Message I typed and never sent

He had left the windows open that night. It wasn’t normal as the calendar read “12 December” in bold red, studded on a picture of a snow bed in some far off place he already had a Saudade for. Supine was he on his ages-old bed that squeaks every time he tries to find some comfort. Motionlessly, there he was lying, almost like a carcass but having a pulse still strolling in some vein of his body. The body named Akshit and that feeble pulse, named, Ziva. Turning around he spotted some stars through the gap his window provided him, a gap that allowed him to keep a track of a syzygy, hoping that would justify his love. Just then, that happened, suddenly, abruptly, and in a trice! Yeah, that epoch slid down the path from maybe a star he stalked each night and hugged him. A past, a name, a soul. In those dark memory lanes that his brain had, a street graced incandescence. That pulse got a bit stronger and with a throb reached his heart. He could no more find the existence of even an atom of sleep, as far as he could see, smell, and sense. Taking the blanket off himself, Akshat stepped on the winter floor and that too bare feet. A chill went up to raise goosebumps on every inch of his skin. Yes, a ruthless chill. He went to the balcony, placed his arms on the steel railing. He was expecting another wave of goosebumps but his full sleeves made sure he didn’t get what he desired. A stubborn Akshit had every determination and he rolled up his sleeves. Yeah of course! He shivered, his teeth gritted. Closed were his eyes, he was drowning himself in the vastness of the prolonged night with stars and moon witnessing Akshit doing something he shouldn't have. Remembering his past, reliving times he spent with her. Yeah! He is such stupid.

All of a sudden he rushed into his room, grabbed his phone, and also caught hold of a diary. Returning to his prior place of existence, Akshit opened the diary and fidgeted through the pages. Some promises, some dreams, some emotions, some secrets, safely stored in it and got a chance to feel the air. Of course, they all felt suffocated. Promises, dreams, and feelings aren’t fond of oxygen yet crave for love in the air and Akshit’s atmosphere did not have a sufficient amount of that. Maybe a little for them just to be alive and to let Akshit know that he is such a miserable failure. Yes! According to the undying emotions painted in those torn pages of that creepy diary, Akshit could have fought a bit more for his love.

The fireflies and some sleepy birds must have thought that this human must have turned into a somnambulist. They would never understand that this man is now in the state, so unsafe, so painful but yet addictive. He picks up the diary. Dew was searching for a permanent place to land and spend the rest of the time witnessing a slowly appearing slight scarlet over the horizon before the winter sun snatches them out of their beautiful existence. He wiped the dew off the cover and went on melting the corners of the pages with selcouth touches of his wet fingers. A few moments later he reached the date, the page, which he considers to be the turning point. That last written page posed as an initiation to the end he is now not happy with. He went on reading those lines. Some words came up to his eyes and tears greeted them. Sobbing and gasping he succumbed to into the depth of a nefarious night. The wetness on his fingers and the tears rolling down his cheeks silently splashed on the paper, and the dried ink got a chance to flow. The words took shapes along with those patches of liquids. Shapes of her hair curls, shapes of love, shapes of what the words weren’t for, shapes of truth. And all these shapes were painted in his imaginations.

Akshit’s blurry vision suddenly found his phone. He picked it up at once and opened the contacts. There at the end of the list, he tapped on that name. Out of all the wrongs he could have gladly done that night, he chose the biggest mistake to make. Even those sleepy birds woke up to a silence which was of course the one that comes before every storm. His thumb was very confused about whether to select the call button or the text button. He made some weird sounds trying to find his voice but yeah, it was a winter night and he was crying. Voice was lost and the bird

Advertisement

s sighed in relief. This stupid however opted for a smaller segment to affect his biggest mistake to-be.

“Hey! How are you?”

A popping sound hurled around all over his cozy proximity registering the fact that he has already texted Ziva.

Well now at that moment he could hear even the sounds going down the limits of 20Hz. Tik Tik Tik… each second now felt like an hour passing by. His heartbeats raced and it appeared as if he realized his fault. His feeble try to make a dead body alive was then giving him reasons to defenestrate himself. But all was done. And all he could do was to wait. Wait for her to wake up and answer his oblivion. Seconds turned into minutes and soon the minutes went on witnessing some more seconds turning into minutes.

Ziva had no energy left in her body to even utter out that she is in pain. Still, she felt as if the slight little beep that reached her red ears that held some tubes, is not only a beep but someone calling or rather crying out her name. She could barely open her dried lips that were now turning black, she mumbled,

“Akshit” and that tenderness, that pain, that need she had in her voice. I wish, I just wish Akshit could have heard it.

Her moist foggy eyes glittered as she read the words sent by him.

“Hey! Am fine. You took such a long time…” her trembling fingers typed.

Akshit almost jumped at his place, his beaming eyes read every word so carefully as if the almighty had texted him. His eyes turned red, tears clustered and his lips curled into a miniature smile.

“Sorry… I know. As usual, I got late.”

“You dumbo…” she replied with a smile that almost hugged the virtual imprint of her beloved stupid. How badly she wanted to hug that nonsense as tightly as the metastatic lung cancer was holding her. She inhaled deeply and tried to fill her failing lungs with his aroma but sadly she couldn’t find it. Ziva now cursed herself for something she did years ago, for sending him away from her, and that too against his wish.

“Ziva… I know you never believed that someone can be forever for you. But today I badly want to prove you wrong. I am still in love with you Ziva. Maybe we aren’t allowed to be together but yeah, I am still there man, yes at the very lane which had us together. I always sound stupid and this time too I must be sounding like one.”

Akshit typed all this in a hurry. His fingers trembling like anything. He was almost panting. 

“Akshit… I can’t believe that you still love me. Yet after all that I did. Yet after leaving you all alone in that dimly lit street. How?? How can you still love me?? How could you wait for so long for a person who was never yours?? How??”

Ziva was now sobbing and was so happy as she knew that Akshit still loves her, in the exact way he used to do.

“I don’t need you to love you, Ziva. And answering your question about how could I wait for someone who was never mine, well this is what forever means Ziva. If it's love, then I do it forever. If it's about a wait, then also I can do it forever. It’s unending, it's immortal. Even if all of this, all of you, all of us, all of the love dies, there remains something. Alive! Yes! It's forever Ziva, it’s forever.”

Akshit however managed to type this down.

Ziva read and kissed every word of it. Yes, she was convinced. Just minutes before the end of her life, she realized that someone is waiting and would wait for her all through his life. Just minutes before her end, she fell in love…

Gathering energy form each cell of her dying body, she wrote this message while falling short of breath-

“Yes! Akshit, I love you. Yes, you are mine forever. And I do hereby promise that I will be your forever too. This love, this passion you have for me is immortal, I agree. But I am. I am dying Akshit. Glad that you don’t need me to love me. But yeah, I am always there for you, with you. Or maybe a part of me…”

She couldn’t press the send button. She closed her eyes…Yes! She died while being in love.

Now you would ask me- Who am I then?

Well, this is me, who have now spent nearly 40 more years with Akshit, in his diary, like an unread chapter. Yes! I am a part of Ziva that remained alive.