He called her, but her phone was replying to be not reachable. It had been three days he couldn’t connect. He could see that panic attack hitting him back when he couldn’t reach her, even after so many years it was immensely intense. He decided to message her.
And she was in a constant state of pain. There came a moment, where all she cared about now, was embracing it as if it’s a part of her existence. At times it made her very curious, how a person could profess to own something that doesn’t belongs to him and then suddenly declare that fear of losing, to be an expression that never existed. She wasn’t speaking to him for real, but that never stopper her from speaking to him, relentlessly all day and night, like he is right there the very part of her existence.
Not a single nook in her city spared her of the visual torture to see his shadow beside her, even in the dusky evenings she felt his presence like the warm muffler around her neck, as if his arms were hurling her from behind, like the fragrance of the incense coming from nowhere, sometimes it was like the zephyr leaving the moment exhilarating and it went on ever since it once happened at the last day of a year a decade ago, when she last felt his lips pressing on her forehead, sprinkling drops, from his eyes to hers and the drops felt like the red hot iron, burning her skin. Burning severely lot more than she expected, leaving a mark way too deeper and uglier for anything to conceal. She too wanted to add her share of flowing emotion but preferred to remain the way she was today. And he wanted to sleep in her lap once more and feel her hands passing through every stand of his soul via his hair, hear her ringing bangles, adore her embrace simultaneously feeling jealous of her unborn child, he wanted her to look back in his eyes and assure him once again that he is the one, her prince charming to take her away into the cloud she once dreamed but stopped believing that it existed. He wanted the time to be still and hold on the colors in the sky and get a huge flock of pigeons against the backdrop, to see the shine her eye, her smile and the peace in them, and to get into a remove those scattering hair from her face and lock himself in a never ending kiss, grab her stronger and stronger in his arms and never be without her again.
A December evening, the entire world was celebrating the demise of yet another 365 days and she stood there mourning the loss of the most incredible 52 weeks of her life. Dressed in his favorite color, opening her hair, letting them sway with the blowing air, letting them hug them too, she smiled wiping his tear wanting to ask him to stop, with real screaming words, but he knew it way to well than her, that she wouldn’t and though he wanted to be here with her that moment and for the rest of his life he couldn’t.
And it’s been a decade excluding a week to complete the count, she had been speaking to him all these years though never initiating it again, she responded every time he called, reacting just the way he wants expecting her to be desperate, devastated assuring him of his estimated damage, yet never asking for anything, not even relief now. Sometimes that ecstasy of few moments were sufficient to let her survive until the next call, until the next time she hears that desperation in his voice to speak to her, knowing this perhaps might just be the last time they speak.
She stopped stalking his profile after some months of his departure; she never cared how he would be looking now, if he had gained weight, if he is happy, if he is progressing.
And she knew he is still making his collection of her pictures, he is still desperate to know if she in home, if she is healthy and hence she kept on posting, his favorite pose, his favorite colors everything that was just about him.
And just as she thought he was doing it, following her blogs, re reading her stories, finding himself, realizing what did he do, feeling her pain, feeling her smile. With her words he could run in the rain, freeze in the winter, smile to the birds and knew her dreams were still the same, just that she had disguised his existence but he knew it was all about him. He never commented on her pictures now, he did not explicitly like her stories anymore, but he did have them all safe in his collections. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night just to feel her reading a new story she just wrote, he would browse through her pictures, just to realize he could once again die for that smile, those eyes that showed him exactly who he was, exactly what she knew he would do, yet it never changed her expression, her feelings, she never asked for anything. He was just staring at her lips, recalling them speaking, making her eyes, hands, smile synchronously sing in a unified language, a song, a song for his soul and that his soul is missing that song, he wanted to speak to her that very moment but he estimated it to be 3’o clock in the night in India. He still called her and she was nowhere to be found. She had not visited her account for almost a month now, no new updates flashed from her with a count against the blue globe. He was trying to ignore that feeling but he was incapable of doing it. He suddenly browsed through all her updates carefully, one after the other, just to make sure if she was back from the last solo expedition she had taken. There had not been on any trip since the last one she had taken since last two years, all she did was visited coffee houses, read books, seen art exhibitions, attended fares, wrote stories, created poems, watch people getting married and all other things that did not make any difference to his inquisitiveness.
