The evening sky was it usual self, coppered by the flaming sun. A warm breeze billowed across and about the verandah and carried to her, the familiar stirrings of the melody from the phone lying untouched for days on the small dining table in the room inside. Her mind disoriented for a nanosecond, her line of thought waning out and she would have haphazardly slid down the ground, her feet skidding against the cool slipperiness of the freshly washed floors had she not steadied herself miraculously in the nick of time. And then with a speed akin to the flutter of butterflies galloping through her chest, she ran through the flat to finally halt in front of the aforementioned wooden table, her hands hovering over the reverberating phone. It had been tersely shoved into her hands the day she had left, the muted glare in his eyes inviting absolutely no arguments whatsoever. Not that she had an ounce of energy left to put up a fight, cerebrally beat and broken she had walked out of the threshold. She knew it was him on the other end, since no one else had the number, no one else called. Remembering the faint resonances of his voice, always laced with gravel and sardonic ire, her face lit up with a smile. She hadn't smiled, not once in the last fifteen days she had been staying with her aunt, barely eating let alone talking. Suddenly the phone stopped ringing, and her smile dropped, the slight color in her face paling out. Had she been too late? The one chance she had of hearing his voice in nearly three weeks, and she had spent it all away thinking. The phone came alive in her hand moments later, a silver beam lighting up the display screen. This time without wasting a second, she picked up the call, pressing the phone against her ear. "Are you alright?" The painstakingly familiar question bristled across the phone - it was after all, one of his usual pleasantries. Her winded breathing paced out into something more gradual, whilst he held on, not-so patiently, for her answer. Murmuring a quick yes she waited with bated breath for him to speak. It crossed her mind that there was no anger in the slow, measured tone of his voice. She didn't know that on the other side, he was outright nervous. He didn't know what to say, how to reply to that sweet, nectarine yes that had been glazed with hope. Hope for what, alas, he didn't know. He had words, thoughts lined up like an array of blooming flowers but only when he opened his mouth, they churned out dreary and dead. It was stressful for him to explain what was going on in the head of his, when he hadn't come close to deciphering it himself. To be fair, he had only called her up to listen to the lull of her voice. He had thrived, breathed so very freely upon hearing her do the same and that tiny yes she had whispered had slid over his body like a cool caress on the otherwise sweltering afternoon. It would have delighted her had she been in his room then, with him to witness that second when he had scrunched his eyes shut relishing, savoring that moment when her voice had come alive on the phone.
"Paro, won't you come back?" Had he been expecting an answer? Not really. He knew she wouldn't, couldn't answer that silly question he had just phrased. But he had to ask, let the syllables slip through his teeth; that question had been troubling him since the last two weeks, giving him a headache every now and then. And she hadn't been there to sift her fingers, soft and silken through his hair calming and soothing him into someplace so calm; it was difficult to believe he could have ever been resentful of anything in his entire life.
Though the day she had left, his day and state of mind, had been anything but calm, the first half at least. His right hand had started healing, though the pace of the process only incensed him with every passing day. Refreshingly pleasing as it had been to have his wife's dainty hands hesitating and flouncing over his bare skin whilst fastening up his shirt every morning, he hadn't been reliant on on anyone, let alone a woman in a long, long time. Hence, more than often he was on the edge and bearing the brunt of it all was Paro. But her patience had entered into an easy, yet perplexing camaraderie with his wrath. So was it a shock to him, when she slipped dangerously against the small puddle of water that had collected below the string of clothes put out to dry and his right hand miraculously shot out, spurring into action to catch a hold of her hand, effectively breaking her fall. Hand...your hand? There had been a smile on her face strumming out strings of joy and relief as she framed the question whilst his face remained a torrid mask of rapidly rising fury. Her hand had reached out to his still quaking fingers without a flicker of hesitation and in return they had grabbed hold of hers with furious fervor. He remembered not having begun his question till the second she was close enough for him to feel the tickle of her tresses and breathe the air around him being perfumed purely by her scent, alluring in its entire splendor. Was the fall deliberate? The question has lost its veneer of indignation and now was a mere shadow of its desired self. Paro hadn't bothered with an all-embracing explanation as her eyes, like millions of glassy squares reflected the answer he needed. And then she had sighed. It had been heavy, laced with sorrow echoing the next words which had left her lips. Such was the serenity with which she had executed the sentences relaying the pact she had engaged upon with her beloved deity during his stay in the wretched hospital, that he was left wordless, his mouth arid. I think I should leave today; the weather seems calm and the buses will also start within...within an hour or so. She had driveled on to justify her need to leave the house, leave him, as his face adorned a veil of disbelief. You can work in peace again, I...I won't be annoying you no more. That last phrase had snapped some invisible heartstring of his, inciting him into motion as he saw flashes of bright colors being shoved into a small suitcase with a restless grace. A few hundred obstinate voices inside his head had let afloat a tedious questionnaire. What happened to her not giving a damn about his reciprocation of her zealous love? What happened to her swallowing down all his taunts and rebuttals of his desires with a beatific poise? Probably she had finally had enough of the monster. Probably he had trampled upon the last straw. But then why were her eyes so maudlin? She wanted him to stop her - it had sunk in a moment too late.
