The Green Obsession

The green blot was flashing bright right against her name on the top header of the screen. ‘Hello’, I typed it out, after containing myself for long. It was just a matter of hitting a key through my pinkie, but inside, it was like pulling the trigger for a spacecraft launch at NASA, or dropping a bomb on Gulf. The nerves in my head had turned into electrical wires, carrying alternating currents of a frequency of a million hertz, the brain into a supercomputer, processing millions of computations every microsecond, just to evaluate if it was the right moment that five lettered text should be sent out, as if it had the potential to blow the world out. The faculties opposing the motion, eventually, got the better of it.

A long press at the backspace key made up for the manifestation. The text box had been evacuated, the turbulence subdued. I peeped at the bubble again, and it still flashed the eternal green. I waited for a few seconds gazing at it, hoping to see the mark 'typing...' emerge at the screen, but it never showed up. I scrolled through the window traversing through the texts all along our previous chats, those meaningless conversations at length, exchanging songs, good wishes, stories of past breakups, consolations, reminiscences of the old days at college, clips of my guitar stints, links to my blog posts, her appreciations, pictures of her photo shoots, my appreciations, and all the clutter of all sorts of coloured graphics - the smiles, the winks, tongues sticking out, the roses, the hearts - each making up for a different emotion every time.

It was a month back, I had put my heart out to her and things had quite rolled over since then. The toasts went smaller, monosyllabic; conversations turned less frequent, folded and formalised. Three days had passed and there was no communication. Every moment passing by was adding to my discomfiture. It had never been in the past few months that we hadn't talked for so long (yes, three days was quite a long time considering the intimacy we shared in the past few months).

Suddenly I was hit by a train of thoughts -Why had she been online all the time (although she had told me she was quiet busy at work and had limited access to internet)? Why was she never writing to me? Was she preventing herself not to provoke my sentiments to bloom into obsession? Or had she simply turned indifferent? What if she had found someone? The last one struck me deep. I remembered she had told me about an old friend and I could, feebly, remember his name. I went on to look for his profile. He appeared to be a decent face; possibly good enough to beat my looks, had a job that was likely to pay him way more than mine, and was definitely more stylish and fashionable than me. My heart was skipping the beats, but his pictures soon revealed that he was into a relationship with someone, making me heave a sigh of relief.

I tuned on to some songs on my phone, the default play list, my mind was far too occupied to create one. The music seemed to soothe my mind. I closed my eyes to let the stream of freshness suffuse into my nerves, but the lyrics from one of the songs let the flashes of past invade through them. I skipped to the next song - her favourite, the next - I played it for her on the guitar, the next - we heard it on one of the dates, the next - another story. I pulled the earphones out of my ears, looked up on my phone if something was there from her, but not yet.

I dared not to look at the green bulb again. I went to the kitchen to appease my starving belly, but more to distract my attention of that green spot. Looking for some bread in the refrigerator, it showed up, the green circle on the packet cover, and it reverberated the flash of that psyche for an instance, although the mark had meant to signify no harm to any mortal.

I moved out for a walk to a park close by, letting my phone at home. Sitting on a bench laid in for the purpose, I saw the people walk by, kids running haphazardly, school boys playing cricket, ladies chatting while circling around the park, possibly to revive their pre-marital anatomies, birds flying and chirping, and a bunch of dogs playing around. It seemed that the entire universe was gleeful, and nobody could ever assume a heart grieving in pain. I look at the green grass, the grasshopper chirping over, the leaves of the tree shading the bench, the tennis ball of the children playing cricket, the algae covering a puddle of water, the cucumbers and the water melons with a roadside vendor, everything so beautiful and vivacious and all painted in green, and yet I was grieving the green of a small dot, the dot that had ached my heart, blemished my soul, let my conscience stoop low, and left my brain brimmed with obsession.

Walking back home with the realisation, I thought, I would write to her, immaterial of how she would take it, of whether she would reply or not, of whether she wanted to talk to me or not. I took my phone off charging and opened the messenger, my fingers quivering to beat the keys and type out the yell of my heart. But to my surprise, the green had greyed out. I felt a sudden pang in my heart, my mind went berserk. I wanted to write to her desperately. It was as if the fall had arrived. I kept staring at the screen hoping the spring to return soon. After waiting for a few seconds, I closed my eyes, imagining going back in the past and sending out that 'Hello', the conversation picking up, things getting reconciled, jokes, teasers, smileys being exchanged.

I opened my eyes, and I saw the green was flashing again. My eyes widened, my hands trembled, and my fingers went numb. I wanted to write, I wanted to type, but my mind was void of any thoughts. I typed at random, my fingers fumbling over the keys, the auto suggest messing around, and before I could weave a tiny piece of legitimate text, a toast came flashing on my screen. 'Hello', it said. And before I could type a reply I was bombarded by many more. 'What's up?', 'How are you doing?', 'Where have you been?', all sorts of questions queued up on the tiny window. She sent me a link and urged to me have a look at it. I told her I would see it later as my internet was slow, but she insisted and I had to obey the commands. It was a flash movie, with pictures and video clippings, all of mine and background scores from the better of my struggling attempts at the guitar. It was all sourced from my online account, and out of a sudden I went through a phantasmagoria of flickers of all I had been thinking of her online status. I sent her a smile, a wink, a heart, a kiss and she echoed the same to me. Things had started rolling over again. I looked at the window and it had started raining outside. The green was blooming all over again, but this time in its true very essence. :-) ;-) <3