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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Teens
- Theme: Love stories / Romance
- Subject: Death / Heartbreak / Loss
- Published: 12/06/2013
Walking in the Rains...
Born 1993, M, from Jharkhand, IndiaWalking in the Rains…
“I love to walk in the rains ‘coz no one knows I am crying.” You might have heard it thousands of times and even praised this quote but only I can know what misery this rain brings in for me. I just hate to walk in the rain ‘coz it makes me cry, thinking of my halo-pure past. It tingles the fingers in my right palm and I feel a similar cold sensation that had once been a part of my prairie like life in those days long past gilded to the pages of my history.
A similar warmth spreads over me and however soothing it may be, I break down and tears slide down my cheeks, yet bringing a cute smile to my face. And truly speaking, I hate whenever it happens because it is the only thing that I am left with, of my dearly loved one.
How can I forget that mesmerizing yet tormenting evening? The weather conditions were exactly the same as they are today - drizzly, breezy and the world was so quiet that you would feel the existence of only two people - you and your…
However hard I may try; I can never forget myself peeping into those pair of glittering green eyes, the look that had taken the heart out of my eyes in an instant, and then those same eyes, filled with an unending stream of tears, pleading and begging to me helplessly, hoping that I’d do a miracle and cleanse them of their torture. But as normal as I had been to that soul who considered me dearer than her God, I stood silently, unable to do anything, unable to even watch her breathe her last breath, as the doctors took her into the operation theatre and the hand that I had been holding for the past hour, glued to my hand, slowly slid past me. And as the connection was broken, I felt I knew it that the “connection” had broken.
Today, as I stand here, in the same place where we had our first kiss, I am reminded of that day when I was first won over by her mystifying beauty, her rhythmic voice and her thick dark curls which seemed like the surface of the wavy ocean. And how can I forget those thin pair of spectacles on her cute nose? It just increased her charm and the effect it was going to have on me. Those were the college days and I lost my track almost as soon as I saw her walking amidst the thousands of new students, myself being one, in a plain white T-shirt and jeans. Her face was turned down, quite afraid of the new world it had just stepped in. I felt like going and talking to her but no! My shyness stood directly in my way and by no means did I want to make a joke of myself in front of everyone, on the very first day of college, by approaching her and getting an insulting impression of trying to flirt with her. But the truth is that I wanted to do exactly the same thing then and there.
I failed to achieve what I wanted. By the time I had got myself courage enough to take a risk and approach her, I saw the real blunder. Some goons of the college, probably some batches senior to us, had spotted the fear in her eyes and were heading towards her on a bike. At first sight, I didn’t feel that they’d disturb someone so sweet and so calm and then I considered the other prospect thought I was damn sure of my first guess. I imagined them troubling her and myself running towards them, as a hero does, and beating the hell out of the villains and winning the girl for myself, the typical bollywood style. Then I just looked at my arms and the muscles I had and smiled. They were thin enough to be strangled by a kid and I knew I stood no chance. Even Ram Gopal Verma wouldn’t have chosen me for such a scene.
As the so called goons came closer, my opinion changed in an instant. They were actually going to do the things that I was dreading. No sooner did the first bikers pass by, than I saw a person sitting in the back make a strange gesture. When they crossed her, she fell down instinctively and all the papers in her hands got scattered on the floor. Probably that one might have just pushed her to her knees but it happened far worse than even what they might have anticipated. What was meant to be just a push, turned out something else! The hit was so hard that she was, in fact, thrown forward.
That was more than what I could bear and to worsen the situation further; everyone standing there was just laughing. No damned student gave any respectable reaction to it. Not only did they leave her on the dirty ground, but were also laughing at her. What the hell was that! Anyways, for that very moment, their reactions were indifferent to me. In fact, I didn’t care for what I or anyone did. Without letting the thoughts and feelings reach my brain, the spinal cord came into focus.
I still don’t remember what was happening to me but I started to run. And believe me when I say it, at that instant, even Usain Bolt would have seemed a kid to my lightning speed. My legs pushed me so fast that a vein got turned somewhere at that instant and even after two years, I am still taking some massages and tablets daily to allow me to walk comfortably without a limp.
Somehow, I reached the spot and in the hollywood style this time, put a leg on the carrier of the cycle of a fellow student, watching the girl wriggle and cry on the ground in filthy clothes, and keeping my left hand on the face of a student, I pushed him back with my hand and the cycle with my leg and thanks to Sir Newton’s third law of motion, I got some extra momentum and the very next moment, I was mid-air. But woe the gravity and velocity and other sucking terms of Physics and Mathematics, my spinal cord forgot its basic Mathematics and screwed up the complete calculations.
The moment I started to feel like a junior superman, I realized how wrong I was. Believe it or not, the biker I was aiming for was just inches away from the girl and one of them had a hand out to hit her hard and my miscalculation caused them to just go past me before I reached them. The moment between me realizing that I had missed them and me falling on the ground, on my back, after a front flip and going into unconsciousness, I heard a loud cry and I knew what had happened. As I tasted my blood, I felt another body hit the ground a bit far from where I was and I needn’t open my eyes to know that she had been hit. As I dove into the void, I heard a few laughs and them some hands on me.