He watched her small back disappear and had very nearly spoken out loud; there goes the only person who had come so close to loving me. And as she had walked out of the act of his life, she had played her part such, that she had given him reason enough to exist if not live - for he wouldn't have been able to handle walking back into another empty house bursting with unsaid goodbyes, unanswered questions and a lifetime full of angst. He couldn't even hate her, he realized a breath later as he clutched the lone white dupatta resting sadly on the shelf of his cupboard.
Her voice streamed through the receiver, pervading through his reverie. "Will you come to the bazaar today?" It sunk in a moment later - what her words meant and also the no he barked out almost instantaneously. And then the line was cut with an angry huff on the other end. He nearly smiled at her annoyance, conveyed so very immaculately through the phone and the fact that she knew about his clandestine visits to the bazaar on the streets of which her aunt's house was located.
The bazaar had, of lately been his sole solace amidst all the despair surrounding him. A few evenings after she had left, his life had seemingly changed, and for the worse. He hadn't noticed the signs, not right away at least. But in time, they surmounted. Her eager footfalls dancing around him the second he stepped foot into the house- their echoes were now a bleak ghost haunting him every now and then. Every time he reached for that bowl of curd resting deftly on his plate, his eyes automatically shot up; almost sure she would be standing beside him, hovering. Food had wholly and undoubtedly lost the little taste it had in his palate. Usually after a day of work at the BSD, he would hit a bed only to fall into a sleepless slumber within minutes. These nights, he lay awake acknowledging how empty his hands felt without hers; without the cool graze of her glass bangles against his wrist. And the damned sheets, they had lost the little warmth they could earlier have boasted of, the arctic touches engulfing him with misery as the nights passed.
His mornings had become an odd orchestration of troubling thoughts. What he saw in the mirror disappointed him more than anything. No longer did it behold the reflection of the petite stand holding her bangles. The colors had blurred out leaving him behind with the dull monotony he had grown up with. The circular red box of vermilion had also gone. It angered him. There was no teacup waiting for him, sitting handsomely upon notes of paper with scribbles of childish negotiations. When had his life turned so marvelously upside down? He cursed out loud. He had lately been doing that a lot too, way more than his usual quota. Stepping out of the house and towards his bike, he had been stopping momentarily, more than once, to turn back for some inexplicable reason. It was subconsciously done of course, but nonetheless the absence of her face painted away with a dazzling smile, wedged thorns through the newly arising existence of his heart. The breeze that greeted him as he trudged forward made him stop, yet again. It annoyed him - the eerie element that he could distinguish the scent of the rain, the wet earth apart from the roses. Oh the darned roses - he exclaimed more than once, closing his eyes and inhaling the warm sweetness of the flower as the image of his elfin wife surged through his mind once again, this time with a rose pinned against the length of her hair. One could've seen a small smile shadowed slightly by his moustache.
And now that he had stopped to smell the roses, quite literally so - he felt all the more miserable. He had begun to think of her and only her in every moment of isolation that passed through his day. Because when he was with her, the air had felt lighter, the day less searing. One touch of her hand, and the magic would ensnare him. Those few days he had been having his fill of her had been excruciatingly short. He wanted more of the magic. He wanted more of her. And he had made a conscious effort, tormenting his brain as to what he could do, in order to grace his mind with a sliver of peace. What the man didn't know, was that once in love- everything became crystal clear; every decision, where to go, what to do - it came naturally to one.*
The sky had been a rich grey, with pink and blue shadows under each cloud. He had found himself standing behind a small makeshift tea stall, sipping the overly sweet liquid without a shard of distaste, as his mind was sincerely employed in staring at the gate to her then home. After a long, excruciating fifteen minutes, his wife had stepped out of the gate, gingerly crossing the road and walking over to his end. He hadn't known the precise second when his breathing had turned staccato, or when rivulets of excitement awash his heart had rendered it alive, and beating, wonderfully. She had almost walked past the tea kiosk, only to abruptly halt halfway. Then she had turned sharply and looked straight at him. It was a flicker of a second before she had turned away, a small sad smile adorning her face. It seemed to him, that she had been shrugging off an illusion as she had walked away. And as he had sauntered off, following her colourful form, a sharp contrast to her morose face, two weeks had passed.
Every evening that he came back for a small glimpse of her face, her words bargaining with vegetable vendors, he had begun to realize that this woman, who had slowly begun piecing him back together, also held the power to tear him apart. She could hurt him gravely with a sad smile and keep him thriving with her tinkling laughter. She could just as easily be the salt to his wounds, as the air to his lungs.
*Maxim Gorky, The Lower Depths & Other Plays
Based on the song Dasht-e-Tanhai ( originally a poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz ). Do listen!
Part 2: Parched
Part 3: Quenched - Will be up soon!
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Other RR OS: The Devil's Tears
