, letting her unfocused gaze focus on the huge red, purple and orange dunes which rose before her, stretching for miles like an army of giant masqueraders forming a battle line.
The same dunes which had been in the vast picture covering the wall of her apartment at Emmanuel Road near Cambridge University UK. How she had fought with him to take that blasted picture away from the wall of her bedroom, because she had wanted to hang the painting of a flower vase there.
He had been annoyed with her bossy tune but had demanded that she must tell him a reason to dislike that picture. After all a painting or a picture is just a piece of artwork and there shouldn't be any reason to dislike one. She had replied him that those sand dunes gave her creeps at night, with the way they looked so real in the picture, as if they were warning the dwellers to not hope at all for their life if they somehow got lost in between them. And she didn't want to lose herself...
At her strange reply he had stared at her as if she had answered in an alien language, a bewildered look had been covering on his face. And when she had really taken that picture off from the wall, he had stormed away slamming the door behind him with such force that a loose window pane had crashed to pieces on the floor...
But when he had come back she had been nursing her injured foot which had taken the direct hit as the heavy sand dunes picture had fallen over it while she was taking it off from the wall. But more than her foot her ego had been bruised badly. And he had understood well that why she was avoiding his eyes so he had taken the swab of cotton from her hand and had quietly went on cleaning the one inch gash on her foot.
But she hadn't been able to shut her big mouth and had told him between sobs that he must have cursed that picture. He had retorted back that maybe the picture didn't like to be removed and then had added with a devilish grin that maybe the picture was alive just as she had said and had resorted to punish her for disliking it.
At his horrible joke which she had told him later was the most horrible joke of century, she had lifted the cushion from the settee and had started to beat him up with it. The stupid devil had been laughing so hard all the while that tears of mirth had started to fall from his eyes...
Her anger spent she had burst into laughter too and thus that was the end of their stupid fight on the picture of sand dunes...
"Arnav, that picture must have really been pissed badly", she whispered and started to laugh hysterically, the avalanche of her laughter too pitiful to disturb the vast valley of dunes, as she lay exhausted between them. Water, she thought dizzily while heaving great gulps of sandy air.
She shouldn't have laughed, she must preserve her energy for her travel, she thought running her tongue over her dry cracked lips. She took out the water skin from her bag and shook it hard over her open mouth inorder to receive the steady stream of water. But to her consternation only a few droplets were able to fall into the thirsty desert of her mouth.
And then it dawned on her with a forbidding thought that she had been travelling before, but now she was really stranded and there won't be anyone coming to her rescue, not even Arnav , this time she had truly lost him...
Picking up the sand in her fingers, she watched the silicon particles glinting like silver in the setting sun, and then closed her fist around it to hold it, just as she had tried to hold on to Arnav. As her exhausted mind started to shut down the last thought in her mind had been about Arnav to whom she still hadn't confessed her love and now it was too late. She had let him go and he had went away, leaving her like the sand which was now sliding through her enclosed fingers.
He had been like this sand, falling even through her enclosed fingers. The more she had tried to held on to him, the more he had been slipping away from her. She had forgotten his inheritance, forgotten that he was unlike any other common man. Even if he had been the prince of her heart, in reality he had been a real prince too, the prince of Bedouin tribes of Yemen...
He had responsibilities, duties and still he had loved her, loved her enough to ask if she could be his queen and she had been too arrogant then, proud that a prince had fallen in love with her. She had told him to choose between hic country and her lifestyle and he had simply answered no...
She had shouted at him, called him a coward, a miser and all the time he had been silently listening to her raging at him and when she had spent herself and had broke out into huge sobs, pleading him to stay with her as she was afraid to live with him in the desert, which to her would be a totally strange place filled with strangers...
He had crumpled the soft silk of her hair in his hands, while consoling her. And then she had lifted her head away from his chest telling him to let her clean her face, as she looked like a balaclava while crying. He had laughed at her then, telling her that she must be joking as she looked like a baby oyster rather than a balaclava.
She had mock punched him on the chest at his rude joke, breaking into giggles as she had known that he wasn't the man to whisper sweet nothings into her ears. Arrogance and stubbornness came easily to him, the heritage of his Arabian mother and he was known to have a fat ego too, especially where she was concerned...