She couldn’t recall the last time they had spoken, birthdays, festivals none of them mattered anymore, he called her just any time when he need a dose of her essence, he had everything he wanted and wished, yet nothing capable enough to suffice her absence.She still kept some old messages he wrote, still smiling the same way on re reading the, and at another instance when she willed herself to not check her phone to see if he had replied. It had been about three days now. She hated that she was constantly checking his ‘last seen at’ status and yes, he had logged in just five minutes ago. Yet she couldn’t stop herself. This sinking feeling to find absolutely no communication from him was becoming unbearable, almost torturous.
And then, just as she sat down in her chair, her phone vibrated. With her heart thudding in her ear, she unlocked her phone and stared at the screen. Finally! It was his message.
But when she opened it and read it, she nearly stopped breathing. She didn’t know if he was joking or not. What was this?
And that moment when she realized she would never stop him, leaving her numb. Suddenly giving her the courage to be cruel on herself, a lot more than on him, he left her with no choice.
He kept on ringing her for over a week; he suddenly wondered if she had got herself a new number and decided to drop her an email, it had been some days he did not receive any reply,she always responded to emails, he wasn’t sure if she had actually received it.
He suddenly started browsing through all his email accounts, he couldn’t recall which all she addresses she had just, and spend good amount of time traverseing through them to see if she had written any letter and if he missed it and when he couldn’t he knew something is wrong. He took the next flight.
All through the way he was just wondering from where he would start looking for her, she had left the workplace he knew, she had shifted to a new locality that she never updated, she often talked about going into the hills and teaching, he was trying hard to recall the name of her home town, he felt all the more helpless. He wanted to cry but the sight of the beautiful air hostess suddenly made him conscious. She came in to ask if he was alright to which he smiled and she went back.
He got down at the airport and messaged her best friend. She replied instantly asking him to meet her tomorrow morning.
The path from the airport to his house had her all over, all along she was with him and never did he miss her so much than that moment. He couldn’t explain to his parents what brought him here nor could he sleep in his bed without speaking to her all night. All the memories were flashing in his mind, the alleys, her dresses, her smile, and her colors. He had always been speaking to her always.
He was thirty minutes prior to the time he was called by her friend, and to his surprise she too was there right after five minutes(she never came on time).
“Is she coming” he asked.
“You would like latte without sugar?” she asked.
“Yes” he replied. There was nothing to be surprised about her knowing everything.
“Is everything fine, your visit seems unplanned else you wouldn’t ping me at two in the night?” she looked very calm unlike her usual behavior.
“Yes” he said, “I want to speak to her, and her phone is not reachable for more than three weeks now, I could have asked you over the message I know but it never occurred to me until yesterday that I could have spoken to you, I actually want to see her, I am missing her” he couldn’t believe he said that, something was getting heavier inside, something painful, he could feel it but couldn’t express it.
She smiled, her smile made him more curious.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“She knew you way more than you knew herself, way more than you always professed to know her, she said it to me that one day you going to reach me and confess missing her, wanting to see her, speak to her, not knowing that the day when he would gather the courage to do so, he would actually not reach out to me but to his own self” she paused.
“What rubbish is this – where is she?” he was suddenly furious.
She searched for something in her huge handbag just to give him a parcel wrapped with a paper and a ribbon, very much like she did it along with an envelope.
“What is this?” he asked.
The envelope read “Probably now you can never reach me for real.”
“Open it” she said.
There was a letter.
“I can never stop loving you, but I could stop believing you don’t. And that one day you would prove me wrong and if you do I might stop watching you over, sometimes you need to hear yourself just need to believe what you feel and accept that I am there with you always”
He was not getting this, something was not right, his stomach was aching n there were tears flowing.
She wiped his tear “it’s been a year she left us and I had been just too occupied off late to update her profile with all the pictures and updates she had left to make you believe she is just fine. She was sobbing. She did not want you to see her lifeless body not speaking to you; she wanted you happy where ever you are. She has penned few words for you, in her last days, desperately wanting to see you once wanting to stay with you even after she is gone just to let you never miss her.”
“She always used to tell him one day when you would need me the most, you won’t find me, I would be some where too far from you and you would never get a trace to reach out to me, that day you would know how much I love you..”
“Why do you want to go away from me, I fear losing you, promise me no matter what you would never go away from me” he said..
“Promises are made to be broken, and would have to go” she smiled
“But why??”
“Because I love you”
He was suddenly numb, and he just felt someone waving through his hair and sounds of ringing bangles.
Manowara Chowdhury
Colorless Butterfly 