Another train rumbles beside the young. Another bag of ideas, feelings, passions belonging to the passengers travelling in the comfortable chairs, who read the newspaper in a moment of relaxation, who animatedly calling the colleague, who collapsed in beautiful and unreal dreams, who looks thoughtfully out of the window. Another wagon moves the air beside the boy and his coat flapped excitedly, for the wind.
So he felt the young man: kidnapped from distraction, the feeling of loss that was corroding his soul hasty, joyous and confident in the future. A mood that had belonged to him but he didn't remember where or when. A personality now lost, as he had lost his will to live.
Now he wanted nothing more than letting go, being carried by the crowd. He just wanted to take the first train passing by and leaving that city full of bitterness and painful memories, leave behind the previous life, to start a new, found a different existence, which shouldn't have anything to do with what had made him suffer so much.
The much awaited train came in front of him, the doors opened as a tempting invitation to climb, probably without a way back.
He bent to take the few things that he took with him: a luggage. The only real object, which would never abandoned him: the album full of her drawings, given him for Christmas, a book where he notes everything, the poems and stories composed in a moment of pure inspiration, and some clothes and a book, published a couple of years ago. It was full of underlines and comments, not belonging to the young. The notes belonged to her, the girl who had taken possession of his heart. The girl who had stolen it, broken it , reduced it to so many and sharp pieces of glass, depriving him to the joy of living.
He still remembered clearly the talks that they made at night, lying on the soft carpet in the light of candles that she loved so much. They talked about everything: parents, the study, politics. But also of life: how the fate could change by simply following the will of its protagonist. How the simple flame of hope could inspire the hearts and how the stars, so tiny, imperceptible to the human eye, could contain so much light. He as student of Physics explained the combustion of those huge masses of fire in a technical way. Yet she preferred not to believe it. "Why the people deny the hope that, beyond the sky, there is an enchanted universe?" she used to say, absorbed in her reveries. Yes, she dreams so much. She adored how the magic could penetrate in her mind and win her heart. Yeah, they were happy together. A particularly unreal happiness.
She wrote and drew almost every day in the afternoon, when they didn't go to school.
She painted and sketched everything from small aspects of daily life, like a cup of coffee next to a croissant or an old sweeping the dry leaves in front of his house, her dreams of fantastic characters such as fairies and colorful and sparkling petals. Flowers.
The young man closed his eyes as if that little nuance had planted in the chest, such as sharp as the spear of a knight. She loved to paint flowers. Her room, he had visited so many times, was overflowed of drawings, portraits made with such precision that it seemed so real. Often, he said that if the drawings had been transformed into words, she would be the biggest writer of all time. He had told so often that convinced her to start writing.
She was successful, the year before. He convinced her to send the script to his own publisher. "So we share everything" she told him. "Both dreams and realities."
He had really believed in those words. He had believed for a further twelve months. Until just over three days before, the world that was already planned for three years they were together, had suddenly collapsed, collapsing under his own feet, messy and destroyed, killed by those too sick eyes of love.
The wagon's door was still open. He doesn't care where he was going. The only important thing was to leave that gloomy city, now deprived of that cheerfulness which had animated it only three days earlier. Move away from the city, from she and from the other.
The other. The boy clenched his fists, but he found the strength within himself to tremble with rage. He felt so empty and inert, a book without pages, a sky without stars. Standing there, like an automaton, a robot, cold and mechanical as he was before meeting her.
He had gone to take his sister Sameera, that day in mid-September where all began, a small girl of fourteen that morning were excited for the first day of school. He waiting for the bell, he was placed on the wall opposite the school, trying to resolve a complicated problem assigned for the summer, which he had not yet had time to fix it. A voice had reached his ear.
"It seems rather boring." To speak was a girl: she with thick curly and blacks hair, pale face and black eyes. She stared at him intently, as if they were fighting. Intensity and obstinacy.
