It’s half past three.
Was there even a need to check the time? I am taken aback by my desire to do so. I start doubting my loyalty and love towards her. It’s only been twelve hours I suppose. I can hear all the sounds now: the dripping water from the faucet, the creaking of the hickory rocking chair, the grumpy, rustic air conditioner and its violent assertions, and the grandfather clock, purposely projecting its volume so that I could hear it loud and clear. Nothing, however, bothered me as much as the voice that echoed from within.
Everything in front of me was blanketed in a ghostly white, unlike the dreary black looming inside me. Two years ago, it wasn’t black and white. Nor was it dull and grey inside. Two years ago, this place was blessed with the presence of her feet. Draped in solitude, I found a comforting peace, but back then it was all illuminated by her glow. The opulent green has turned pallid brown now, yet the rust smells fresh.
I looked here and there, rummaged frantically, grasping for breath, in a state of panic, in desperate search of my only companion. I looked under the table where she once spilled her tea; I looked into the kitchen where she cooked meals for me. I rushed through the broken doors, dodging the spider webs, but all in vain and despair.
“No! No, I can’t do this”.
I was even frightened by the thought that just hit me.
I haven’t been on the second floor since two years have passed and the courage required would wholly shatter me. To muster the strength, I had to fix myself up, search for pieces of me that I stored in everything that belonged to her.
While these thoughts hovered over my head like viscous grey clouds all ready for a downpour, and just while I was about to fall on my knees and plan an escape from this benumbed body of mine, I felt the saliva dripping from his mouth, on my already dead feet.
I picked Snoopy up; my hands solaced to feel his lax fur. And I held him closer and closer to my heart. At that moment, I wanted him to feel my heartbeat and know that mine slowed down too, that we were each other’s last resorts. I put him down, and he licked my face, only, this time, it felt warmer than ever.
We both knew that it was she who brought us close; it has she whose grace spread mists of optimism all over the now deluding deceased space. We looked at each other and knew in an instant that this time too we won’t be able to make it to the second floor.
I pick him up again and whisper in his ears “It’s just been fourteen hours here.” He sluggishly wags his tail remembering that last time it was a fair forty-eight. The place where our hearts started beating and breath deluded, took away our greatest present.
At the tarnished gate, which she tenderly opened for us, every day, both of us stood in dismay. I closed the latch and the holes in my heart widened in depth. As we climbed the stairs, we heard her call for us, “Natani(granddaughter) and Snoopy, have a good day!”