Arhi FF: Labyrinth - Thread 2 Link posted - Page 45

Well, I didn't think there was anything for me to apologize, but I couldn't understand the placation, I sought; or the unguent I needed to calm the swish in my blood when I heard he'd already left home - before the sun could shift upward from the horizon?

As Dhri and Vishwa were taking their tea, I shuffled tentatively to Nivedh - his mom had insisted that we have breakfast at their place. I had politely refused knowing my stomach wouldn't hold anything until I could rescue myself from this course of nerves.

And it happened before I could fully grasp my doing.

"Can you find me something to read?" I asked Nivedh as he moved in and out of the other bedroom, preoccupied.

"Like?" he stopped to answer.

"How about Shakespeare?" I asked, with a vague picture of what I wanted to tell or hear.

"I don't think we have any Shakespeare," his forehead folded with contemplation. "Let me look."

"Nope!" he came back from the only other bedroom that belonged to the men. "Anything else you would prefer?"

"No! you don't understand," I said without meaning to, submitting to the full-blown madness that had descended on me, from that same implacable urgency that had taken over. "There has got to be a Shakespeare among other books. Something like a textbook: old, thin; or a big bound one, like thick enough to be your pillow."

Nivedh stood perplexed, perhaps wondering if I had secretly gone over their private book collection beforehand. It seemed he was far from knowing I had only described every Shakespeare addict's resources to get their daily dose of the most lyrical aphorisms ever written.

Neither did he know that Shakespeare always had the answer. Always.

"I think I know where to look," came Sahasra's response from behind the door, the laugh in his voice resounding in the mocking silence of the bedroom.

"Here," Sahasra came out after a few seconds and handed me a ragged yellowing book, his smile more biting than the chill that hung in the morning air. "Looks like you know our books better than we do."

Glad that I was left to peruse the book on my own, without the snickers that might have ensued from the twins, I turned to check that I hadn't caught Vishwa's eyes.

Flipping the book from one end to another, I sighed, disbelieving what I wanted to do then. I turned to Othello after having failed to find what I was in search of in other sonnets and plays.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal, but by degrees?

My eyes traced the line again and I smiled as my finger felt the aged smoothness of the page. Perfect! It was a clever twist of words that could be surmised to show regret without having to be apologetic. I twisted back and forth in my chair, looking for something to write on. Sighting a grocery bill and a pen on the table by the window, I grabbed them like they would disappear any instant.

Othello, Act 2, scene 3 - Iago's words being mine, I know not how to speak them, while I'm denied an audience.

-S

-S? I shook my head upon reviewing what I had penned. Having omitted the actual quote - only having referred to it being enough obscurity - I didn't want to misguide his comprehension further - from remembering well he'd first taken to the book because of Subha.

I added a brace next to the S and hinted at my name.

-S(h...)

"Shall we leave?" Dhri called out just as I was done with the note and tucked it inside, along with it my anxiety. I didn't plan to make reach him by other means, but in the grips of that childish frisson, I hoped the note would make a serendipitous find for him.

Some measure of peace had returned to me by then. I was on my feet again, ready to bid farewell to the night that had brought me to another day.