The Black Butterfly

‘Whatever you say!’ he was saying to her. He was defeated in the sole battle that he had ever fought in his life and still he was persuasive, submissive.

Kavi was there, within himself all the while, contemplating yesterdays and the ghosts of tomorrows. And yet he was not certain of himself, neither of his life nor of Kaveri. Yet he knew for the first time in his life he wanted to be defeated. His logic and reasoning could not bring him to be in terms with the current state of affairs.

Now he was thinking - he is fatefully asleep and dreaming, afraid and ecstatic at the same time .. hanging between getting up and carrying on, now he is thinking he is surrounded by a mob pushing him to the far edge of a cliff.

Within all this chaos he still was listening to her word by word and hanging on to each one of them till eternity.

Kavi paid the bill and came out of the coffee shop on the corner of the street. Time to go back to work. He does not like his work. He likes to be with his goldfish. The fish has learned to be alone with the same red and green granules in the morning and in the evening as food, monotonous yet sustaining. And Kavi is fast and productive at the office, he has always been. But does anything matter anymore. Maybe he adds value to humankind’s progress.

She was still telling him something. And he was drinking it in. It’s been long since she had spoken like this, spoken so much yet so little. The consolation was that she was speaking after all. And he was glad that he has shed his bloated ego and enjoying to get defeated in the smaller nuances of life. 

Kavi had always let time dictate the tracks of his life and he had never repented. He can not complain now either, but this time he started it all, defying time, defying the laws and the instincts, and he was losing. And was he happy? Kavi recollected Lermontov’s words vaguely, ‘and what is happiness? Pride gratified'. 

The pollution had killed each one of them. But he was hanging around, waiting for her to come. She was there with her sorrowful gaze, with her beautiful eyes, searching for him beyond the mob that was growing wild by time. He went near her for refuge, with the velvety wings shining in the sunshine, he gave his last best effort and lost himself.