A Short Story By Ahsan Sajid







You see, it’s hard to explain matters of life and death, of creation, and that is putting too fine a point on it; ‘hard to explain’ is too pretentious a statement, but I fail to find any more befitting a phrase, in regard to the feelings running through my mind. After I spend too long a time debating certain issues, I find myself rounding up on the final self-doubt. “Who am I?” It’s not a question of identity. It’s merely a speculation as to what manner of a superior mind I think I have to assume I can ever come upon one single conclusion for such a thing as death. And I scream within for intellectual cleanliness from such pretension.

This is when my mind performs a volte face. Calling to question the urge to answers, I wonder if I don’t, if everyone doesn’t just want answers for the sake of upholding their own perception of order, an order that is nothing but a fancy version of what and how they want things to be. Philosophy is unclean, and even finding myself trying to think of just one answer to a single thing is unforgivable. The world in its entirety is incomplete. And whatever we find to be the truth is also incomplete. Maybe if God had not rested on the seventh day He could have completed it. I sit on my favorite chair, behind closed windows, my head resting by the chin on my right hand, watching the day slowly dying out, giving way to night. In a few hours, I would be found dead.

She was still in the house, probably in the bedroom, and we both knew I could not go there just yet. The silence of seclusion grew to an ominous state by the time the windows were unlocked and opened at eventide. Her ever present laughter, the idiosyncrasy of her dialect and the velvetiness of her breathing were all oppressively absent.

The barely awakening moon drenched the evening air with its silver flower fumes, faintly lighting the world with its chaste virgin glow. The air in most open spaces tasted crisp, and even felt sharp, as high winter time beckoned; but there were the corners, the dark niches the moonlight barely touched, that seemed to be slowly dissolving, and the air with it gradually moistening, giving way as if to a grander scheme. Grander scheme was too grandiose a choice of words, too flagrant, to describe such a night as this, quieter even than usual, but I always had the shameful habit of presenting things with grandness.

By the break of dawn, I was found dead, sans answers, sans truth, sans grandeur.

***

Stray words swam around in my mind, while half-formed phrases drowned. Thoughts of us stuck out in my mind like a bone out of mud. We had met at a time when meeting someone new still meant something, when it still held any relevancy what that new someone thought about me. And I quickly decided that I had discovered enough of the world.

Insomniac nights I had spent, slowly reliving every moment spent with her, recreating every detail anew, writhing somewhere in between agony and pleasure until I began to cherish the nights. Thick locks of jet-black gleaming straight hair, as black as one can be painted, reflected light in ways that rendered its true color indefinite. Sharp feline features and large woodland eyes, always blackened to perfection crept out of the dark. At a time when everywhere around me eyelids were closing in the dark, hers shone with a prominence we worship the stars for.

We used to find the similarities between us for game, even though we knew how different we were. But that would only serve to fuel new surprises, and they were certainly not scarce. A month ago I was shocked to find out how good she was at scrabble; she had even beaten me at it. A week ago she let me know that despite our arrangement, she preferred sleeping on the right side of the bed. And until today, I wouldn’t have thought she would really have decided to leave me.

Things led to more things; I counted myself lucky to one day wake up beside her. We never could decide on when we stopped being friends and became lovers, so we celebrated our anniversary on the day we met instead. I could look her in the eye as we made love; it spoke volumes about how much she meant to me. Every time she rose above me was like a renewal of our love. Nearing climax, I always held on to her wrists, ever so soft and warm, but suddenly one day there was certain coldness around her left wrist: a silver watch glistening in the semi-darkness. Our fingers entwining brought her attention to it for the umpteenth time in the hour; she smiled. I remember the promise that watch had meant; I had given it to her earlier that day.

My friends had decided to help me pick out a ring. We created quite a ruckus at all the stores. A washed up poet only made enough to go by, not nearly enough to be spending on engagement rings. That narrowed our search down considerably; I looked at it as a blessing, there would be lesser decisions to make. However, by lunchtime when I was supposed to meet her, we had not found a single ring worth her finger. We disbanded, and I would have left right then had my eye not caught that one watch. It was everything I admired in her; small, unassuming, unpretentious and the very name of simplicity. And I knew I had found something, getting it without a thought about anything else.

Much later that day, thoroughly worn and spent, we lay beside each other. These were the most open, most honest moments we spent in each other’s company. No barer is a man’s life than after having been with the woman he loves. Life flashes by in these moments; a sweet medley of the past, present and future. Like an old, broken radio, I was unable to pick up any particular memory... what-ifs and had-beens... thirsts and sweet moans... adrenaline surges and the thrill of victory... they all fought each other for the briefest of footing, like a spasm out of control. She had told me she would marry me.

I sat at the furthest corner of the restaurant we frequented. Playing with the utensils, I smartened myself up somewhat from the reflection on the spoon. She would be here any moment now. I knew enough to know not to expect her on time, but a few minutes late. It never bothered me; time was something I had more of than an adult male should, and I was no one to reprimand her for being late.

And just as expected, she rushed in, hair askew, coat crumpled, wearing my favorite smile. I silenced her apologies with a kiss, and found that all the hype, all the stories I had heard about how hard this would be, were all true. I broke off the kiss sooner than I usually would; fearing that my heart, now beating somewhere near my throat, would give me away.

Halfway through lunch, the lump in my throat, and the bulge in my coat pocket proved too much to bear. “I have something for you,” I said, and presented the watch somewhat clumsily. Her surprise was evident, as was how pleased she was, but I had been completely unable to bring up what the occasion was. “You didn’t have to... and so sudden, what’s this for?” You always made it so easy for me...

“Will you marry me?”

A pause. “Would you have asked me if you didn’t already know I was definitely going to say yes?”

