Disclaimer: The characters in this novelette are purely fictional. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.
It was a dark night, without moon or stars. Time was somewhere near midnight. The second’s hand of the clock was slowly ticking. There was a slight wind blowing outside, which sent a shiver though the body. It was late December and the winter had already started, with all its vigour. A car or two whizzed through the deserted misty streets, once in while. Else, there was silence everywhere. Silence that night, after all the recent political turmoil for the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, near New Delhi. Silence everywhere, except in his heart. There was a war going on in his mind.
He was lying all alone on his bed, on his back with his eyes wide open. His eyes moved around in the room. He could see the reflection of the green night lamp on the mirror of the Godrej bureau. The green dim light… This was the dumb witness for many of the past happenings. The silent witness for those moments when he had dreamed about her; when he had made love to her; when she talked about the other person in her life; when she declared her decision to kill his innocent child; when he was mentally tortured by her. Today, this dim dark green light was once again, the only witness, to look at him cry over the past.
He rolled over to lie on his side. His eyes slowly moved towards the window. The open window… Tears flowing through the corner of his eyes… As his head was tilted to the right, tears were collecting near the bridge of his nose. He could hear the hustling, cold wind outside. The cold wind was as sharp as her cold heart. Very coldly and very slowly cutting through his heart… He was unable to decide if it was the cold wind that made him shudder or the recent happenings. He could hear the typical noises of the night. A cricket looking for its prey; an owl hooting at a distance; a drunkard singing aloud his song in a precarious tongue; a dog howling at the street corner; a heavy vehicle rushing by… His mind was wandering… He was thinking… His mind was a smorgasbord, splattered with the events of the past…
His thoughts were disturbed by the cold tears, which had flowed through the bridge of his nose and rolled down his right cheek. He lifted his hands automatically to wipe the tears from the cheek. He rolled over and was now once again on his back. He gazed at the ceiling fan. It was moving. He tried to visualize the blades in the dim green light. He could only see the circle created by its movement He was wondering about his life. His thought was circling… He was feeling that the fan should fall on to his head. His head started reeling. He felt that there was nothing more left in his life. The world seemed dark and the relations were also dark. The future was dark too, as dark as this dark night.
How close he thought, he had come to her in these four months and yet how far he had actually been from her. How much he loved her and how much she hated him. How much he wanted her to be with him and how much she wanted to be away. How much it looked, just like a nightmare. But it was all happening in reality… It was all happening with him. Still, he was not able to decide if he hated her… How much he had wanted her to stay back… How much he had expected that she would say, that she would never leave him… How much she had meant to him…
He was questioning God… Why should it happen to him? He had always believed in the Almighty… He regularly visited the temple. He has always been generous towards the poor; always respected the elders; had always been the dutiful son. How could this happen to him? Where did he go wrong? He wondered…
Kiran thought of the entire turn of events… Kiran, meaning hope, and now, there was no hope left in his life. With this very thought, his eyes blurred…
END of Chapter 1
Once Again…???!!! – to continue…