CAKES AND COOKIES
“Well, that’s quite an ordinary name for a bakery having delicious cakes”, remarked an irregular visitor and invited an unreadable rejoinder from a woman in her mid-20s.
“Does it halt your quest for the extraordinary?” originated soon from a voice that now caused someone’s heartbeat to make its presence felt against her bosom. With his mysterious charm suddenly tempting her whole existence, he approached her with calculated steps and passed her a rare smile…his aura pushing her into unfathomable depths.
She’s a hopeless romantic with a sparkle of madness.At times I can behold her laughter quietly turning into sadness, her bright eyes growing damp. Perhaps her clandestine self is longing to break free and explode in the open. Does she grasp there’s someone out there, desperately waiting to heal her. Maybe she needs me…but does she want me?
With awful anxiety stilled endlessly, my heart aches to question, “Is it too late to fix you? Has time truly passed for you and I?”
He says the universe works in mysterious ways.
Who would have imagined that a man who originally entered my life as a loathsome devil would become so vital to me? He’s the man I wait for in cold and dark alleys to come and make my world whole again. In his eyes I behold flashes of suppressed vulnerability longing to be recognized by someone. He’s scarred emotionally…maybe I can heal him. But does he need me now when reasons to unite us have ceased to exist?
Can’t we be strangers once again in a better world?
Since their reunion post their divorce and all events after that, they had grown into closest of friends, with her bakery being his favourite spot in Manali. Now she could read his eyes and feel the presence of a concealed grief against his finest exteriors. His presence always lulled her into a sense of security and in him she could behold the end of all her needs and desires. They hardly needed words to communicate.
Coquettish women seductively staring at him at the party bestowed her with a sense of entitlement but soon uneasiness crept in. How could an intruder step into her territory? Oh wait! Is he her territory?
Then how could undesirable troubles stare into her territory without her warrant?
Rishabh’s apathetic defiance against the desperation calmed her nerves and she swayed in his arms…forgetting the world around them.
“It must be possible to drown in love without losing myself.” She thought.
“My flight is scheduled tonight, I’m leaving!”
These words gave her a violent jolt and she woke up into a nightmarish reality. Sensing her tears, he wordlessly handed her a tissue.Then, with a heartfelt pang he turned to depart, lest his staying should offendhis tenacity and bestow his irrational heart a chance to manifest in vengeful affright.
Stunned, angry, and still drowning in the sorrow of separation, she opened the tissue he had given her and got stirred into another wonder.
CAKES AND COOKIES
LONDON BRANCH OPENING
JULY 21
MR AND MRS BAJAJ
Beneath the starry sky, he remembered nights with similar sorrows. Worst was the night he had let her go. How barren and unfeeling his world appeared in the wake of a loss so immense. He looked down and found himself back in the same predicament, slowly watching her walk away, and a sense of an impending loss tainting the air. He had assembled and wrecked his hope numerous times, each time the ache being profounder than before.
“What if she doesn't come?”
After what resembled an endless quest, she located him beneath the tree they had first met post separation.
“I thought you left…” came from her sobbing self.
“I never did. When helpless and numb, I preserved you as something ephemeral, alive only in frozen memory; even then a part of me was still hopeful and waiting.”
Relieved and overwhelmed, she beamed with happiness.
“We have a flight to catch. Are you ready, future Mrs Bajaj!”
Then he led her for a walk to the airport, which was, in all ways, a walk to remember.
THE END
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