She lay there spinning tales of life, as all of us do...same mundane routine, same events, merely replaced by the name of characters..no-nothing new to claim for. The name flashed across her mind as a lightening on a clear sky, all of a sudden- unplanned, unmitigated. The waves carried her beyond her present in the vast abyss of the past.
The coffee table on any Sunday evening awaited his regular presence.He settled his accounts on his laptop and she read beside him, sometimes looking at him with feline affection and sometimes drinking the words on the printed folds with full relish. Beyond that nothing existed. Eight cups of coffee replaced and replenished each other in due course of the time. Later in the evening, when the dusk began to appropriate the northern end of the table and when the last rays of the sinking sun began to gently retreat, he used to fold his papers, switch off his laptop neatly and begin to rise. She used to shed her spontaneous tears each of those times. And he used to lovingly wipe them every time too, sometimes kissing her and sometimes just murmuring those affectionate words. But this followed for ten long years....
Hmmmmm....dust hurts eyes. The calm of the beach began to blend with the graceful retreat of the sun. Yes, just ten more pages left before she could stash the book in her, "Read" section-neatly, just as he used to fold his laptop....
Hmmmm, long indeed life is.
It was a February Sunday. He came without any work. Just his own self. How carefree and 'himself' he was that day! They cooked together. Laughed and talked endlessly as if there was no sunset today, as if this time were to freeze them in this bliss. Her unfinished novel lay supine on the coffee table. The mugs awaited their first fill. But today they had no time to drink, to read, to work, perhaps to repeat. All was new, fresh- just as the fresh mango blossoms of the spring...
He got up to leave with the windowed sky announcing the onset of night. She asked him to stay. He smiled and bid her a goodbye. She cried again. He consoled her in effect. After all, this was the usual that happened amidst the newness that eve. He left. Perhaps he forgot to take his sweater. Or perhaps he left it on purpose. That was the one she knitted for him. Also the one that he loved the most. Turquoise bordering on a mauve...
Then there was no looking back. They settled comfortably in the individual lives that each of us strut along. She read and continues to read. No, she does not know of him now...in fact what is there left to know after ten years of association? Hmmmmm....he is complete as he always has been, without anyone except himself for company- engrossed in his world, absorbed in the rhythm of 'my plump life' as he called his..
Is she actually reading? Perhaps not. Better that she wrote back. Not that he sought an answer. But not that he denied either. But 'what ifs' surround her mental scape. It is not that they were not a happy, 'loving' couple. But perhaps love is never enough. There is much more to living than a mere emotion. He knew it. She had to realize it. And, hence, the present.
The sun had melted in the sea by now. A crimson blush enveloped the air. She got up, picked up her book and gazed at the sea. Perhaps, looking for an answer. Going back in her apartment, she mailed him- explained her job, her moves, her tentative plans. And asked him to meet her family for dinner. And voila! he was online.....:)
