5)Atlantis, We Fall
"I can't save us, my Atlantis, we fall
We built this town on shaky ground"
(Atlantis by Seafret)
_
In the aftermath of it all, what haunts him the most is the grip with which she held him before the bullet meant for him, pierced through her.
(Desperate, relieved and a little like he had become something she couldn't afford to lose)
The sheen of tears that refuse to flow down his eyes, the screams barred by the lump in his throat, the emptiness he's always battled finally conquering his soul - there's a certain look to a man bound in silver sheathed wires that fell in love with the aurora borealis of the sky. A man that realized a little too late, the bloom of a rose in the deepest shade of red, in his soul.
He sits by her bed, her soft hand in his as he gazes at her ashen face. Her essence, liquid sunshine, now locked behind the silence of a sacrifice she should never have made. He sits by her bed, haunted, the claws of loss, guilt and grief only kept at bay by the rise and fall of her chest.
Armaan Poddar sits by his wife's side, the last vestiges of everything he's built in the atlantis of his soul, submerging in the ocean of nothingness.
_
For as long as he's known comprehension, he's known obligation. Unbound, free, unconditional is never something he experienced but tried his best to be. In the early years of his childhood, he pressed close to a mother whose eyes would never light up at him despite wrapping reluctant arms to give him warmth. He held her and never let the thought that it wasn't enough fester. He was a child when he learnt to be content with what he was given.
He was a child when he wiped the tears dripping down his mother's eyes replete of yearning and heartache. He placed her head on his lap and sang her lullabies. He was a child when he learnt to heal what he never broke.
In the early years of his childhood, he was given toffees when he listened to his Dadi Sa. He was a child when he learnt them to be the words of her love. He was a child when he learnt he had to earn what should have been deserved. It was the beginning of learning to give his all when he was never enough.
In the early years of his teenage, he remained in the shadows while his younger siblings were showered with love. He had learnt the truth then, of his mother and her heritage bereft of worth. He swallowed the pain in his chest in favor of affection for their strong bonds. After all, they still raised and trusted him so that meant love right. He was young when he whispered to himself he was different but loved.
In the early years of being a young adult, he grew up to forming his own idea of love. A love that did not defy his duty towards his family but would be someone who might make him his first priority. He was still young when he wove, around the shackles of his responsibilities and muffled desire of unconditional acceptance and priority, an idea of love.
In the early years of his adulthood, he met a woman with exquisite eyes and felt a flutter. She seemed to be the one. He presumed to be a man in love even when he chose his family over her. He would never tell(his guilt is too much for that)but that she brought them to this point of choice is something he will never be able to forgive.
He was a man who lost yet again, when he resigned himself to a fate bereft of the smallest thing he had hoped for.
_
All his life, through all his relations, there's been this slight burden weighing on him which he always refuses to acknowledge. She's the first person with whom he didn't feel it, even if the promise he made to her dying mother did tug at him a little. Right from the moment he brought her home, there's been this incessant need to be there for her, in every way he can. The sight of her tear- stricken face when he's only ever seen her radiant smile, was the first time he felt a distinct pang in his chest. Ever since, she's slowly woven herself into his very soul in a way he never knew someone can.
There is an ease in being with her. There is a certain comfort. She feels like the shore while he wades through the storms of life.
She feels like summer rain, like the dulcet tunes of crickets at night, like hues of scarlet painting the sky at dawn. She feels like his favorite song, like dew on leaves. She feels like breath, free and unbound. She makes him happy. She makes the boy who grew up too fast in him, light up with wonder. She makes him feel carefree. She makes him believe he's something.
A smile, tender like a newborn, forms on his face as he recalls his realization in the moment that she held him, that he loves her. It is why, as his smile wipes away, it is so haunting.
She was almost snatched away from him because he couldn't be human enough to be with her after he knew something really disturbing had occurred. He failed and in it, he failed her.
Something bitter forms in his chest. It floods the aching crevices with slowly consuming poison. The chains that he's never objected to, rattle with the force of his need to break free. The room suddenly seems to close on him. Her hand in his suddenly feels like he's maligned something sacred. The abruptness of this with the last thought hounding him prompts him to collapse at the corner of the room and finally sob. He bites hard on his hand to muffle the sounds but he sobs and sobs and sobs.
So weak, so broken and so tired. So done, so hurt and so not deserving. His atlantis submerged, his love lying injured, he's a man falling apart at his inadequacy. He's a man that has finally let himself feel the ache of his gaping wounds, the assurances he's given himself in his loneliness- all of which he hasn't let himself acknowledge. He's the man who's finally been punished for being too ignorant and forgiving.
_
Incandescent, the Elpis in his heart
through tainted ashes and crystal storms
subdued but never gone!
Assurance, the epistles he wrote in silence to himself,
biding life with innate loneliness,
each breath tied intricately with debt,
they showered pride while it was love he craved!
She came then, a sunlit storm,
warm and bright, restless yet calm,
with her the rose of amore bloomed,
so scarlet, it was maroon!
To love her is like taking flight,
beyond the azure skies,
his breaths are now bound to her,
the drowning weight, now asunder!
(- Poem by me, with so scarlet it was maroon taken from Maroon by Taylor Swift)
She whispers his name and that gives him the strength to stand, something which the pity filled faces of the nurses and concern filled visages of his father and Manisha Chachi couldn't. He stumbles towards her, hastily sitting on the stool and gently holding her hand.
"Abhira" he whispers desperately.
She opens her eyes then, blinking, adjusting to the light before she's gasping, uttering his name frantically. Her eyes look around with the desperation and fear he feels before they land on him. He can see the change then, how she calms down and sighs in relief.
"You're okay" she whispers with a smile, like it wasn't her on the hospital bed, holding his life in her.
He has so many things that he needs to say to her, to tell her what she had pulled was something she never should fathom doing again because he wasn't equipped to survive this again. He wants to tell her how he feels, wants to apologize, wants to scold her for thinking so little of her life and throwing it away for a person like him.
He does none of it
"I'm okay" he affirms, finally able to breathe easy.
--the end--
Do share your views!!! I hope you all like it. I haven't written the angst like discussed in the forum because this is a little different take with a few assumptions I have made. Will write more along those lines once the track unfolds in the show.
Love,
Pratyusha
Tagging a few.
Looking forward to read Abhira's pov. I hope it's coming
Kabhi Neem Neem Kabhi Shahad Shahad
