A Wait For Eternity

She snug in beside him and her heart warmed as she saw his face break into a smile. Even with his eyes closed, his fingers found hers in the cover of the thin sheet, and as she gazed at him, he delicately toyed with her fingers in the darkness, till it consumed him. A light smile lit her face up, and her eyes, a bit glistened with the hint of moisture. It hadn’t been long since she had been the mirror image of what she was right now, and it was all due to time. Times had changed so fast, and in such a way that her life seemed to have reached the zenith and was stranded in the ecstasy of the moment.

Slowly picking her hand out of his, she dabbed at her eyes and shaped his face with her other hand. With a final glance, she held back her hand and walked to the window. It had been the same time that day, just a couple of calendars earlier; the days had all changed, and so had the nights. They had flowered into the times she dreamt off, the moments she had envisioned, and the memories she had wished to create for herself. Her life had transformed into a heaven from the purgatory it had been.

The streams of light shone in the distance, buzzing around at speeds unimaginable as she stood alone at the balcony. It was more than a year since she had walked away from Sam, but there he was, etched in memory and in the scars she hid from the world on her heart. Her gaze was unperturbed, as her mind reeled on and on, working agonizingly hard.

"It’s not that I need someone, but it would be so good to have someone pull me back from the whirlpool of my thoughts. Someone to just hold me as I would fall into the safety of his arms, and just lie back with no worries," she said to herself with a sigh.

Nostalgia ran through her, racing with the cars on the road, as the first drop broke free from the confines of the curtain of her eyes.

“I so wish...I so wish...”

“What happened sweetheart? Why are you crying, and what do you wish for,” asked Chirag, his hands wrapping around her waist, slowly turning her to face him.

“Nothing Chirag...just had a bad day...you sleep darling...”

"I’ll wait up for you...come soon,” he replied understandingly with a tight hug to her.

The dreams she had had, had come true, and she just wished it would never end. She never wanted to be so alone, like she had been, 2 years ago on the same day; she just wanted him to be hers; she just wanted to smile. She had waited a long time for the wait to end, and now, it had ended on a high note. With a minute shake of her head she slipped in beside him, her hands finding his before his did to hers, and turning her head slowly, she met his lips with hers, savoring the moment and the memories it would cultivate, all with time.

The Show Must Go On

A tear dripped down his face as the flames rose high into the sky, taking with them the one important person he had had. The heat enclosed him, and he wiped away the lone drop, standing glassy eyed, trickles of sweat flowing generously down his brow. She had been the one who taught him all he knew, and he was all he was because of her.

He hadn’t been able to thank her ever, nor had he told her how important she was to him, he had just let her go. Following his dad’s footsteps, he had gone on to become a joker in the same troupe, but he had improved the act, and with his mother’s help, the same mother who had just left him all alone, he had taken his performance to a high such that the audience wouldn’t leave without experiencing his presence on the stage.

There was a hole now, in his heart, and in his life, something irreparable, a wound which couldn’t be healed, a loss which couldn’t be sustained. His eyes intently gazing at the rising flames, he lingered for a moment longer, as though waiting for a miracle, and then walked away, a bent silhouette outlined in the darkness of the fire.

The silence highlighted his presence as he walked down the street, a shadow in the dusk. The sky rose to greet him, a conflation of hues, blues and purples and reds and yellows, as the orange ball dipped, and with it dipped his head. He fell to the asphalt, unable to hold his emotions inside for even a moment more. He rocked under the pressure of his heart, and his eyes let it all out in torrents.

Suddenly, his sobs were broken by the ring of his phone, and with a deep breath, he received the call.

“Yeah, I’m on my way…no, I’m fine…I’ll handle it…I’m just coming…”

Wiping his face with his sleeve, and halting the flow instantly, he walked away, with a purpose, with a reason to go on, to strive. He would have to do it for her.

An hour later, the audience laughed, holding their guts, as a clown danced around the stage, making fun of himself, mocking people in the audience, playing with animals, and in the end, falling in a heap, and crying. The painted smile had turned down, and the enjoyment of the crowd was mirrored in him, as he lay on the stage.

They did not know him, nor did they know how n who he was. They laughed on his tears, and he cried for her, he longed for her. As he bowed down to the audience, he flashed them his smile, and for once, his heart smiled, after long, before disappearing back into the abyss of absence, and loss.

This was just an act, for them, not for him.

As he walked off the stage, he murmured to himself, “The show must go on. It never ends. That’s with life too.”

Half A Story

I sat at the table, wondering about all those formulas, and how I would use them the next day, hopefully I would, if I remembered them. The pictures of the question bank were haunting me, and I hoped I would just clear the paper the next morning, just 7 hours away. All of a sudden, my phone pinged, and my expectation of the solutions made me look instantly at the screen, which was still displaying the menacing circuits.

It was a friend I had never talked with, but I knew of, and so the conversation began.

