Closure..

I looked around at the polaroids, hung out to dry on the fine strings of ukulele, connecting each wall of song to its adjacent, in my room.

I have gone a hundred rounds around, standing at one corner, then another, trying to figure out the terminus a quo of the notation that filled my room with interminable echoes.

You'd think the strings would break away at one brittle mid-section, some day soon. But they stay intact. Like a loop of infinity, that show no start or end and keep going on in a perpetual rhythm.

"But hadn't you thrown all those polaroids away, in the ocean?"

I had. Numerous times. I'd unclip them, tear them apart, throw them away into the ocean and walk back home marking a final ending in my head. You know the whole circuit. And each time, the ocean would return them at my doorstep, whole and reflective.

As if artistically dipped in history and sent back as a gift.

So this time I decided to break the circuit. I hung them up to dry. Looked at each one, with undivided attention. Confronted their narration of my story and made them hear mine. Maybe that's what they needed.

A simple conversation.

I feel fine now.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I have moved on now. Though the entire length of episodes, have stayed within me. But I have decided to let them stay. As a preface to the story that could have been written on the next page, if there was one.

"You no more question the weight? Doesn't feel heavy?"

"It does, at times. I've stood in front of it all and screamed one question a thousand times. Do you ever realize the repercussions, your actions had on me? Do they?

"Do they what?"

Every realize? Or can they just brush it off as an unimportant chapter, they never revisit?

"Maybe they do. Some do. The guilt lives inside them."

Then why don't they apologise? Don't we deserve an apology, an explanation?

"Maybe some are too cowardly to give you a closure. An apology, as you say. Would an apology fix everything, though? Is it that simple?"

No. I'd have shaken him up from his shoulders. Screamed at him, everything left unspoken, that wore my chest down, every sleepless night. I'd have cried my exhaustion out. Exhaustion from trying to sew my bits and pieces back together. I'd have then exhaled my soul and fallen into his arms, lighter than ever. He'd have hugged me back and everything would've been okay. As it should've been.

"You think he'd have hugged you back? If he wasn't brave enough then.."

He'd not be brave enough ever. I know, maybe. But the hope, that maybe, just maybe he did love me and just needed a push from the universe to finally muster up some courage - the hope kept me going. Insanity, I know.

Maybe love does that to you. Makes you believe in the impossible, expect miracles.

But after waiting deserts, I told myself, universe can only push, when there is a will on the other end. Universe doesn't shove. And maybe it had come to shove. Maybe, he chose that life. Not me.

"What if some 27 years later, he does show up and tells you that he did love you but just lacked courage? To break the current pattern in his life, to believe his heart's irrational feelings and stop questioning the what ifs?"

Then he'd be 27 years too late to hear that I'd be right by his side, holding his hand, making those efforts with him. That I still keep his eye contacts safe in my wallet, his words and smiles written all over them. That I remember every pitch his voice can hit, as if the lyrics to my favourite song. That I'd have been brave enough for the both of us.

"But wouldn't time have healed you by then?"

Funny how time doesn't heal everything.

Maybe the wounds, but not the aftermath of a could-be. He'd have still been my present continuous.

"You said you've moved on..."

I have. I am fine now. But you know, books get over, stories don't. Our almost, never left my side, like a true companion.

"You sound at peace even when you didn't get any closure."

I did. I wrote myself one.

If like in movies, people actually came forward to give you closure, in real life, or to rewrite the stars into your book, it'd have been so much easier.

But I don't have the emotional capacity to wait a decade or two to find one. Why cannot they realize sooner and be brave enough?

"Because not everyone is as brave as you. To sit and have a conversation with their own feelings."

They should be.

"I know. But it takes time for some, to gather courage."

It shouldn't take this long.- But it's okay.

I am fine now.

"I know you are."