But she had still loved him, every inch of his arrogant self as he had loved all of her selfish self...
"Arnav where are you?, See I am dying here, crying for you", a weak sob escaped through her bruised lips. She hadn't the strength left to even cry now. Once she had asked him that a good man didn't make his woman cry so why did he always make her cry? In reply he had bared his teeth wolfishly and had started to tickle her, saying that he was a very bad man and loved seeing her looking like a boiled potato, a very delicious potato to be indeed. She had dissolved into mindless shrieks and the tickling had soon transformed into a heated lovemaking. As it did every time they would fight with each other...
Once she had asked him that why did he always kiss or initiate lovemaking when they both would be angry and snapping each other's head off. Winking he had replied why not conserve the energy for making love instead of wasting in mindless tittles tattle. And he had also added to her consternation, that she usually becomes more energized in lovemaking after having a fight, so making her angry had it's own benefit...
In answer she had playfully growled at him and had told him to get ready as she was feeling angry and wanted to relieve her frustration on him. He had meekly nodded his head in obedience, but when she had scooted near him he had at once rose like an avenger and had dragged her like lightning beneath him, tickling her to death and then giving her orgasm on top of orgasm until she had laid flat and meek beneath him with exhaustion clogging her mind and perspiration coating over her fine skin...
It takes two to tango. And a single touch, a single kiss of his would always succeed in blasting her powerful will to smithereens and as well in turn she would always make him surrender his will to hers...
Something wet fell across her lips and her facial muscles jerked at the sign of disturbance, but when she opened her gritty eyes to feel the cause of it, she found her eyes unconsciously dripping the last reserves of her pearly tears over her smudged cheeks, until they rolled down her jaw line to become one with the sand. "Please Arnav come back to me, I am regretting giving you up", she prayed for the sign of her beloved, but the billowing breeze that was creating dust whorls gave no sign of a tall stranger coming towards her.
The image of his tall lithe frame was etched in her mind's eyes as well as the vision of his caramel colored eyes which had shone with the brightness of these sand dunes under the sun when he would be angry and seething and turning to a warm honey when he would be watching her brush her hair with long strokes and the thought of his arrogant smirk when he would be feeling smug at proving her wrong all these things that she hadn't thout were important at that time would be cremated in the sand with her under the burning sun and object of those thoughts would never know that how much she had loved him to give up her life and come here in search of him, to become one with him...
She had missed him to death, when he had gone he taken her essence with him, leaving her without a soul, without a will to live. She had just existed but hadn't lived a single moment. He wasn't romantic at all, not a single sweet or cheesy bone inside him, but she had missed him as much as if someone would somehow forget to breath...
Once she had almost dragged him to France on a trip in their vacations, and had insisted on visiting every place that she had once dreamt about. From Louvre Museum, to the River Seine and from Eiffel Tower to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. On the way back home she had been reading Hunch back of Notre-Dame By Victor Hugo while sitting on the deck of the ferry which was taking them from Paris to London, when the need to talk about their experience had risen inside her.
Arnav had been silently sitting nearby her, his eyes staring into the infinite space and a hot mug of coffee had been held in his hands. She had asked him that what were his views on Eiffel Tower being a lover's point. He had answered flatly that for him it was just a huge steel structure nothing else. And she had admonished him for being unromantic and had called him a kill joy.
To which he had said no place could be called romantic if there was no love or honesty between hearts and every place could be named as a romantic one if the lovers would meet with love and honesty between them. "Ten out of ten Arnav Raizada", laughingly she had made a whooping sign. She couldn't deny that she had been really impressed by his answer...
She had to give him that he was honest even if he wasn't cheesy or romantic like other men. Even the thought of getting involved in any other man than him had left her cold that's why she had chosen him and that's what had impressed her that he wasn't like those sophisticated and gentlemen types who try to show how much they were romantic and faithful to their partner by whispering over the top filmy dialogues, showing fake concern while their inner nature would be even worse than an alligator.
Words hadn't come easily to him but as the saying goes actions speak louder than words so he had showed her through his actions that how much she had mattered to him...
She had gotten the true love from her Prince that is set by heavens to receive by lucky ones...
She had been that lucky one and she had rejected that gift...
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