Canvassing on the invisible slate of air bouncing between the then she had lived, now she often questioned and the then she could only dream of, she kept the painting of her life alive with the volatility of her heartbeats. The hollowness of her heart screeched her soul into the silence of numbness which was deafening her.
Trying to make sense of the conundrum, she exerted to listen to what she wanted to say, feel what the strings of her heart wanted to convey, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t think of any one person she wanted to talk to, but the unspoken unformed words begged to be heard. Amidst the myriad of emotions maddening her, she couldn’t make sense of what was it that her heart was throbbing for. Was it someone? Was it something? She looked around. The whiteness of her surroundings suddenly made her shiver. She pulled the blanket over her, but felt herself grow colder. Why wasn’t the blanket warm enough? Or was it the shivers of questioning uncertainty that barricaded the permeating warmth? She lifted her frail self a little and looked into the mirror. A tired sunken face stared at her, with brows collected on the top of her head, leaving just not enough space for the wrinkled forehead between them. That face seemed to be asking a question that she could finally hear – Who are you?
Perturbed and unsettled by the inability to find answers to one heard and infinite unheard questions, she buried her head into her pillow and waited for sleep to evade her into unquestioning silence again. But like most of the previous times, her closed eyes made her heart open into a garden where gentle breeze flurried through the blooming flowers and carried their scent to a figure that she could recognize as herself. As the breeze touched her she could feel a gush of calmness run through her nervous veins satisfying her to a smile that curved from her eyes to her lips. But as they were smiling her eyes fixated themselves on a man sitting in front of her. Who was he? The ‘she’ lying on bed thought, but didn’t open her eyes. She felt nice. After a long time today, the unknowing didn’t unsettle her. In fact it rested her.
Suddenly an un-welcomed sound woke her to a startle. A young lady dressed immaculately in a white dress was sheepishly grinning as she picked up a tray of food spilled on the floor. “Good morning Mrs. Kapoor. How are you feeling today?”
Mrs. Kapoor? Who is Mrs. Kapoor? Who is this lady in white? What is she doing here? She again felt the restlessness burning her out.
“Ohho. Look what you did to this beautiful young lady” that same man from the dream entered into the room and was smiling at her. His smile gushed through her like the breeze and she felt her tensed nerves loosening themselves to the warmth emanating from him. He came and sat beside her and held her hand in his.
As if answering to the confusion in her silence he said “Don’t worry. I am your husband of forty years. And even after half a century’s efforts of taking you out shopping, raising two wonderful kids with you, making myself worthy of deserving the beautiful person that you are, you have forgotten me”. He frowned making a puppy face.
“But you know what the good part is. You don’t remember any of my annoying habits”, he winked at her. “And you know what the best part is?” He lowered her head and brought it closer to her face. “That I get to recall all the moments that made us love each other, every day”.