But he had remained calm. "No, but it's exciting," he replied, looking straight into her eyes. "But I bet you, you don't understand."
"Understand what?"
"The meaning of these numbers. Naturally for you are nothing than a mesh of calculations without any logic." He didn't know why he had said so. Usually he was always nice to pretty girls. Maybe he was just curious of her reaction.
"But I understand it perfectly. You may be surprised to see my grades in math. But unfortunately, I haven't understood the soul of numbers. "
"The soul?"
"All things have a soul. Books. Flowers. Shoes. They all have the mission to express something. But after all these years in which I studied mathematics, I still haven't understood the message numbers. Numbers are just cold, chilly, mechanical. It also makes icy the soul of the people who study them. "
He shook his head. "You're crazy. You live in fantasy. The only thing that has a soul in this world, then that is the only one, is the human being. "
"Maybe" she had pondered his answer politely. "But in the end, what fun is in living in a world without fantasy?"
And so she had left him, his brow furrowed and his brain went into breakdown before her smell that had taken possession of the air he breathe.
She was gone. They were then met again and each of the two of them had been smart enough to understand that despite the different world view, they were made for each other.
However, things had changed. And he still didn't know what he was doing wrong.
Now, the only thing he wanted was to find the strength to get on the damn train, shut the door behind him and order to his legs to stop shaking so convulsively. He couldn't stand this. But how could he do if he could not even silence the incessant bang that beat against his chest?
He just stares at the suitcase. He put one foot on the step.
The door closed and the train whistled one last time.
***
She ran. Ran. Staggering ran, stumbling over her feet, panting and sweating, although it was barely dawn and the sun shines just the little timid buds of spring flowers.
She ran with her black and shiny eyes, black hair in the wind, carried by the present voracious which also kidnapped the tears just flowed.
People, noise, crowd. Only confusion, and nothing else. She had always hated those places, crowded with people crammed onto each other, resembling a pack of hungry animals. Hungry for what, then? Money? Yes, that was the answer. Money, money, money.
But for now, she had something else to think. She refrained from that disgust and ran and ran till collapse
He was there. The door was closing. A flap of his jacket had just disappeared.
"Arjun!" cried the young. "Arjun, please! Listen to me! "
Whistle. Puffs of steam. The train had just started to move.
She had never been a lover of sport; in fact, most of the time was so embarrassed to even stumble on her own feet. But that was a matter of life or death.
She plucked up courage and ran on her slender legs, ran as she had never done in her life. She ran behind the train, even when the platform there was more. She ran to see him to explain. The story could not end well. It couldn't, simply. No. She would not permit it.
She was almost on the terrace in the back of the train. The eye's curious were watching her from all sides. She ignored them.
"You can do it" she said, panting, You can do it. A final push ...
A hand, strong, sturdy and warm grabbed her and help her to hoist on the terrace. "Arohi? But are you crazy? "
Arohi. How nice to hear her name uttered by those lips! So tender, so sweet ...
She slumped sitting on the floor, breathing with delight. A few minutes passed, where the only sound that her ears could hear were the roar of the train, the roar of the wind, and her moan without force.
"Arjun ..." she whispered. He looked at her. Not with cruelty, or toughness, not with a vengeful flame that flared up in irises. He looked her. Simply.
How much she loved that look! Until a few days before it was full of tenderness, swarming of love, so passionate to make break her heart to be the object of his desire. Then he had arrived. The other. One man without ideals, without fortitude. A brute, that was it! Wretched to the core.
" I'm Sorry ..."
That look was walled indifference. It was so bad ... His mouth said nothing.
"He has ..."
There were no words to explain. Chiku.He was a schoolmate of hers, without any doubt, one of the most fascinating guys, who believed themselves the best just because some girls fainted behind their shadows. He asked her to date each other. She rejected, trying to explain that she was already with him, the only love of her life. His eyes were bright with fury. Then ...
