A Lazarus love story....

I can't remember whether it is the salty breeze or those evergreen burdened memories that took me back to that sea shore every Saturday. I was nineteen and already regretting the past. The waves picked up the sand particles from the shore as if it is going to build a deep sea castle and the children were busy protecting their own sand castles from the mighty waves as if they are the stalwart warriors to that temporary kingdom. I used to see a woman who might be in her 70s inflating a balloon and dropping in two chits and flying it. She watched it until it disappeared and then she left. I saw her almost on all the Saturdays. It became my new routine to watch this. Years went by.

One Saturday, I couldn't locate her. I went to that place near that blue broken boat under a tilted coconut tree that is pregnant with very few coconuts where she used to stand. There I found a diary half buried. I untied the knots behind her odd custom. I learnt that It was in the remembrance of her late lover. These goofy couple used to do this when they were happy or sad. She lost him in her early twenties and later she got married off to another man. Since then it became her tradition to write their names and fly them up. Tears welled up in my eyes.

That day, I got a balloon, I wrote their names and made it fly and the balloon weighed heavier than my memories.