She Could Have..

SHE COULD HAVE

‘The dreams could have been true

The eyes could have seen colours

The lips could have had a smile…’

And the poem continued to more than twenty ‘could haves’ which drew out my breath harder than before with each line I visioned. The words were moving limitless with the helpless love endowed in them. They rose like a nostalgic aroma infront of my eyes. They were caged in the library, stuck between the Sherlock’s and Brown’s; and confined to those voluminous books, every Tom, Dick and Harry accused me of my actions that paced and consequences that rose.

‘The lady distracted me!’ I shouted almost to myself calmer than a whisper.

That day, all the materialism of those henpecking women had shown their real shades and…the time passed in the clock whose pendulum even taunted at my silence. But the fate of birth and death, disease and cure is all in the bare hands of that one person who they call the Almighy. He sent me to the world silent, calm, helpless and…I don’t have words.

‘How can you go roaming around that region, Elwin? You never did earlier.’ She threw her first ever doubtful question at me, that very night tea ceremony. My haert leapt at the question I had never expected from her about my extra-marital affair. The ladies around, surrounded me as if I was their only husband or they cared so much for the lady whose eyes were red and chicks flushed. The question was thrown at me again and my words were lost in eternity. They never came to the horrendous scene the ladies created. My face dropped and the things went dark. Purses, cheap rings, hair clips, and whatever came into their hands. I sensed my listening to all the falses and truths and her weeps were louder enough to be heard, at least the pain reached me. There was a sense of realisation within me but I was already late.

‘Realisation brings silence and silence isn’t empty I suppose, it’s full of words the heart hides.’ The words echoed in my ears. I realised my mistake but the silence… it said I surrendered.

‘You kept me waiting thirty years to show up like this on our first anniversary, Elwin?’ she cried hard. Before I could stand up, cup her cheeks with my hands and kiss her hard, make her forget all that I did to her… she slipped away from the swarm and ran upstairs, maybe to the room. My face flushed in front of the eyes that glared but that was not important for me… the lady who ran upstairs was who I cared for at that moment.

Thirty years ago, before I had left for my research and success for ‘The Theory of Everything’, that pretty lady had promised to wait till I return to her. I did but… a lady in the church distracted.

Three days after… today, I just returned from her funeral, no more than two guests cared to attend. Now, in the sweet home she had created a year ago for both of us… I sit in her library, between many of her books, reading her suicidal note.

‘The heart could have beaten longer…’

The last line read before I closed my eyes to realise that I still don’t have a have a single tear to drop!