When I finally opened my eyes, I laughed within myself thinking about the dream and my silliness, but ouch! My cheeks pained like hell and then suddenly, I heard a soft and sweet but strange voice, “Don’t move… you’re hurt. I had better call the doctor.”
My eyes opened, shocked, and what I saw shocked me even more. I saw a girl in dirty clothes walk past the door of what seemed to be a hospital ward-everything was white - the covers, the walls and even the bed and the sheets. I tried to recapitulate what had just chanced by and what the hell! Had I actually jumped? It seemed so but had I actually jumped to save a “girl” and ended up in the hospital with that girl at my bedside? That’s strange, isn’t it?
While I scanned the area and myself, I learnt that I was actually in the local hospital and I had a bandaged head and right cheek. Even my right elbow and knee were tied with blood-soaked bandages. Did I actually hurt myself to such an extent for someone I didn’t know? Since when had I become so involved in social services?
Suddenly the gate opened again and a doctor entered followed by that same girl. And as I saw that girl, I forgot everything again. I was just dumb and the strangest thought came to my mind - why did she help me even after I made a jackass of myself? Maybe my choice was not that bad! Had I done something good by hurting myself?
Meanwhile, the doctor had approached me and was checking my pulse. I wanted to get up as I was feeling awkward to be in bed, with a beautiful girl staring at me straight in the eyes. I couldn’t help it but I stared back for a while and lost my heart then and there. I saw the doctor smile, probably sensing my increased heart beat on seeing her. Rarely had it ever happened but I did fall in what I know is love, in a hospital, with a doctor standing next to me, to confirm the tachycardia. And that very doctor was the reason why I had to end that eye to eye stare. Ignoring the love in the air, he just spat out, “You are very lucky to have such a good friend.” I don’t know whether he was saying it to me or her because he still seemed to be doing something with my wounds but, since I was the topic of discussion, I took it to be addressed to me. “The blood loss would have been severe had your friend not brought you here so quick. Usually people leave the spot in such a case but I am shocked to see you here so soon.”
“Why didn’t you attend to her yet?” I had stopped paying attention to the doctor. I couldn’t help notice the pain in her eyes, the cut on the forehead, oozing blood, her dirt-soaked clothes and bruised cheek. Gosh, how badly I wanted to run my hands over those cheeks, caress them, make the pain go away. Just looking at her bruise made my cheeks hurt.
“She didn’t allow me to treat her wounds before I had bandaged yours,” he replied, expressionless, the smile gone. “And yet she says that she is just your friend. It’s not unheard of, yet I have seen it for the first time.”
This took all the air out of my lungs. I looked back at those green eyes and wondered why she had done it to me. And mostly, she said that she is my FRIEND!!! Well, friendship is indeed better than getting laughed at after attempting a silly suicide jump; I thought and smiled at her. She just smiled back and continued to look back at me. The stare frightened me and I waited for the doctor to leave, which he did soon, saying that I could leave the hospital in the evening and that I would feel much better by that time. I thanked him and as he left, my heart skipped a beat as she came and sat at my bedside.
As is my usual behaviour with any stranger, I approached her in not exactly what you’d call a friendly manner, “Why did you do this?” and as I had expected, she retaliated in her soft voice, “Did you expect me to leave a mad man on the ground like the others who left me?”
I smiled. It was as if she was hypnotizing me and I was losing myself every second. “Well, it was an awful jump you took and despite the fact that we don’t know each other and that I hate violence, I kind-of-liked your style.” It was followed by a moment of silence and then she suddenly held out her hand, “Hi. I am Tia.”
“Sameer,” I said and forced my hand on hers. I guess that even she knew it that I was shaking while shaking her hands because of the look in her eyes but she never said it. Her hands were as cold as ice and I guess that she too was nervous in talking to me so informally, lest I should feel bad.
We talked for long and time flew by. In the afternoon, she bought me a small lunch and I promised to pay her back for it someday and instinctively invited her to a date with me that Saturday evening. Though I said it would be just snacks and chat so that I could repay her kindness, I guess she understood my motive and blushed. The meeting was decided. Since we both were outsiders and we didn’t want to inform our parents, we sat together till evening, when the doctor returned. After we gave a few autographs on some papers and I, paying for myself this time, we left.
As soon as she went out, she laughed out loud. When I asked her, I was baffled by the ease with which we spoke. “I felt like we were signing our marriage papers.” Even I laughed out (though I must admit I forced my laughter just to hide myself blushing on the thought) and after dropping her to her hostel and fixing our first date after a week, we departed and I walked through the route where two years later, I would lose her. Had I known it then, I would never have imagined anything further between us but woe the greater force so-called God; he pushed me into the whirlpool, where in the beginning, it feels you are enjoying a ride, only to find in the end there would be no escaping the devil in its eye.
Just one year later, exactly on the same day, the 31st of October, when I was sure that she too had the same feelings for me, I expressed my heart out. Believe it or not, I had actually rehearsed what I was going to say to her. We were just coming out of a café, after me having given her a coffee treat and walking hand in hand on the same road where my life would change. I knew that I would just be a formality to express our feelings, but yet I felt that it would be a great time to do it and we were still walking silently, I stopped.
