How should time be measured?
Seconds, one can say. Minutes, hours. Days, weaving into weeks. Months torn off of calendars. Candles dripping wax onto cake until a wish is made (children always know what they want, it's as we grow older that we no longer know our own heart). Anticipating the moment one year slides into the next, we hope for something better.
And as the new year approaches, the nights grow longer, sparklers crackle in the streets. Laughter follows. It is the familiar story of light against darkness, goodness prevailing against evil, because we are always looking to the future for salvation.
And yet, no matter how we perceive time, it passes, unhurried and unabated. It has no use for our constructs. It pays no heed to our dreams.
--
In the morning the words remained unspoken between them. She could feel his eyes linger on her as if he was searching for the courage to broach the subject. She considered finding an excuse to go into the hospital on this Sunday, almost like any other Sunday if not for the date she sometimes wished was no longer burned into her memory.
Their children of course had no inkling of the significance - how could they, when their parents had spent years suffering in silence instead of celebrating? But his sister remembered, along with her mother, and they rounded up the rest of the family for an impromptu day trip to the Karjat farmhouse.
As they waved goodbye to RK's SUV packed to the brim, she found him staring again and was too weary to wonder at the thoughts swirling behind his eyes. But when he offered his hand she took it, and as she let him open her car door her imagination felt him lean in just a bit closer before making his way to the other side.
They made small talk on their way into the city. Maybe he took his eyes off the road a few more times than what was safe. Maybe she had taken extra care with her makeup this morning, imagining the perfect hue of lipstick to smudge against his cheek, on his collar (it was another fruitless daydream when he entered the room unshaven, wearing a dangerous shade of black). Maybe she hoped the light blush brushed on her cheeks would disguise the effect he inevitably had on her.
Or maybe she was reading too much into the nervous thrumming of his fingers on the steering wheel (some habits never changed).
--
They entered the darkened theater hand in hand, ostensibly so he could tug her to a pair of seats away from the crowd. But even as they settled in he was slow to let go and oh so casually rested his arm around her.
"Nachiket." She whispered, acutely aware of their surroundings.
He seemed unfazed by her distress, glancing over at her with his eyebrows raised. "What?"
She pinched the finger draped over her shoulder.
"Ouch." He glared at her and she tried not to follow with her eyes as he brought the smarting skin to his mouth.
"What?" If he could play innocent, so could she.
"Nothing," he grumbled before turning his attention back to the screen.
Try as she might, she could not stop herself from studying his face as the light flickered across it. The laughter spilling forth seemed at once familiar and foreign. She had missed the way his whole face would light up, how she knew he hated baring his bottom teeth but couldn't keep his mouth from grinning ear to ear.
Had life been so exacting that she had forgotten his laugh?
He met her eyes and she snapped her gaze straight ahead, grateful for the cover of darkness. Her hand, filled with popcorn, hovered in front of her face as if she was watching a convoluted thriller instead of a predictable slapstick comedy.
Suddenly she felt his hand close around her wrist and his mouth snatched a few kernels from her fingers.
Her eyes grew wide in what she hoped was disapproval and she tried to ignore her heart thudding at tingle of his gesture. "There's enough to share, you know."
He smiled then, a real one, as if he couldn't wait to tease her. "Don't want you to ruin your appetite," he winked.
When his arm found its way back around her the second time, she leaned her head against his shoulder (and kept the popcorn).
--
"This is exactly what I meant," he chided as she unwrapped her ice cream sandwich.
"But Nachiket, you know if I see ice cream on screen it makes me hungry." She tried to keep from sounding like a petulant five year old but was less than successful judging from his frown. "You can have some too."
"Really?" He eyed the treat with renewed interest as it began to drip over her fingers in the heat.
She broke the sandwich in half and handed it to him in a napkin before he could take her up on her offer. "Be careful not to -"
"Ow," the sound was muffled and he grimaced as the cold rushed painfully to his brain.
Ragini shook her head in amazement. "I can't believe you still don't take smaller bites."
"I never have ice cream anymore," he defended himself.
And though she knew he meant well it was a raw reminder of years past, sticky napkins and his exasperation with her love of every flavor. Feeding him her newest favorite (coaxing him first with the more exotic ones). His insistence that they all tasted better on her lips but maybe he could compare it one more time...
"Yours is melting," he nudged her gently.
She looked down and broke off a smaller piece this time. She knew he was surprised when she brought it up to his lips but he obliged with a bite, the barely there tip of his tongue warm against her cold fingers. "Delicious." His eyes, warm with gratitude, assured her he hadn't forgotten. "But I've had better."
She ducked her head, feeling that long lost thrill settle in her stomach.
Around them, crowds bustled along the promenade as vendors hawked their food. The sun continued on its long crawl towards the horizon.
Time hadn't really stopped, but where it had once stretched between them like an unfathomable gulf, the pull of memories of times past now drew them closer together.
To be continued...
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