Arohi shook her head, the tears flowed unchecked, a flood in a September night.
He continued to stare her. His face didn't betray any emotion. He was like when she had known him. As every student in each high school. Silence. Thoughtless. Insensitive.
"Please ..."
He stood up. The door slammed in her face and went back in her wagon. And she stayed there, the tears didn't stop, the hands that had begun to tremble. She even not found the strength to rise. Not even the words to explain. Not even the desire to oppose the decision.
She stayed there, a bundle of indecision, defeat and unreality.
Because this time it was over...really.
***
Six years later
A boy named Aryan was playing with friends in the courtyard. They were running around in the yard of his home, under the watchful eyes of parents, who observed them, proud, from the balcony flowers of spring.
Aryan ran, happy, free as air, carried by the wind and the flowers in bloom.
"Time out!" He heard screaming. He turned. A girl, named Meera, was tripped on a root and had skinned her knee. She was crying.
"Oh, no," Priya said, observing the wound. "We have to disinfect it."
"I'll take care of you Meera" Aryan assured her, taking her hand.
While they were moving towards the front door, a shy classmate, Karan, appeared from behind a plant, covered with scratches, and holding a half deflated balloon. "Aryan ..." he whispered, embarrassed. "Can we enter?"
Two more children came, curious and shy, as if to ask the question had been them.
Aryan smiled. "Sure," he said. "But ... why you want to enter?"
Karan and others blushed, except Priya, who had always been a very sincere girl. "You know, they would know your parents. We have heard so much about them ... we wondered if you could make them known. "
"Them? Because they are so important people!?! "
"The writer and philosopher," said Karan, and Aryan opened the door smiling and replying "And the best parents of the world"
The writer turned her gaze to her husband, the beautiful black eyes full of delight. "You hear that, love? Our son is proud of us. "
He clasped her waist in an embrace. "I had no doubts."
Arohi closed her eyes, her mind elsewhere, in another space, another time when she feared for the first real time to lose him forever.
FLASHBACK
She stayed there, her face bathed in the furrows of pain recognized for tears. They were salty. She hated and loved the flavor. She reminded the joy, the pleasure, the thrill of an unforgettable moment, but also the horror, the fear of losing something. Or someone.
"Once you told me" said a voice behind her. "That each thing has a soul. A book. A flower. A shoe. Everything except the numbers. Yet, the numbers. What a stupid I am. Meaningless signs, traces of rigidity, absolute firmness. Symbols of a cold dark subjects. "
Arohi felt that he was sitting beside her.
"Together we have found the soul of numbers. Together we have found that two, that number as sweet as intense. "
She felt that his voice was quivering with rage. "I never said that there was happiness in the number three."
Arohi started to speak, but he silenced her with his eyes. "Please! Don't say anything. You have already done too much. "
"I didn't w..."
"But you did it!"
"You saw if I replied?"
This time he was to silence. She took a breath. "You're right, there is no forgiveness for what I did. I'd been beaten, abused, chased him away. But I could not. He had imprisoned my hands, and then the guilt was too big. You're right when you say the number three can not be part of the formula for happiness. But in mathematics, there also the operation minus. "
Black eyes imprisoned on black eyes. "And what would be the remaining number? One or two? "He breathed.
"Two," she replied in a whisper, "The first two."
And the story was recommenced.
FLASHBACK END
"Mom! Meera is hurt! " said Aryan.
Arohi looked at him tenderly. "Come here Meera" she said condescendingly, smiling.
Arjun smiled at the sky, the sky that had made them fall in love. In that heaven a star was smiling now. He counted the children. One, two, three ... seven. Seven small creatures to feed with fresh lemonade.
Seven. Yes, it could go. Perhaps, after all, the numbers also had a soul.
Seven, like the vows they made to each other.
Two, like the hearts Arjun and Arohi
One as the soul Arjuhi.
Geet - Hui Sabse Parayee
Seher Hone Ko Hai