She waited and asked me what the matter was. I don’t know how to describe the conditions but I just started to conversation, my head glued to her pink sandals, “I have hidden something from you. I think that you might have guessed it already but I…”
“I love you,” she finished it for me.
I looked up and in a second, she leapt on me and we were kissing each other. “I love you too. I have been doing it for a year now.” I said and then a hug followed. The entire world shifted to one side and she stood at the other and I chose her. I didn’t care who the hell was watching us but held her as tightly as I could. After I lost my breath, we let go of each other and I was shocked to see tears coming out of both of our eyes. Unable to say anything more, we walked on further, speaking nothing. Her head was on my shoulders and my hand around her waist, as we walked the rest of the distance to her hostel.
Somehow, the presence of Tia in my life never affected me or my studies. Never were her results bad or even average and I accepted her as a gift in my life. Though she was a mediocre student but accept it when I say it that we used to have the longest dates of our life every single day of our exam month. Otherwise, it was fixed and a part of our routine to meet on Saturday nights and spend the whole Sunday together. Besides, there was always a mobile connection connecting us during the weekdays’ long nights, the expenses being carried out by us together.
And yeah, the greatest rule of our shared life - to kill formalities. It was never a topic of discussion as to who would be paying the bill, what the budget should be for the evening and so on. In the college though every brick knew our tale, we rarely saw each other, thanks to my plan of not meeting more than what we could control, or else it would affect our long term careers.
We shared the same views, same thoughts and yet had entirely different likings. Like every average girl, she was a die-hard fan of Shahrukh Khan and like every average boy, I was jealous of him, and so hated him. It was like we had one soul and two bodies. Also, if you could, just for a moment, consider hugging and kissing as the limit, we never ever crossed it. Our parents knew fully well about this on-going stuff and though hers’ objected it, I guess I was worth telling a few lies for her being with me.
Overall, her introduction brought about a total change in my routine. I would wake her up in the morning and SMS her from my bed itself, indicating that I won the who-would-wake-first-and-SMS-the-other-competition, get ready for college and completely devote myself to studies. After the college, I would see her for the first time since morning and would walk her to the hostel, on my way back, chatting and caressing each other throughout the fifteen minute walk.
After reaching my room and having the lunch (I never used the college canteen because it was too expensive for me to afford it as well as the regular rendezvous), I started the mugging up business, which would follow till around nine in the night broken only by a one hour break in the evening when I would usually mend my room or take a bath and so on. Exactly at nine, either of us would call each other and thanks to the special offers offered by the mobile companies, we could talk for hours without any substantial bill coming up.
Today, just as I think of those glorious moments of those days long past forgotten, a smile again floods my expressionless face and suddenly, I break down with tears rolling down my cheeks and I wail at the top of my voice, yet smiling and occasionally laughing at the same instant. This is the moment I am reminded of that accident and my mind flashes with the sweet, blood covered face, with fresh blood being vomited out with every new heart-beat, as if the heart itself were beating its way to its own grave.
It was the fifteenth of June, the day when our second year exams were finally over. As usual, I had out-performed and for the first time, I actually expected to top the college; the entire credit to Tia’s unending encouragement and sacrifice of not letting me talk late during the exam, nights. And this demanded a party. I was ready to celebrate lavishly and even my parents allowed me, when I told them, to enjoy with my “friends.”
I took her to the fanciest restaurant of the area and paid the lengthiest bill of my life, and as we were on our way back, we told each other the bad news. We were both going to our separate states the very next morning, to spend the holidays and I knew it fully well that her going to her home meant a month of no contact at all. We could no longer have those hour-long chats but a mere few minutes of hidden calls or SMS-es. It was then that she sensed this worry in my expression and shocked me by telling that this time, she’d talk to her parents about our marriage.
“What? Are you serious?” I reacted.
“Don’t you want to marry me?” she countered.
“Of course I do. But now? I thought we had decided to end ourselves in respectful jobs before going for it.”
“I know. I am not asking you to marry me now but two years later. I have even decided the date-the thirteenth of April, how’s that?”
“Are you seriously serious? Why are you fixing the date now? I had better plans.”
“Like?”
“Like dumping you and marrying someone else, you fool. Don’t you think it’s too soon to ask them about it?”
“I am not going to ask them about it. I’ll be making a statement. I don’t care if they find you irritating or selfish. I will either live with you or stop my life.”
Somehow, I couldn’t refuse her plan because even I had wanted the same thing to be done soon. “Well, do as you wish but on one condition that you will close your eyes right now and do as I say.”
“Hey, not that one again,” she replied and then, without any further resistance, closed her eyes. “Last time you put a cockroach on my head when you asked me to close my eyes.”
I laughed out remembering that one and then, I took her to a nearby seat and had her sit down. “Please sit down here and wait for me for a minute but be careful not to open your eyes.”
She wanted to ask me about it but then, she paused and just said, “I’ll wait here till eternity if I have to, with my eyes closed, I promise.”