“Hello, I have read your blog a lot. It is very nice,” she began.

“Thank you, I’m glad you liked it,” I replied, as I always did.

“I wanted to talk to you about something, can I?”

“Yeah of course, but I’m not sure if now is the right time. I have a couple of exams tomorrow, and I’m not sure if i’ll be passing them. So…”

“Karan please, I’m sure it will interest you, please. You could even write about it on your blog, really,” Sharon pleaded.

The latter half of the sentence peaked my attention, and I allowed her to go on.

“It’s a tale about a friend and me; a close friend,” she began. “We used to read you blog together, so that we could score better in English,” she went on.

Now you know where this is heading, I guess most of you do.

“Damn, then I hope you did score well, ‘cause i’ve never quite managed to get good scores in my English exams.”

“We did well enough. But that’s not what the issue is at the moment. It’s something else. There are some screenshots; I lost some of them when I changed my phone, but there are the others. And there’s a story, of my friend and me.”

We all live in a new world, full of technology, and journals are now too mainstream.

So, BEE and Physics slowly hopped off from the background of my phone into the nonexistence of the RAM, and my whole attention was now held by Sharon, and her account. As she went on, I messaged my friend that I wasn’t going to sleep at all, and not because of studies. I would need a wake-up call, if I did manage to get a chance to shut my eyes.

Her next message brought me back to her story, and I wondered what was going to be so special about this story.

The clock ticked on as she went on and on, and after a long hour of listening to her tale, I asked her, “So, what’s new in this?”

That was when she cut to the main part, and it all started happening.

Wow, that was such a new and innovative way of telling a story. I’ve used it more than once, several times, and I still wonder why I use it. Repetition adds to the effect they said; destroys effect after use in multiple books they never said.

It was my first day at college, and maybe his too. But he seemed just like them, bathed in their color, their mannerisms, unlike me. Here I was, from a different place, different circumstances, a different mentality, different ideals, and different ideas.

Damn, does all this matter? No, it does not. We all know that this guy and the girl will fall in love, or at least one of them will with the other, and then there will be drama. So rather than wasting 20 minutes and 2 songs of a movie, and around 50 pages of a book, i’ll just go to the problem.

And another thing, the style of saying stuff doesn’t change, there’s just this blank page which says, Scene 1 and the place. And no, I didn’t have to read it twice to get it.

I knew I liked him the moment I set my eyes on him, and we were best friends as well. But I wanted more. I was quite scared of telling him what I felt, but then my friend told me that I should go further. We hatched a plan, and…

It always works, and there’s always an outcome, and it’s always the same- plain old Bollywood.

“You know something, I like you,” I said to him.

“I know, I like you too.”

“Really? You know what, I think we should go further, and…”

“What? Are you nuts?”

“What? Why?”

“I like you as a friend and not in any other way.”

The typical angry guy who leaves the girl behind, distressed, mopping and moping. But she tries again, and again, and again, until…

He didn’t talk with me for a whole day when I asked him for the 2^nd time. We sat together, and spent the whole day with each other like we always did, but he didn’t say a word to me. The silence stabbed at my heart, and tears dripped down my cheeks, all of it going unseen to him. He apologized the next day, and made me laugh till my stomach ached; he made up for the sorrow with what he did best, make me smile.

And then, I asked him again. All thanks to my friend.

The main heroine never has a say in her own life. She does everything according to what the hero does, or as per her friends tell her. (Rahul Gandhi dislikes this. #NoWomenEmpowerment)

“I know I’ve hurt you with my replies, and my ignorance. And I’ve also thought on the lines you’ve been talking of. We really are always together, just like a couple, and we do everything like a couple,” he said.

My heart raced faster than the Ferrari he brought to college, as he went on.

“But, I don’t like you in that way. I like you very much as a friend, but I don’t think we should go all the way. Maybe I could be your half boyfriend.”

2 points. Number 1: the Ferrari. Such an open exhibition of the wealth of the rich spoilt brat, and yes, a Ferrari in India. We’ve seen loads roaming the roads, haven’t we? Number 2: Half boyfriend. I guess that’s quite an equivalent of a BFF. But we aren’t mainstream are we?

And then…it happened.

The beep sounded, and my phone shut down. I connected the charger, and waited for it to boot up again, but till then she was gone. I began writing this, till my friend called me and told me that it was time to leave.

I would have written about the present and what happens at the end, but as the book is so not mainstream, but then I was too bored to waste another 100 pages, with a wild goose chase in a foreign location, and etc etc.

Well, to be frank, the half boyfriend just deserved half a story, and nothing more. And yes, you haven’t read that before, especially not in another post of mine.

Copies from the self, because copying from others is too mainstream.

PS: All connections made to recent happenings and other manuscripts are incidental and have been used and placed strategically in order to allow you to make the connection. All in good humor though.

