S - H - E

 

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 . . .