Coming back to the present, I remembered something and my hand suddenly went inside my pocket and I took out a piece of paper with my trembling hands. It was a page with her handwriting on it. I had her write it just after ten minutes of her opening her eyes because I wanted to have her version of what I was about to do then and in that very shop where I was hiding from the rains and remembering my past, I started to read it out loud—
I waited for long, quite puzzled by your sudden request to close my eyes and your disappearance. Silence followed and yet I stayed. No fear engulfed me because I knew it that the very next moment, you would come up and I was ready to be scared because I knew that you were still close to me. A small breeze flew past and I just imagined how long I had to wait before you would lose your patience. Five long minutes passed by and yet I didn’t stir. For an iota of a second, I thought you had left me but my instinct knew it that I’d wait there till death if you didn’t come and then suddenly I heard a distant voice. It was you, “Tia, just stand up and walk forward ten steps without opening your eyes.”
I was baffled. Why would you ask me to do this? Furthermore, I was on the edge of a busy road and you were asking me to walk into the road!!! But I never hesitated. I knew that you had thought before saying and my life mattered little to me, but I said, thinking of not being with you after something happened to me or you, “But it’s the road there.”
You replied from the same spot ahead of me, as if you yourself were on the road, “Trust me Tia. Just walk.”
I did as I was told and reached the spot, counting ten feet. I knew that I was on the road and yet nothing hit me. Maybe all the city people were at home then. You said again, this time too close to me, “Now open your eyes slowly.”
I did it as slowly as I could, savouring every moment of it. My first reaction was - what the hell, but before I could say anything, you said what I had least expected you to say, “Tia, in front of this world’s busiest traffic, in front of this world itself, I legally propose to you with a flower just picked illegally from the fence nearby, will you marry me?”
Before replying, I turned right. To my right was standing a traffic police with his hands outstretched, stopping all the traffic, and what was even more fabulous was that all the people were outside their cars, smiling and waiting for my reply. Hundreds of eyes stared at me but they meant nothing to me. The only thing that had a meaning was your presence…
And she quietly took the flower, blushing as red as the rose in her hand and replied, “Yes Sameer, I will.”
Now something had happened for which even I couldn’t have hoped. All the people standing there started to clap as we kissed. I don’t know how long the applauding lasted because when we broke off, we had nothing else to see other than each other’s eyes. Such is the effect of a five-hundred rupees note given to a traffic policeman.
Ten minutes after she had written her version of my proposal on the same bench she had been sitting, we were on our way back home and none of us had said anything. It had started to drizzle and a cool breeze was flowing. We were both smiling yet no words escaped our lips. The traffic had resumed to normal and we walked on, hoping that the journey never end.
Finally, I broke the silence, “So, how was it?”
She looked at me with her teary eyes but remained silent. To me, her message was clear. Her eyes said things that were deeply hidden inside her. After a minute, she broke the connection and continued to look towards the other direction. I knew that I had to look for a better question. So I picked up my old teasing tone. “So my princess, what would you have done if someone would have driven over me at that instant?
This time, a short laugh escaped and she replied in her ever sweet and mocking voice, “Obviously I would have caught the driver and married him instead, since he won the princess by killing her fiancé. Don’t you think I deserve the best?”
I too laughed and in a similar mockery, gave her a small jerk and it happened, the thing that is responsible for my condition today. I just stirred from the spot where I was actually standing, being stared at by everyone as if I were a mad man, seeing her foot slip because of my push, in a slippery puddle by the roadside. And the very next moment, I witnessed a blinding crash. It was indeed the first and second last accident I witnessed in my life. Though it could have been an exciting event, it wasn’t because the person thrown was none other than the sweet lady who had just been proposed to by me.
I ran out of the shop’s cover into the rain. As I became aware of the wet hands, they appeared to me as her blood which was spilling out of her body to my skin. I cried out loud and rushed away. Her bloody face, scarlet turned white T-shirt and those open eyes murmuring her last words, “I love you, Sameer,” was something I could not remove from my mind and to be true, I didn’t even want to because those were her last words, addressed to the person she loved the most.
I fell down on the road as I had fallen that day, hugging a roadside stone, seeing her face in that object. I tried to stir it up, hoping her to speak something else out of her unconsciousness, just one more word, just one more smile, just one more hug, just one more kiss, just one more minute with her, but in vain. Realizing that I had failed to answer her last question she asked and those same hands which had murdered her, try to wipe her tears, I stood up again and rushed to the spot where her body had fallen down. It was just a hundred meters away … fifty … twenty … ten … and I stopped.
Instead of walking straight, I turned right, to the middle of the road and the next thing I remember something hard metal struck my legs and I was air-borne, shouting, “Here I come buddy. No one can separate us…” and funny as it may seem, this time my calculation was exactly correct. I landed and stopped at the exact position where she had laid a few months back, minutes of distance away from where we had our first kiss, just half a kilometre away from where I had first seen her and one kilometre away from where we became FRIENDS. Before diving into the void, I completed my sentence, “…not even GOD.”
