Final Closure…
She grabbed the change, receipt, box of donuts, and her handbag off the table. Balancing the bevy of packages under her arm, she flounced out of the shop, a woman in love with life. Her eyes shone with good health, and she was dressed in a chic yet understated manner. As the cool autumn breeze lifted her silken black hair off her forehead, she walked down the street to her parked car. The car in question was a sleek red Lexus, low slung and sexy. She wasn’t really sure what car it was, but then again, it didn’t really matter. At her station in life, cars ceased to be a wonder. It was just one of the many she had, an army of wheels at her disposal. Feeling uncharacteristically retrospective, she congratulated herself for making the right decisions in life. Decisions, that had lead her to the home of her dreams, a companion who loved her more than anything else in the world, and a status that gave her the mental freedom she had always desired.
She touched the door handle, and the machine beeped twice. The boot popped open, and she dropped off her burden. Handbag in hand, she turned towards the door handle, ready to slide in and unleash the 400-horsepower beast onto the unsuspecting city traffic.
And then she saw.
She almost missed it, but somehow her unseeing eyes, fleeting past the multitude of humanity, alighted on one face.
Unchanged. The same sleepless eyes. The same artlessly tousled hair. The same sardonic half-smile. The smile that was always less pleasure, and more pain. Nothing much had changed. The clothes had become darker and fit better. The stubbled cheeks had hollowed out, giving the face a long-suffering weather beaten look.
The perennial cigarette dangled from his lips, smoke curling up lazily. The eyes were, as always, in a slight squint, the smoke causing them to look hazy.
He was sitting on the bonnet of a parked car, something long and black and non-descript. Although the act itself was out of place in the Tuesday afternoon crowd, it somehow fitted. It fitted all those memories, it fitted the look in his eyes. It fitted that aura, the personal universe that extended 4 feet all around him.
The memories came rushing back, crashing into her head, like buried memories often do. There they lay, in a messy tangled mess.
Before she could sort out the turmoil that raged inside her, he slid off the bonnet, opened the door, and with a swish of tires on wet asphalt, was gone, rapidly vanishing onto the oncoming stampede of cars.
She collapsed into her car, breathless, quivering and shocked. Twelve years. Almost twelve years since she had called him from the bus, telling him that she would call him as soon as she reached the border. Twelve years since she had not replied to those long emails. Twelve years since she had deftly erased all signs of him from her life, and buried all the memories. There was no mausoleum for those memories. They had lain, deeply dead under a unmarked grave, in her mind. Until now.
The silence in the leather seats taunted her, torturing her with its unasked questions.
Twelve years, she had gotten on a bus, and gone home to her parents. Twelve years ago, she had spoken to him on the phone. She had told him that she loved him and she missed him, and had listened to the pain he could not disguise in his fluid words. She had heard the words that he had not said, the words that knew that something was wrong. His voice was clear in her ears now. As he told her how much he was missing her already. Words that said how he couldn’t wait for her to come back. Waiting for the love that was his life. And she had said, “I can’t wait to see you again, sweetie. I’ll go home and call you, and we’ll chat online as soon as I get an opportunity.”
But she had not called him. She had not gone online, not from that ID, ever again. She reached home, and started forgetting about him. Meticulously, she took every little beautiful memory they had together, and burnt them. Memories, that was intensely short and intensely beautiful. She rubbed out all the love, and all the commitment and all the promises she had made. She never went back.
That was twelve years ago. Twelve years; a week of phonecalls and emails, and then twelve years of silence. He was annoyed at first, then perturbed at her silence, then frantic, despairing and finally, he stopped speaking. All that she could think of now, was the last conversation she had with him, the last conversation that had marked the ending of it all.
“I can’t wait to see you again, sweetie. I’ll go home and call you, and we’ll chat online as soon as I get an opportunity. Love you, Bye”
And now there was this. He had waited for her outside the café, seen her seeing him, given her a look, and had vanished again.
There was only a question in his eyes, and it had screamed at her, louder than the traffic and the million conversations. Screamed louder than the sounds of smart clacking heels, and rustling newspapers and busy walking.
WHY?
But there was no answer. The question remained hanging there, alarmingly unemotional, bloodless, and a little unbelieving. She had just vanished without warning, for no apparent reason. They could have had a beautiful life together. But she had taken it all away from him, in a single shot to the head. There was no closure in this reality, no sanity. She had just walked out. Gone forever, like a stone in the water.
As she started the engine, a single solitary tear crept from her eyes. It danced down her skin, and splashed onto her wool coat. It soaked into the thick weave, vanishing without a trace.
The red Lexus sped away, unaffected by the sudden traffic jam in the opposite lane. A traffic jam caused by an accident, when a long, black, non-descript Mercedes had hit the barriers of the bridge one kilometer away, and had jumped into the rushing waters below, killing the only occupant.
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