She called, a few times.
There was no answer, every time. She tried calling again after few acted
indifferent days. No answer yet.
She messaged, “Call me when
you get free.”
Beep beep: Message delivered.
No reply, no call.
No reply, no call.
Out of the grumbling of her
stomach, she sent another message with slight fury, “Seriously, you can’t just
talk to me?!”
Beep beep: Message delivered.
.
.
.
.
Beep beep: Message received.
“I will but sometime later”,
came the reply.
She did not know how to react
to that. To feel happy, that there was at least a reply to her message or feel
sad, that the message did not settle down the anxiety in her, that she would
have to wait further, wait for
'sometime'. She knew the callousness of such replies. She knew it was just a
perturbing message. She knew the wait would not come to an end. She, somewhere,
knew it is a trap. She knew a lot more things than ever said or expressed. She
read them between the lines. She knew it all. What she did not know was that
Destiny had other plans for her. It was to be his last message to her.
Days went by, weeks went by,
months went by, closely followed by insane patience for the wait to end. Every
phone ring was rushed to answer expecting his call, every notification was
checked expecting his message, followed by intense yet silent disappointments.
The phone was checked even when there was no notification heard. It was insane.
The situation started becoming unbearable, more impatient but forcefully calmer
with every passing day. Though, she had an aggrieved soul inside her, she would
re-read all the messages at times, come out of all her sores and simply smile
with sparkling eyes. She did know the bitter truths at those moments too.
Still, her smiles seemed to have no end. The last message was checked for ‘n’
number of times every day, thinking when this ‘sometime’ will come.
It was one of those days. The
thought of him was flashing in the back of her mind as it used to do every
other day, making her smile, making her cry, making her...lost. Though it was
ensured that none of those were ever noticed by anyone; constant vigilance it
was. From outside and above, it all seemed good, calm, easy. As always, she
made it appear all well. Walking off to her work that morning, seeming perfect
with her confidant steps in kitten heels, the sun shining on her pleasant face,
with unapologetic moves amongst the crowd and traffic, she had him in her
thoughts, on her mind. No one can ever tell that, only she knew it.
She took a deep breath,
counting the number of days since his last message and realizing how long it
has been. While there was visible hustle bustle outside on the road with the
people and the traffic, there was invisible hustle bustle inside her mind with
her thoughts and her unanswered questions. There were things which she knew
that she had herself made up but, somewhere deep down her heart, wished them to
be true. She knew, though never so candour, he had no interest in her as such.
He never said anything to raise her expectations but, somehow she was expecting
things to happen. It was all her self-made story, in which she wanted to
believe. It was all her dream which she wanted to live. "You are like a
dream, please come true"... Yes, it was a weird case of unrequited love,
love which she had for him. And, knowing everything about his lack of interest
and about his un-involvement, somehow, she was still expecting from him. All
these were kept locked from the outside world, not even the horns and honks of
the road could pierce through the unyielding barriers she had walled around
them.
“At least you said that you
will talk to me sometime later. I want to know how long this wait will go and
when your 'sometime' will come. All I want is to hear from you, talk to you,
know you, spend some time with you, be loved... by you”, were her thoughts. She
reached the pocket of her hand bag to take her phone out. Not expecting to get
a message or a call, but to re-read the last message, for the 'n+1’th
number of time. She was smiling in her mind while reading it. Yes, this was
crazy. And, yes, she was crazy too. And, just then, another crazy thing
happened.
A sudden high-speed sound
cutting through the wind came, followed by the screeching sound of brakes. The
hustle bustle of the outside world came to numbly silence in few seconds and
the inside world of her became silently numb. Still she lay there perfectly in
her unmoving steps in kitten heels, the sun still shining on her pleasant face
and making her black-brown eyes look browner, bigger and, she still looked
unapologetic to the blue sky above her. The stream of red blood oozed out from
somewhere following the soft waves of her chestnut colour hair spread on the
ground. She could not sense the wetness of the slowly flowing out blood from
her head. She could see a few random faces from the crowd gathered around her
with their lips moving to form some words, she didn't try to lip read them.
Some of them seem to have declared her dead. She had no control over her body.
She could feel a few pains and burns but most of her body parts were
insensitive to her.
She closed her eyes from the
sun and the faces to realize some emptiness in her lungs. She tried to breathe
harder and deeper. She was not able to understand; either she was not able to
breathe in properly or the air in her breath could not reach and fill in the
empty space.. The emptiness continued to grow bigger. She was hit on her left
side. Though, she could not feel the injury in her head, she could sense the inception
of extreme pain in her unmovable left arm. Also, she could feel the strap of
her hand-bag on the bare skin of her upper left arm. Her legs felt numb and she
felt the coarse sand and dust grains scraping against the scratched skin of her
right arm.
She slightly opened her eyes and looked at the phone still held
in her right hand. With the corner of her eyes, she could still read the last
message. And in her mind, she smirkingly smiled.