And then after a short laugh, I closed my eyes for eternity with a smile glued to my face and I died…
-Serene Enigma
Walking in the Rains...(Serene Enigma)
Walking in the Rains…
“I love to walk in the rains ‘coz no one knows I am crying.” You might have heard it thousands of times and even praised this quote but only I can know what misery this rain brings in for me. I just hate to walk in the rain ‘coz it makes me cry, thinking of my halo-pure past. It tingles the fingers in my right palm and I feel a similar cold sensation that had once been a part of my prairie like life in those days long past gilded to the pages of my history.
A similar warmth spreads over me and however soothing it may be, I break down and tears slide down my cheeks, yet bringing a cute smile to my face. And truly speaking, I hate whenever it happens because it is the only thing that I am left with, of my dearly loved one.
How can I forget that mesmerizing yet tormenting evening? The weather conditions were exactly the same as they are today - drizzly, breezy and the world was so quiet that you would feel the existence of only two people - you and your…
However hard I may try; I can never forget myself peeping into those pair of glittering green eyes, the look that had taken the heart out of my eyes in an instant, and then those same eyes, filled with an unending stream of tears, pleading and begging to me helplessly, hoping that I’d do a miracle and cleanse them of their torture. But as normal as I had been to that soul who considered me dearer than her God, I stood silently, unable to do anything, unable to even watch her breathe her last breath, as the doctors took her into the operation theatre and the hand that I had been holding for the past hour, glued to my hand, slowly slid past me. And as the connection was broken, I felt I knew it that the “connection” had broken.
Today, as I stand here, in the same place where we had our first kiss, I am reminded of that day when I was first won over by her mystifying beauty, her rhythmic voice and her thick dark curls which seemed like the surface of the wavy ocean. And how can I forget those thin pair of spectacles on her cute nose? It just increased her charm and the effect it was going to have on me. Those were the college days and I lost my track almost as soon as I saw her walking amidst the thousands of new students, myself being one, in a plain white T-shirt and jeans. Her face was turned down, quite afraid of the new world it had just stepped in. I felt like going and talking to her but no! My shyness stood directly in my way and by no means did I want to make a joke of myself in front of everyone, on the very first day of college, by approaching her and getting an insulting impression of trying to flirt with her. But the truth is that I wanted to do exactly the same thing then and there.
I failed to achieve what I wanted. By the time I had got myself courage enough to take a risk and approach her, I saw the real blunder. Some goons of the college, probably some batches senior to us, had spotted the fear in her eyes and were heading towards her on a bike. At first sight, I didn’t feel that they’d disturb someone so sweet and so calm and then I considered the other prospect thought I was damn sure of my first guess. I imagined them troubling her and myself running towards them, as a hero does, and beating the hell out of the villains and winning the girl for myself, the typical bollywood style. Then I just looked at my arms and the muscles I had and smiled. They were thin enough to be strangled by a kid and I knew I stood no chance. Even Ram Gopal Verma wouldn’t have chosen me for such a scene.
As the so called goons came closer, my opinion changed in an instant. They were actually going to do the things that I was dreading. No sooner did the first bikers pass by, than I saw a person sitting in the back make a strange gesture. When they crossed her, she fell down instinctively and all the papers in her hands got scattered on the floor. Probably that one might have just pushed her to her knees but it happened far worse than even what they might have anticipated. What was meant to be just a push, turned out something else! The hit was so hard that she was, in fact, thrown forward.
That was more than what I could bear and to worsen the situation further; everyone standing there was just laughing. No damned student gave any respectable reaction to it. Not only did they leave her on the dirty ground, but were also laughing at her. What the hell was that! Anyways, for that very moment, their reactions were indifferent to me. In fact, I didn’t care for what I or anyone did. Without letting the thoughts and feelings reach my brain, the spinal cord came into focus.
I still don’t remember what was happening to me but I started to run. And believe me when I say it, at that instant, even Usain Bolt would have seemed a kid to my lightning speed. My legs pushed me so fast that a vein got turned somewhere at that instant and even after two years, I am still taking some massages and tablets daily to allow me to walk comfortably without a limp.
Somehow, I reached the spot and in the hollywood style this time, put a leg on the carrier of the cycle of a fellow student, watching the girl wriggle and cry on the ground in filthy clothes, and keeping my left hand on the face of a student, I pushed him back with my hand and the cycle with my leg and thanks to Sir Newton’s third law of motion, I got some extra momentum and the very next moment, I was mid-air. But woe the gravity and velocity and other sucking terms of Physics and Mathematics, my spinal cord forgot its basic Mathematics and screwed up the complete calculations.
The moment I started to feel like a junior superman, I realized how wrong I was. Believe it or not, the biker I was aiming for was just inches away from the girl and one of them had a hand out to hit her hard and my miscalculation caused them to just go past me before I reached them. The moment between me realizing that I had missed them and me falling on the ground, on my back, after a front flip and going into unconsciousness, I heard a loud cry and I knew what had happened. As I tasted my blood, I felt another body hit the ground a bit far from where I was and I needn’t open my eyes to know that she had been hit. As I dove into the void, I heard a few laughs and them some hands on me.
