The Last Vestiges Of Love.
The absence of his alleged soul-mate and lover had made him more solitary. He brushed off the timidness and decided not to allow the sadness hegemonize his happy demeanor but it was never an effortless task. Because you do not cease loving someone all of a sudden. Its funny. How loving someone can be so awful yet desirous. To love someone wholeheartedly-- with every heart beat and frizzle of your chest, to possess security in their proprietorial attitude regarding you, to finally trust someone enough to open up and share with them your morning coffee, Sunday's indolence, your favorite novels, your phobias, your faith, your warm blanket-- is to be whole and happy. To offer someone your secrets and loyalty without any second-guessing.
To forage for the same love in their eyes and to look them in the eye only to see their inevitable death lurking back at you and to shake your head in denial of the truth, the proved. To scare it away. This much love. This much havoc-- accentuating your deep seated fear of rejection. To know they won't disappoint you and yet enduring the disappointment like a star, a musketeer and to apparently come unscathed of the momentary betrayal only to see it turn into a perpetual act. To readily repeat the awful task of loving them the second they failed you. Its all so funny yet so desirous.
He too had underwent the process of placing someone else before himself. Their love seemed perdurable and it was but that wasn't the case with their intimacy. He learned to step out of the house for dinner alone. Sometimes, he would put on his blue shirt that she gifted him on his 25th birthday and an ironed trouser. His dinners at the nearby hotel were lone yet so rejuvenating. They reminded him of the diners they had together and the time when he thrived on solitude. He was back in his shell. His dependency of solitude halted with her introduction in his life. Now once again without solitude he was like a man without sustenance. The darkness of the room and the sheer silence soulfulness was like the sunlight to him. Emptiness had embraced him so tightly that it became suffocating but it was in that stifling moment that he found protection, once again and like always. Yet he wasn't happy being back.
Although he realized the sense of security that sadness gave him, which was not available in ecstasy and other highly regarded sensations for they were ephemeral. When in love with her, he lived with constant fear of the worse to happen. He feared losing her. The incongruous diners made him slightly happy. He now could eat without paying attention to her attire and without complimenting how the makeover made her look even more gorgeous. Or without expressing his love for her. Because of the dignity of his clothes it did not seem as if he was eating alone. It was as if he is waiting for someone to join him.
Yesterday when he paid a visit to the old secondhand bookstore, the dust from the abandoned novels left streaks on the forearms and made the former smoker cough wheezily. He had quit smoking on her insistence and didn't smoke in continuance as an acclamation to his love. Under the red tile roof, with a somewhat filthy cat meowing piteously in the veranda, he thought of all of the books that they shared or read and recommended to one another.
He loved those moments when rather than focusing on the reading she'd pause and look at him, his lip-movement, her eyebrows creased symbolizing a woman darning a tear. He would look up at her and would want the time to pause as they would have an eye lock. It didn't and now, as he stood in the bookstore, the winters broke through precipitation as heavy snowfall and the bookstore owner switched on the heater. These memories constituted a part in his memory that unlike other castigated lovers he cherished and yearned never to fade away.
Those memories were dear to him. They were lucent like the moon that overshadowed the horizon in pitch darkness. They were fiery smithereens of magma radiating the carrier-- depicting the love and fire that he possessed. That day a wallow in nostalgia reminded him of their love. Fleeting but worthy of the pain that he had to endure.
Her life in the big bold city was a complete dichotomy of that of his in the town. It was tempestuous and dazzling. A foreign language, drinking in the bar, neon lights, the delirium of being surrounded by numerous malls and bars, finding anonymity in the throng-- she had blended in well. She wrapped 'em all up like a sheathing against her memory. Some nights at the bar, the blustery wind howling outside like a lone wolf, she thought of him. Their trips to the nearby nightclub and drinking themselves to oblivion. Their deep meaningful conversations. The love-making. The wilderness.
She would wonder, sitting beside him in the balcony, the birds flattering their wings, enunciating something inexplicable, and the thick white clouds trudging through the sky, how prodigiously he could unknowingly control the disaster that resided in his soul and love her passionately.The choice to leave was hers. She owned it, regretted it and yet was proud of it. She had dreams to achieve. Places to belong.
Some evenings at the subway, in anticipation of her station, she'd fall asleep and would wake up, before her destination, thinking of a particular book they shared, its affinity indecipherable and durable. She would get down at the park, seizing obscurity in the crowd, freeing herself from the fragile and vestigial self that she discovered in his afternoon touch. These memories tempted to throttle every single ambition of hers.
These were the last vestiges of their love. Their hearts had withstood the ravages of time and were still bleeding but they were beating too signalizing letting the past go. Their monopolizing melancholia had left a seemingly perpetual void but his solitude and her ambition had remunerated for the years they spent weltering each other's absence, whipped up by the turbulence in their hearts.
Author's Note: I understand FanFictions' section is for those writers who write something based on any couple and that certainly isn't the case with my story because I have never been able to associate myself and my writing with Indian couples. I just wanted to publish this here and I did. I hope you'd give feedback with candor. Edited by .enigma - 10 years ago
All things Korean
Ganesh Kartikeya
Anupamaa
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