Repercussions

The elderly figure dressed in black ambled to his chair, as the whole room rose to honor him. The quiet resumed, and the man at the head of the hall began, “The jury has decided on a sentence for Rick Jordan. For his repeated and relentlessly cruel crimes of harming children and subjecting them to abuse, the court agrees with the jury that the accused is guilty.”

The people broke into hushed whispers, as Rick glared at the Judge, his eyes revealing nothing, just throwing silent daggers, at the man in black, who went on.

“The jury wished to allow the accused another chance at life, provided that he live in solitude, dying a bit everyday in a prison cell. The court does not deem that as punishment fit for a man who has committed such devious crimes, and has performed such inhumane acts. The court has decided to invoke the death penalty.”

The whispers returned, but only in the distance. Rick stood there, motionless, his eyes glassy; the lights of the chamber dimmed, and it was as though he was the only one present in the room. Like he was alone, just like that day; there was no one to comfort him, to wipe his tears, to feel his pain, to make him feel alright, again. Nobody to stop the blood, or to clean the gore, to lift him up, and to say that life would be fine again- nobody.

The gloom of that day returned, but the pain didn’t. He was satisfied, with himself, with life; it was as though he had obtained the revenge he had started out for; as though he was at the top of the world.

The darkness peeled as Rick walked down the lane. Whistling into the dark night, he walked into the drive of the last house. This was where the warden lived, the man who took care of him, and of the whole orphanage, where he had been for as long as he remembered. This was home for him, and the other children and the warden were all he had for family.

Getting to have dinner with the warden meant he was special, and it really did seem special, especially as the warden had called him alone, and that too for the first time in the 8 years he had been here. He would now look down at his friends, and with that thought, he raised his head higher, and his step took a new lift.

He slowly opened the gate, and walked towards the welcoming white door. A delicious aroma wafted from the open window, and he could see the warden walking around the kitchen busily. The haughtiness still in his stride, he knocked on the door, and waited for it to open. Seeing Rick, the warden’s smile widened, and he ushered the small boy inside, into the waiting chair, warm and cozy in the cool weather outside.

“Hello Sir, thank you for inviting me over.”

“It’s my pleasure Rick, which you shall realize as the evening proceeds. Can I tempt you to a cookie as the steak cooks? I’m a late eater, so I cook late, hope you won’t mind that?”

“I would love that Mr. Warden.”

“How do you like your steak, Rick?”

“I haven’t tasted it ever, so I don’t know. Maybe I could tell you after I have it.”

“Well, the trustees of The Home don’t provide that much for me to cook you all steak every day. Well, that’s why I call some of you over for a meal, some special ones.”

“Thank you Mr. Warden.”

“Oh wait, I forgot to get you that cookie. And how would you like some orange juice to go with it?”

“That would be just so awesome Mr. Warden.”

“I’ll just be back with the cookie and your juice, my child. I’ll also check up on the steak.”

As the warden walked back into the kitchen, his eyes twinkling with an emotion Rick did not know yet, a weird smell rose and tickled him in the nose. Following it with his senses, Rick got up from the confines of the soft chair and trudged towards the closed door, his eyes taking in everything between the chair and the door. Hearing the warden come back, he ran back to the chair, and sat down, impatient for him to leave him alone again.

Munching the cookie, Rick looked around and waited for the warden to leave him again, so that he could get back to exploring the closed door. As he bit more into the biscuit, he felt a strange heaviness in his eyelids and a new lightness in his body. He wished to just let go, and fall to the ground; to just close his eyes, and wander into the expanses of his dreams. The last thing he remembered seeing was the warden sneering evilly. When his eyes opened, there was just the excruciating pain, and he hoped that it would be the last sensation he felt in his life, he just wanted it to end. His eyes picked the surroundings, and he realized that he was in the closed room. With the realization, the darkness returned, and he lost consciousness. Again.

The sound of the gavel brought him back to the present, chamber as the uniformed men raced forward from all four corners of the chamber and surrounded him. He stood firm, the lines of his face shining in the light; his eyes, unblinking, taking in everything from the surroundings; his jaw set hard lined to resemble a smirk. As his captors reached him, he allowed them to cuff him, and with a mild smile, he began walking, as cool, and cold, as the South Pole. Marching to the awaiting van, he raised a hand to the throng, which broke away with shrieks and swears, and some of them shivered, and a chill went down their spine. The car drove away, as the people walked off, still discussing the cruelty and barbarity of the sentenced man.

The sharp steps reverberated through the corridor, and the light of the torch pierced a beam through the darkness. Bars clanged, and within moments, the shadows returned to haunt the long room, but the silence did not.

“The night is dark, and full of terrors; we do mistakes, but we make errors,” he murmured to himself, again and again, pronouncing every syllable with increasing energy.

Shouts rose from the neighboring cells, overflowing with anger and abuses, as he let the quiet refurbish the place. There was no way out from here; there was nowhere to go, no place to hide; there was no quiet, no peace; only disturbances, of life, of nature. He was stuck.