Everything was crumbling down. The downfall was expected, sooner or later. Her mind spoke the bitter truth that she had accumulated over the years subconsciously inside her head, in the form of a fear
from her previous experiences. It had been the best of her previous years,
living the dream she had woven turn by turn, with careful consideration of each
step that she had taken in building of this relationship over the period of
time. And now what lay before her was a relationship that succumbed to the
distances and misunderstandings that unexpectedly did more harm than it should
have. She sat in her bathroom on the dry, white tiles with her head in between
her elbows and her fingers clasped at the back of her head. She wailed,
sometimes too loudly and then dropping her voice to silence in between breaths.
Crying off the pain made her feel lighter but then it was equally exhausting in
the end, that she gladly accepted to fall asleep and forget everything for some
time for the least.
She held on to the silence for a minute and went blank solely
concentrating on the mind riff separating the two tiles and the dirt that stuck
in between them. It was strange how you drift off and suddenly come to bring
your mind to vague things with utter concentration for a jiffy and then roll
back to your reality again. She got up, looked around and out of habit went in
front of the mirror. She blankly stared herself for a second and then recalled
what he had once said about her eyes being beautifully big and her lips being
in their perfect curves and color, which suddenly dawned the reality upon her
in bolts of emotional blows. She cried again and looked on at herself as she
cried half unbelievably half animatedly. She walked out when she could no longer
handle the mix of emotions that her own reflection teased her with. Falling on
the bed she took less than five minutes to go in a deep sleep, her swollen
sockets still trickled a tear on the pink bed sheet underneath her.
She woke with a sore throat and blocked nose, the cold
bathroom floor was to blame. The light from the huge window had been blinding and
irritating to her eyes that were still swollen with continuous crying her grief
out. She looked around, sighed and quickly got up to draw them close. She
comforted her eyes with the darkness against the heavenly morning light.
Backing to her bed she thought of him, and the way he would cuddle against her
into a spoon from behind, his heavy arms resting gently over her waist, pulling
her closer to his chest. She wished she could talk to him looking into his glinting
brown eyes, holding his hands to give him a sense of care through her touch,
consoling and comforting him with not just her words but her presence and blow
the cloud of misunderstandings away which had unnecessarily shadowed their four
year relationship to an extent of giving up on it.
May be she could sleep some more and just let the pain
subside some more yet again but thoughtfully and involuntarily got up and walked towards the bathroom.
A hot shower might be a healer she
thought. So on, she opened her bathroom door with her lousy eyes and turned
right to look into the mirror once again. She saw herself, emotionally
exhausted, her eyes puffed up with overworking tear glands. The back wall had
clothes hung onto steel hooks which she thought didn’t belong to her. She
frowned and had a closer look at the mirror, with concentration, to what she
just saw instead of turning back. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she got a
wider view of her surroundings in the mirror. A halt in surprise would have
been a delayed and expected reaction, taking in account her exhaustion from
crying herself out, but she suddenly turned around to see two cots with two
study tables beside each of them and two cupboards adjacent to the study
tables. The toilet seat, the bath tub, the buckets, the taps, they were all
gone! Actually her whole bathroom was replaced by a room that looked more like
a hostel room set up for students. A bed was neatly made while the other looked
like recently used with sheet left out in folds and wrinkles. There were books
stacked at the far end of the table to her right while the one on the left had
a couple of books scattered and a table lamp that seemed just too familiar. She
couldn’t believe her eyes and was literally taken aback. She leaned against the
door that closed all of a sudden with a thud.
She looked behind
her. Nope, this wasn’t even close to what her bathroom door looked from behind.
It was wooden, painted white in oil paint. It freaked her out and she resisted the
urge to go near the door to open it and find out what lay behind it or where
she was. She wore a loose peach colored top and black short that were comfortable
to get into for a good sleep during the warm May days but suddenly she felt
cold and her thighs got covered under a layer of goose bumps. She was drawn to
the green table lamp and slowly walked towards the table. Surprise turned into
shock when she saw her name written on it, and she came to realize that it was
the same lamp she had given him when he was leaving the town thinking it might
help him during his late night study schedules. The reality fell upon her like
a bucket full of cold water.
She was at his place! 700 Kilometers away from her
home, in his city, in his college, in his own room! Telepathy?, She asked herself wide-eyed in disbelief. Did any angels or fairies hear her making a
wish? Willow wisps? Cinderella story? Time travel? She just went through
any possible way that made it look sensible in the least bit. Is it even real or May I am just in my sleep
and I am dreaming because you dream about the last thing you thought before
sleeping. That’s how they say. She tried coming up with a satisfactory
explanation. So I will wake up, it is
just a dream, just a matter of time, I will wake up now. She closed her
eyes and tried recalling the moment, the minute before she fell into sleep. Her
pink bed sheet, the corner of the bed, her soft pillow and she tried getting
her mind back, tried drifting into sleep if it was one or waking up if doing
that seemed sensible. She focused not to concentrate on reality, on the window
from where the morning light came in and that gave a lush view of the outside flora,
instead of the blurred glass window of her bathroom. She almost thought she is
losing her mind to nothing when she heard a voice from outside the door. She
heard him. It sounded real, it sounded louder as he approached with only the
wooden door separating him and her now. Was
this really happening? Is this too a part of the dream? What will happen next? She
couldn’t digest the sudden change that was unexpected and unexplained.
She fixed her eyes at the door without blinking and pinched
herself to wake her up before the madness of her mind took over her very self. This can’t be real, I can’t be here, this doesn’t
make sense. The sound of the steps
got closer. The voice grew louder and so did the thump of her heart out of both
excitement and fear. Before she could think of what to do or say the door knob
turned round with a click.
To be continued . . .