When I finally opened my eyes, I laughed within myself thinking about the dream and my silliness, but ouch! My cheeks pained like hell and then suddenly, I heard a soft and sweet but strange voice, “Don’t move… you’re hurt. I had better call the doctor.”
My eyes opened, shocked, and what I saw shocked me even more. I saw a girl in dirty clothes walk past the door of what seemed to be a hospital ward-everything was white - the covers, the walls and even the bed and the sheets. I tried to recapitulate what had just chanced by and what the hell! Had I actually jumped? It seemed so but had I actually jumped to save a “girl” and ended up in the hospital with that girl at my bedside? That’s strange, isn’t it?
While I scanned the area and myself, I learnt that I was actually in the local hospital and I had a bandaged head and right cheek. Even my right elbow and knee were tied with blood-soaked bandages. Did I actually hurt myself to such an extent for someone I didn’t know? Since when had I become so involved in social services?
Suddenly the gate opened again and a doctor entered followed by that same girl. And as I saw that girl, I forgot everything again. I was just dumb and the strangest thought came to my mind - why did she help me even after I made a jackass of myself? Maybe my choice was not that bad! Had I done something good by hurting myself?
Meanwhile, the doctor had approached me and was checking my pulse. I wanted to get up as I was feeling awkward to be in bed, with a beautiful girl staring at me straight in the eyes. I couldn’t help it but I stared back for a while and lost my heart then and there. I saw the doctor smile, probably sensing my increased heart beat on seeing her. Rarely had it ever happened but I did fall in what I know is love, in a hospital, with a doctor standing next to me, to confirm the tachycardia. And that very doctor was the reason why I had to end that eye to eye stare. Ignoring the love in the air, he just spat out, “You are very lucky to have such a good friend.” I don’t know whether he was saying it to me or her because he still seemed to be doing something with my wounds but, since I was the topic of discussion, I took it to be addressed to me. “The blood loss would have been severe had your friend not brought you here so quick. Usually people leave the spot in such a case but I am shocked to see you here so soon.”
“Why didn’t you attend to her yet?” I had stopped paying attention to the doctor. I couldn’t help notice the pain in her eyes, the cut on the forehead, oozing blood, her dirt-soaked clothes and bruised cheek. Gosh, how badly I wanted to run my hands over those cheeks, caress them, make the pain go away. Just looking at her bruise made my cheeks hurt.
“She didn’t allow me to treat her wounds before I had bandaged yours,” he replied, expressionless, the smile gone. “And yet she says that she is just your friend. It’s not unheard of, yet I have seen it for the first time.”
This took all the air out of my lungs. I looked back at those green eyes and wondered why she had done it to me. And mostly, she said that she is my FRIEND!!! Well, friendship is indeed better than getting laughed at after attempting a silly suicide jump; I thought and smiled at her. She just smiled back and continued to look back at me. The stare frightened me and I waited for the doctor to leave, which he did soon, saying that I could leave the hospital in the evening and that I would feel much better by that time. I thanked him and as he left, my heart skipped a beat as she came and sat at my bedside.
As is my usual behaviour with any stranger, I approached her in not exactly what you’d call a friendly manner, “Why did you do this?” and as I had expected, she retaliated in her soft voice, “Did you expect me to leave a mad man on the ground like the others who left me?”
I smiled. It was as if she was hypnotizing me and I was losing myself every second. “Well, it was an awful jump you took and despite the fact that we don’t know each other and that I hate violence, I kind-of-liked your style.” It was followed by a moment of silence and then she suddenly held out her hand, “Hi. I am Tia.”
“Sameer,” I said and forced my hand on hers. I guess that even she knew it that I was shaking while shaking her hands because of the look in her eyes but she never said it. Her hands were as cold as ice and I guess that she too was nervous in talking to me so informally, lest I should feel bad.
We talked for long and time flew by. In the afternoon, she bought me a small lunch and I promised to pay her back for it someday and instinctively invited her to a date with me that Saturday evening. Though I said it would be just snacks and chat so that I could repay her kindness, I guess she understood my motive and blushed. The meeting was decided. Since we both were outsiders and we didn’t want to inform our parents, we sat together till evening, when the doctor returned. After we gave a few autographs on some papers and I, paying for myself this time, we left.
As soon as she went out, she laughed out loud. When I asked her, I was baffled by the ease with which we spoke. “I felt like we were signing our marriage papers.” Even I laughed out (though I must admit I forced my laughter just to hide myself blushing on the thought) and after dropping her to her hostel and fixing our first date after a week, we departed and I walked through the route where two years later, I would lose her. Had I known it then, I would never have imagined anything further between us but woe the greater force so-called God; he pushed me into the whirlpool, where in the beginning, it feels you are enjoying a ride, only to find in the end there would be no escaping the devil in its eye.
Just one year later, exactly on the same day, the 31st of October, when I was sure that she too had the same feelings for me, I expressed my heart out. Believe it or not, I had actually rehearsed what I was going to say to her. We were just coming out of a café, after me having given her a coffee treat and walking hand in hand on the same road where my life would change. I knew that I would just be a formality to express our feelings, but yet I felt that it would be a great time to do it and we were still walking silently, I stopped.
