It's simple

A Street-light came to life after a few flickering efforts and breached the slightly dim atmosphere, created by the retreating diffracted sun rays, in a way that made it seem darker at 6’o clock on that winter evening. A gaunt figure with its shadow crossing ahead of him as he crossed the lamp-post crept forward. It seemed that he could walk faster, at normal pace, but was deliberately trying to move as slowly as was possible without getting standstill. He looked down in an attempt to abstain from noticing any familiar object on the street that could possibly remind of her. Stopping in front of a house he looked up at the window of his room and was disappointed at seeing the lights still off. His roommates were yet not back from work. ‘I should come back later’, he thought to himself and continued walking. He went to a shop a mile away to buy milk which he could have got from the shop just in front of the house. He did that to avoid the whole ‘I am fine’ argument with his own mind, to avoid going alone in the room. He has been afraid of being alone lately, of being just with himself when his unruly mind would torture him with her sweet memories, by reminding him incessantly of how much he loved her and by providing him ample reasons to feel sorry for himself. As he opened the main gate of the house after returning back from the shop she followed him in. She walked behind him on the stairs and waited patiently for him to open the lock on the door of his room as she does every time, starring him right in the face with all the love in her eyes. He ignored her and went inside the room, switched on the light and went to wash-basin. As he looked up in the mirror after washing the face, she was standing by his side, smiling. The muscles on his face went tout as if the body had suffered a strong blow. It weren’t her images that tortured him, it was the fact that all these images stripped naked in front of him. The fact that she was not there, that she will never be here again with him. Each memory of her that his mind ceaselessly pushed back in front of him indirectly proved him her absence. It was her absence that made him feel bereft and miserable. Her absence in front of the lock, her absence in front of the mirror, in the half eaten packet of chocos and the absence of her fingers between his own. All these lacerating thoughts beleaguered him to a corner of his bed where he lied, hunched, hiding his face over his laps with his eyes closed tightly in a futile effort to ward off her images but that was of no use as the images were not physical, they were in his mind. He lied there, shivering with mental pain, waiting for any outside interference to rescue him. The phone rang….

Richzz calling…

The pain left immediately as he jumped forward to attend the call. It didn’t matter who was calling. It mattered that there was a call and he needed to answer it. It was the simple obligation of answering the call that saved him.

“Hello, jai shri Krishna”, the accent hinted a smile along with the greeting.

“Jai shri Krishna richzz… how are you”

“I am fine, what happened to you? You don’t sound good”

“Ahh… I caught cold. You know the weather is changing”

“Weather doesn’t change in February. I know what kind of cold you are having. We talked yesterday and I told you that you can call me whenever you are feeling alone.”

“Yeah I know. But I still don’t think it’s OK. I mean we never talked before and now I suddenly start calling you, talking to you at lengths. It may be that we go along nicely but one might think that I am trying to... ”, he said and finished the sentence with a sneeze.

“The one that matters doesn’t think that way. You can talk to me if it helps, anytime. What are friends for after all?”

“To tell when the weather doesn’t change I suppose”, both smiled.

“So how are you feeling today?”

“Quite good”, he replied humorously.

“I shouldn’t have asked that, sorry. You will recover from it one day.”

“I think I won’t. This particular situation is not under my control. This is unprecedented that I am unable to comprehend the things that are going on inside my head. This is pure torture and I can’t do anything because the root cause to this grueling pain lies within me. One can hide or run away from the source of fear or pain in usual scenarios. But how can I run away from myself? From this stupid and deeply sadist mind that seems to find pleasure in my misery”, completing the description he felt a sense of content as if he has done his part by naming all the culprits and their respective misdeeds.   

“You will be fine”, she asseverated.

“When?”

“When you will want to be”, she replied in a single monotone. The sheer simplicity of her reply accentuated the intended rationale rightfully. It would have been just an argument to him had it been not true. He knew it deep inside that the pain would vanish the second he decides to let go off her and move on. But he won’t. He chose to be with her till the end…and even after that, if it helped, in any sense, to appease her suffering. He chose to be miserable. He knew it well that this way he will not be able to move on…ever. “This heart will be useless without her, just pumping blood”, he said that gazing at the moon through the swaying branches of gulmohar tree in front of the house.

“Now why do you say that?”

“I haven’t wished for anything else for past 2 years”, it was more of a realization than a reply. “And now it’s like my glass of desire is already full of her, there is no space left for anything else.”

“We will put someone else in that glass”

“But the glass is already full. Addition of any other thing would only lead to overflowing.”

“Then we will make some space first”

“How”, he asked humorously… “The glass can’t be toppled”

“We will evaporate her….. then there will be much space for other desires”, her presence of mind attracted him. ‘Her words’, he thought ‘they have stated what the signs have been trying to tell me lately’. The signs have been telling him to let go off Sirka, and that there is a way out. It doesn’t matter if he wishes to see it or not, there will be a way out and he has no choice but to follow that path. Richzz has unknowingly confirmed him that the separation is inevitable. This confirmation was too haunting for him to accept so he ignored the signs once again and chose not to give up on Sirka. Apart from all these signs, he was moved by Richzz’s reply. She made him look what he couldn’t see for so long, the answer to all his sufferings, that it was simply his choice to be miserable or be happy. It depended solely on himself and no one else.
 ‘The answer was so simple… of-course we could evaporate it’, he thought to himself and smiled.