story one

                 TEN TIMES 23

Three sixty five adds up to a year.

Four into times seven into a month.

Can you fit a forever in ten times twenty-three?

Love is a home and memories are like the concrete you fix along the lines to create a strong build to shelter yourself from the greatest of hurricanes. But what if home is just the concrete, and the love that you find refuge in, is the hurricane causing the menace from within? I suppose there’s a certain menace in the love we seek. There is a certain magic in that menace too. But the menace often tends to finds us before we find the love in it.

The dazzle in your light brown eyes, was the magic. Your kiss, that’s where the menace hid. *People often warned me about love. After I first broke my heart, I was told to safe guard it, like a treasure. To put on a mask, and not reveal it. **I knew while faith makes us braver, it also makes us blind. ** And so does love. But in the end, I was always a simple person. Not very intelligent. And my mother always told me to do what my heart desired. And I'd never desired anything more than you. So I did what I felt like. And I gave you all I had. Every bit. Every piece of my life was yours.* You had no supermodel trace to you. You were as ordinary as ordinary gets. But you had this distinctive taste of gentle that set you apart in my eyes. You had a certain kind of selflessness; a particular layer of humble I never had. There was this vibrant shade of madness, beneath the plain pallet of an exterior you wore. Out of the umpteen reasons I had for falling in love, that was the most paramount one. Our ten months, into every twenty-third we so unforgettably celebrated, was just like the long walks we took every single day. We filled the distance with each other’s sweet words. We left footprints called memories, we cannot walk away from thoroughly, even now.

You fell in love with a goofball dreamer who scribbled everywhere she could find a paper and some time to kill. You wrote me little letters too, ones which I could hide between the pages of my notebook and read later. What would you think if I told you, I still carry them around with me? You saw love through the gaps of the squinted gazes I gave you; through the self-made stitches I’d carved upon my wrists. You sent a reassuring, “You can fight it. I’m with you” echo from your phone to mine, on the nights where the screams from my nightmares, left my voice weak. You forced a bite from your last French fry on our first date, even after I refused, assuring me you loved me in any shape. You held my hand and I felt like I was holding a whole universe when you did that. All I ever wanted was to grow old holding that hand. You fell in love with the way Iris fell in love with Barry, because you said it reminded you of me. But I guess it’s called ‘The Flash’ for a reason, don’t you think?

I am mocked now because you've left me. People think that I am something to be pitied. ‘We told her’, they say with a haughtiness they try to hide and concern which always falls flat. But I have no regrets. All I want is to tell the world how much I loved. How we spent out nights awake staring at the screens of our phones catching a glimpse of each other in the words we typed. The wonders of the life we lived. There are seven wonders in the world. But there were eight in mine. **They say if a writer falls in love with you, you can never die. ** I guess we’ll see how that pens out.

I often talked about the Orion to you, not because it was a beautiful gaze in the night sky. You see, it’s because, it reminded me of us. ***You see, our love is forever written in the constellations. And so, I can finally let you go. ***

Until yesterday I was strong enough to lift not one, but both of us. Today, I feel strong enough to lift myself with twice that very strength. Tomorrow, well, who knows? There's only a hope that I will be strong enough to let life surprise me.

Goodbye has a good in it, I see that now. And I suppose that’s the difference between moving 'forward' than just 'on.' You will always keep moving higher. You will always keep going. But you will always remember everything that made you; you, uptil the next step you take forward. That way you can go much further than you've ever imagined. It's hard when you're young. It'll be hard even when you're older. But it doesn't make it any less beautiful. Memories are the leftover package, for us to keep. Locking them away is heavy, so quit doing that. Instead. Gather them, sweep them across into a space where the light can enter the cracks at an angle just right to disperse into creating a rainbow. Rainbows fall through after storms, correct? The Rainbow is the real quest of love.

I know it sounds the same. Most tales end the same. It’s like a different version; same end. But the only common factor, is not that it ends, is that it’s ‘different’. You see: In the end, You are different. You are anything and everything that's meant to be.

In the end,

'We are all StoryTellers.'

Or more so, are we the stories?

(By A Girl Named Hanna)

*Content inspired by Rishabh Naresh Goel*

**Reference taken from quotes by- Shaniah Quadras** and ***Jennifer Christal David***