She waited and asked me what the matter was. I don’t know how to describe the conditions but I just started to conversation, my head glued to her pink sandals, “I have hidden something from you. I think that you might have guessed it already but I…”
“I love you,” she finished it for me.
I looked up and in a second, she leapt on me and we were kissing each other. “I love you too. I have been doing it for a year now.” I said and then a hug followed. The entire world shifted to one side and she stood at the other and I chose her. I didn’t care who the hell was watching us but held her as tightly as I could. After I lost my breath, we let go of each other and I was shocked to see tears coming out of both of our eyes. Unable to say anything more, we walked on further, speaking nothing. Her head was on my shoulders and my hand around her waist, as we walked the rest of the distance to her hostel.
Somehow, the presence of Tia in my life never affected me or my studies. Never were her results bad or even average and I accepted her as a gift in my life. Though she was a mediocre student but accept it when I say it that we used to have the longest dates of our life every single day of our exam month. Otherwise, it was fixed and a part of our routine to meet on Saturday nights and spend the whole Sunday together. Besides, there was always a mobile connection connecting us during the weekdays’ long nights, the expenses being carried out by us together.
And yeah, the greatest rule of our shared life - to kill formalities. It was never a topic of discussion as to who would be paying the bill, what the budget should be for the evening and so on. In the college though every brick knew our tale, we rarely saw each other, thanks to my plan of not meeting more than what we could control, or else it would affect our long term careers.
We shared the same views, same thoughts and yet had entirely different likings. Like every average girl, she was a die-hard fan of Shahrukh Khan and like every average boy, I was jealous of him, and so hated him. It was like we had one soul and two bodies. Also, if you could, just for a moment, consider hugging and kissing as the limit, we never ever crossed it. Our parents knew fully well about this on-going stuff and though hers’ objected it, I guess I was worth telling a few lies for her being with me.
Overall, her introduction brought about a total change in my routine. I would wake her up in the morning and SMS her from my bed itself, indicating that I won the who-would-wake-first-and-SMS-the-other-competition, get ready for college and completely devote myself to studies. After the college, I would see her for the first time since morning and would walk her to the hostel, on my way back, chatting and caressing each other throughout the fifteen minute walk.
After reaching my room and having the lunch (I never used the college canteen because it was too expensive for me to afford it as well as the regular rendezvous), I started the mugging up business, which would follow till around nine in the night broken only by a one hour break in the evening when I would usually mend my room or take a bath and so on. Exactly at nine, either of us would call each other and thanks to the special offers offered by the mobile companies, we could talk for hours without any substantial bill coming up.
Today, just as I think of those glorious moments of those days long past forgotten, a smile again floods my expressionless face and suddenly, I break down with tears rolling down my cheeks and I wail at the top of my voice, yet smiling and occasionally laughing at the same instant. This is the moment I am reminded of that accident and my mind flashes with the sweet, blood covered face, with fresh blood being vomited out with every new heart-beat, as if the heart itself were beating its way to its own grave.
It was the fifteenth of June, the day when our second year exams were finally over. As usual, I had out-performed and for the first time, I actually expected to top the college; the entire credit to Tia’s unending encouragement and sacrifice of not letting me talk late during the exam, nights. And this demanded a party. I was ready to celebrate lavishly and even my parents allowed me, when I told them, to enjoy with my “friends.”
I took her to the fanciest restaurant of the area and paid the lengthiest bill of my life, and as we were on our way back, we told each other the bad news. We were both going to our separate states the very next morning, to spend the holidays and I knew it fully well that her going to her home meant a month of no contact at all. We could no longer have those hour-long chats but a mere few minutes of hidden calls or SMS-es. It was then that she sensed this worry in my expression and shocked me by telling that this time, she’d talk to her parents about our marriage.
“What? Are you serious?” I reacted.
“Don’t you want to marry me?” she countered.
“Of course I do. But now? I thought we had decided to end ourselves in respectful jobs before going for it.”
“I know. I am not asking you to marry me now but two years later. I have even decided the date-the thirteenth of April, how’s that?”
“Are you seriously serious? Why are you fixing the date now? I had better plans.”
“Like?”
“Like dumping you and marrying someone else, you fool. Don’t you think it’s too soon to ask them about it?”
“I am not going to ask them about it. I’ll be making a statement. I don’t care if they find you irritating or selfish. I will either live with you or stop my life.”
Somehow, I couldn’t refuse her plan because even I had wanted the same thing to be done soon. “Well, do as you wish but on one condition that you will close your eyes right now and do as I say.”
“Hey, not that one again,” she replied and then, without any further resistance, closed her eyes. “Last time you put a cockroach on my head when you asked me to close my eyes.”
I laughed out remembering that one and then, I took her to a nearby seat and had her sit down. “Please sit down here and wait for me for a minute but be careful not to open your eyes.”
She wanted to ask me about it but then, she paused and just said, “I’ll wait here till eternity if I have to, with my eyes closed, I promise.”
