Over The Edge

“I don’t like mountains! They make me go into deep thoughts”, she exclaimed.

“What’s wrong with them.. They are the most majestic work of art, you’re being an idiot”, he said.

He couldn’t believe he is in love with a girl who doesn’t share his idea of a perfect vacation, among other things. Every time they discussed going for a holiday, she was always drawn towards the beaches. It is more fun; she always said. She loved being in the waters, where the waves called upon her each time she stepped in. It reminded her of a time when she used to go with her father to the beach for an evening walk after coming back from school. This was their ritual, only more pious and holier. She could be the most carefree person in the world for she knew there was someone always watching over her.

Khwabida, like the ocean, was limitless. And why wouldn’t she be, she does justice to her name after all. A daydreamer who shrugs at the possibility of having to face reality. Distracted by the worldliness, thoughts almost always repulsed her. Only actions, she’d say, actions before words, which she had an abundance of. She’d do things before she could think about the why of it. An adamant believer of the fact that she and only she can shape her destiny by immediately acting on an opportunity, lest the moment is snatched away. Only a fool, some would say.

Anmol however, was the simplest man there could be. A middle-class boy next door who someday hoped to make it as a singer, but knew no way out of his job as an investment banker. A perfectly sorted boy on the outside, that any mother would be glad to give her daughter to, digging a grave for his inner self, one day at a time.

There couldn’t be two more different sides to the spectrum than the two of them. Whoever said opposites attract, could poetically foresee these two instead of magnetic fields at the ends of the world.

Just a regular Friday evening for some when Anmol was dragged to a club where he was going to be introduced to a girl through a common friend. He was determined to nonchalantly meet her for a drink or two and leave for the night. Or so he thought. Little did anyone know they’d end up spending an evening that would change the course of their lives to come. As fate would have it, they fell harder for each other than they had initially bargained for.

After dating Khwabida for a few months, he realized his affection for her was more than what they shared privately. He had come to care for someone he thought was just a reckless idea on paper. And Khwabida as impulsive as she was, couldn’t keep herself from falling for a guy yet again. She believed in the goodness of men which incidentally had been the cause of her heartbreaks more than she’d liked to admit. And each time, it felt secure, but she knew in her heart she was only shattered to pieces after that one distinct person she gave herself entirely to. She had been a part of multiple warm fuzzy chapters but, there was always a but before she’d reach the end of the sentence. This time again she knew what drew her towards Anmol; it was the idea of him realizing his dream one day, that insane hope of him leaving everything aside and doing what his soul craves for. The possibility of being around when that happens excited her more than anything else.

Was it love, they were yet to find out.

The hills of Uttarakhand on a cloudy April morning, a quiet village in sight, and Anmol, who looked the most beautiful when he was soaked with inspiration; this wasn’t an idea of vacation Khwabida would mind. He wanted to work on his album in peace and wanted her to be a part of it. She did encourage him to at least strum his guitar once again; ‘you never know, life is short, do it today before you regret it tomorrow’, she’d transmute him to a live-in-the-moment guy.

They were relishing fresh blueberry Pancakes with maple syrup and a scoop of vanilla ice cream each. Sitting on the patio in tranquility, he played the chords of his guitar the way he’d run fingers on her. She sipped her black coffee watching his hair blow in the wind, looked at his eyes closed through the thick black frame of glasses he sported and fell for him an inch deeper. She loved watching him make music to her ears as he made love to her existence. He was just a little less engrossed in his guitar; for they couldn’t recollect the last time they were so bonded with another, enough to make the skies literally weep.

The patio sat at the edge of a slippery hill and overlooked the valley as green as it could be. It had rained the previous night. Heavy rains that silenced the sound of their love! She remembered coming here two days ago looking at the same valley that was only a pale green, ‘good it rained’, she thought, ‘it brought more colors to this morning’.

She planted a subtle kiss on his lips a second before getting up, as he held her hand and brushed them together, tasting the quixotic love they made the night before.

She went into the kitchen asking if he wanted some coffee. As he denied, they heard a sudden thud. She ran out of the kitchen only to see the hill their resort was standing on, slide refractorily. The area was prone to landslides and the rains from previous night only made matters worse. The hill began drowning to death. Anmol, who was at the patio couldn’t do anything. Getting out of reach of the monster’s brown mouth seemed impossible and it gulped him to the descending terrain. Khwabida was inside trying to get out across the corners, wanting to reach out to Anmol who was still sliding down the hill, whatever made sense to her then, whatever she remembered from all the disaster management articles and workshops, of course, our brain seldom does the needful instead of accepting its fate to death. Her leg got stuck under a heavy wooden pillar and she fell to the ground with pieces of wood and concrete ramming onto her. She could see the heavy rains silencing the sound of their love! Only this time, she cursed them from an aching heart. Their kiss from moments ago was the last thing she remembered before closing her eyes.

It was weeks later when Anmol gained consciousness one afternoon. His mother cried by the bedside upon seeing her only son open his eyes again. Kissing her son on the forehead, she rushed to call his father from the cafeteria and had beeped the doctor in, on her way out. Unaware of the events from the last few weeks, he wanted to see Khwabida. He gestured his mother since he could not muster the strength to speak, and saw his mother crying uncontrollably; this very second, he understood. He knew he will never be able to see the love of his life, and the fact that he never told her this, broke his heart into a million pieces. He lost himself completely into what he thought was the deepest pit of darkness. This, was until he couldn’t hear himself crying.

The doctors had examined his post-operative reports soon after he was brought in, and had informed his family that his hearing abilities were most likely to be lost completely after the kind of head trauma he suffered. He did not hear a thing going on around him. Only the sound of heavy rains that silenced their love that night! At the thought of this, he laughed and laughed with tears rolling down his face.

 

He knew, this pushed him, pushed him over the edge!