After-life

Posted by: Sakhi on: May 25, 2010

• In: Fiction | Life | Love
• 48 Comments

She sat there on the window seat, looking out in the oblivion. Usually she loved watching the rain drops fall and loved the aroma generated when the parched earth soaked up all the tears of Gods. Today she did not even notice when the rain became fierce and when she got soaked in the torrential down pour.

She just sat there re-living each and every moment she had passed with Ankur. Those silly days of adolescence when she unnecessarily giggled at his stupid jokes were still fresh in her mind. How and when they became aware of each other as a man and a woman she never realized. Her skin had tingled at his first touch. Her every cell was on fire then. A small smile tentatively touched her lips. She involuntarily licked her lips as she remembered their first stolen kiss. They were scared of being caught and that made their first kiss even more thrilling. She remembered his ears going red when they saw each other the next day. He was shy and she loved teasing him.

A small tear trickled down her cheeks and a wistful smile came on her face.

She remembered their first love-making. They were both so naïve and clumsy but the thought of belonging to each other was overwhelming. How time flew! And with time their love too found new heights. They were considered to be the best couple on the campus.  And then slowly something started going wrong. They did not realize when the things they cherished so much, which were precious to them started getting mundane; when from lovers they became apathetic. With the end of the last year of the college their relationship came to an end too! Why and what went wrong she never knew.

How she missed him and their days together! But she never tried to contact him, neither did he. And life went on.

She looked at the crumpled letter in her laps and a sob broke through her, a sob which shook her very being. Now the tears came in bountiful and rain outside increased its pace, as if Gods too understood her turmoil. She tried to flatten the letter again with her wet hands and read those dreadful lines once again, hoping against hope that she might have misunderstood their meaning. It still read the same thing! She had lost Ankur once twenty years back, she lost him again, now for good. She will never see him again, not in this life. She never believed in “after-life”, now she wished there indeed was one.

She did not realize how long she sat there looking at the letter; it must be late since she saw only darkness from her window. She looked at the letter for one last time and got up with determination. It was now time to say final good bye to her childhood sweet heart, final burial of their love!

Just as she threw the pieces of the letter, she heard a click at the main door. She wiped her face, plastered a smile and went on to greet her husband.

Life really goes on… but she would now wait for the “after-life”.

Tags: Fiction, laghukatha, Life, Love, Sakhi