Coming back to the present, I remembered something and my hand suddenly went inside my pocket and I took out a piece of paper with my trembling hands. It was a page with her handwriting on it. I had her write it just after ten minutes of her opening her eyes because I wanted to have her version of what I was about to do then and in that very shop where I was hiding from the rains and remembering my past, I started to read it out loud—
I waited for long, quite puzzled by your sudden request to close my eyes and your disappearance. Silence followed and yet I stayed. No fear engulfed me because I knew it that the very next moment, you would come up and I was ready to be scared because I knew that you were still close to me. A small breeze flew past and I just imagined how long I had to wait before you would lose your patience. Five long minutes passed by and yet I didn’t stir. For an iota of a second, I thought you had left me but my instinct knew it that I’d wait there till death if you didn’t come and then suddenly I heard a distant voice. It was you, “Tia, just stand up and walk forward ten steps without opening your eyes.”
I was baffled. Why would you ask me to do this? Furthermore, I was on the edge of a busy road and you were asking me to walk into the road!!! But I never hesitated. I knew that you had thought before saying and my life mattered little to me, but I said, thinking of not being with you after something happened to me or you, “But it’s the road there.”
You replied from the same spot ahead of me, as if you yourself were on the road, “Trust me Tia. Just walk.”
I did as I was told and reached the spot, counting ten feet. I knew that I was on the road and yet nothing hit me. Maybe all the city people were at home then. You said again, this time too close to me, “Now open your eyes slowly.”
I did it as slowly as I could, savouring every moment of it. My first reaction was - what the hell, but before I could say anything, you said what I had least expected you to say, “Tia, in front of this world’s busiest traffic, in front of this world itself, I legally propose to you with a flower just picked illegally from the fence nearby, will you marry me?”
Before replying, I turned right. To my right was standing a traffic police with his hands outstretched, stopping all the traffic, and what was even more fabulous was that all the people were outside their cars, smiling and waiting for my reply. Hundreds of eyes stared at me but they meant nothing to me. The only thing that had a meaning was your presence…
And she quietly took the flower, blushing as red as the rose in her hand and replied, “Yes Sameer, I will.”
Now something had happened for which even I couldn’t have hoped. All the people standing there started to clap as we kissed. I don’t know how long the applauding lasted because when we broke off, we had nothing else to see other than each other’s eyes. Such is the effect of a five-hundred rupees note given to a traffic policeman.
Ten minutes after she had written her version of my proposal on the same bench she had been sitting, we were on our way back home and none of us had said anything. It had started to drizzle and a cool breeze was flowing. We were both smiling yet no words escaped our lips. The traffic had resumed to normal and we walked on, hoping that the journey never end.
Finally, I broke the silence, “So, how was it?”
She looked at me with her teary eyes but remained silent. To me, her message was clear. Her eyes said things that were deeply hidden inside her. After a minute, she broke the connection and continued to look towards the other direction. I knew that I had to look for a better question. So I picked up my old teasing tone. “So my princess, what would you have done if someone would have driven over me at that instant?
This time, a short laugh escaped and she replied in her ever sweet and mocking voice, “Obviously I would have caught the driver and married him instead, since he won the princess by killing her fiancé. Don’t you think I deserve the best?”
I too laughed and in a similar mockery, gave her a small jerk and it happened, the thing that is responsible for my condition today. I just stirred from the spot where I was actually standing, being stared at by everyone as if I were a mad man, seeing her foot slip because of my push, in a slippery puddle by the roadside. And the very next moment, I witnessed a blinding crash. It was indeed the first and second last accident I witnessed in my life. Though it could have been an exciting event, it wasn’t because the person thrown was none other than the sweet lady who had just been proposed to by me.
I ran out of the shop’s cover into the rain. As I became aware of the wet hands, they appeared to me as her blood which was spilling out of her body to my skin. I cried out loud and rushed away. Her bloody face, scarlet turned white T-shirt and those open eyes murmuring her last words, “I love you, Sameer,” was something I could not remove from my mind and to be true, I didn’t even want to because those were her last words, addressed to the person she loved the most.
I fell down on the road as I had fallen that day, hugging a roadside stone, seeing her face in that object. I tried to stir it up, hoping her to speak something else out of her unconsciousness, just one more word, just one more smile, just one more hug, just one more kiss, just one more minute with her, but in vain. Realizing that I had failed to answer her last question she asked and those same hands which had murdered her, try to wipe her tears, I stood up again and rushed to the spot where her body had fallen down. It was just a hundred meters away … fifty … twenty … ten … and I stopped.
Instead of walking straight, I turned right, to the middle of the road and the next thing I remember something hard metal struck my legs and I was air-borne, shouting, “Here I come buddy. No one can separate us…” and funny as it may seem, this time my calculation was exactly correct. I landed and stopped at the exact position where she had laid a few months back, minutes of distance away from where we had our first kiss, just half a kilometre away from where I had first seen her and one kilometre away from where we became FRIENDS. Before diving into the void, I completed my sentence, “…not even GOD.”
And then after a short laugh, I closed my eyes for eternity with a smile glued to my face and I died…
-Serene Enigma
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