And the rest of the date was a blur to me. She had admired how original an idea it was to get something other than a ring. “It’s because you’re always late.” I said, not thinking. She apologized again, making me feel somewhat guilty. “It has a lifetime warranty.”

“Then I promise I won’t ever be late to meet you again, at least till the warranty runs out.”

Earlier today she had told me she was leaving me tomorrow, at least for a little while. “I need this,” she had said. And I needed her. But I would not say it.

***

There had been a disturbing stillness in the house earlier in the evening, a deafening silence that slowly retarded every other sense, one after the other: a frighteningly gradual progression. By the time it was dark outside, my ears were numb from the silence, and the dark corners of the room seemed to be dissolving, fading with the echoes of silence. Night was descending fast, and so was my sanity in this forsaken silence, as it were. I wanted her to be angry, to scream and shout, to break something, to pack her bags, even if just for show. But I could not take the silence.

I had sought to leave, as I often had before in these out of hand moments. Working in the garden out on the terrace provided a temporary escape and the only escape I could give myself; but even in there I was surrounded by the drab cityscape from every side. The size of the garden barely afforded enough time to be spent behind it, and she was bitter enough from the last time I over-watered her daffodils. Before long I had to return inside the house. The silence at once wrapped around my skin like plastic wrap; it wrapped around my face and made it difficult to breathe, it wrapped around my feet and made it difficult to move, sending all the blood rushing straight to my heart and instilling suddenly a fear I had not known before. The doctor had warned me strictly against such sudden outbursts. Grasping around to understand it and sitting down on my favorite chair at the study, I tried to draw a few deep breathes to somewhat calm myself from the sudden throbbing and drank a glass of water.

The coldness penetrated far more than just my clothes; I felt it pricking against my skin, making the little hairs on my arms stand on edge. And then I was met with her voice from the shower. Every droplet fell without fail to the strictest of straight lines, making the exact sound it was meant to be making; not too loud, not too quiet, but a calculated decibel. However, something was amiss. The silence, even despite the sound of the running water, despite the bustle of quick machines outside, which was all a part of it, there was something disturbing the carefully crafted notation. She was crying into the silence, feeding from it, shedding tears that decimated with the touch of the shower water, and ran swiftly down the drain. The throbbing in my heart intensified again, and I clutched the glass in my hand harder than I intended.

In a few hours, this resonance of sorrow would be the last thing on my mind in this life.

She finally showed the emotion she had fought to hold all day. We had entered an emotional ennui. I considered it my failing as a person to no longer excite her interest. Early in the morning today, after another night of sleeplessness for the both of us, she had said she wanted a break, a temporary leave from me. And I knew then without a shed of a doubt that things had changed; I was not ready for change. I still held a love as dear as ever, even if I failed to display it as ardently as before. But none of it would account for much by the time the sun rose the next morning.

***

The moon cast the kind of light set aside only for lovers meeting under clandestine arrangements. There was a soft drizzle outside, unheard of at this time of the year. Things kept happening to disturb our perfect equation. The truth I had wanted, the truth that I had finally created and called discovery kept getting shattered.

I woke up in my chair, thoroughly drenched in the moonlight coming from the window. My heart was finally completely at rest, and I felt calm. I wondered for a second what had happened. I remember finally going to our bedroom, and making myself as light as possible, lying down on the unwelcome bed. She would be leaving in the morning, and even if as cold as ever, I wanted to spend the last night beside her. But I must have dreamt it; I was in my study, sitting on my chair in front of the window. I tried but failed to come to terms with reality. I finally decided it must have been a dream: the sky outside was not as dark as night time would suggest, meaning it must still be evening.

I tried making myself as invisible as I could in the uninviting house, still marred with her recent sorrow. My presence was oppressive, and an instigator of much of her despair. I hated myself for it. It was growing late, but the streets outside had already died down. I wondered at this premature period of a regular routine. Silence inside had been prevalent all day, but the silence outside the house stood out sorely. Sleep could not be imagined tonight. Not for me... not for her.

Through supine breathing and an eerily quiet air and an almost inaudible heart fall, I wondered why the edges of the room seemed to be dissolving. I pondered upon it, looking over at the dark corners becoming progressively blurrier. It must be from being asleep at this odd hour; my eyes were still adjusting to the semi-darkness.

Somewhere in what seemed to be a distant chamber of my mind, I remembered a distant weeping. And I suddenly realized that it was not in my mind but from another room. She was only a few feet away, but I felt the sound coming from another world. It was raining no more.

I felt coldness inside my heart now; not on the cusp and hem of my skin, but from within. Hesitant, and unsure, I walked over to the bedroom in spite of everything that had happened. The door lay half open, and I walked through it, into the dimly lit room. What I saw inside nearly made me lose my grip. She was a ghostly shade of white, and not even bothering to fight back tears. She held in her arms a stationary body, and mountains of truth overwhelmed me. Truth that I did not want. It had not been a dream. I had chosen to sleep beside her for the final night.

The truth of my existence came crashing down on me. I couldn’t leave her even in death. I tried to speak out but found that I didn’t have a tongue. And the dark corners of the room were taking over the world; with it the entire creation becoming hazy. Things remained unsaid.

“I’m so sorry,” she manages between tears, clutching on to the now distant body, “I never wanted to leave... I don’t know why I said what I said. I should have apologized to you earlier, I’m so sorry... won’t you please come back now?”

The world had begun to whirl, and I felt my own being slowly dissipating. My eyes fell on her wrist, where she was still wearing the watch. It had meant everything. It had meant I would never leave her. It had meant she would never be late. Damn it baby! You promised to never be late again. There remained truth, unfiltered and concrete truth that had become obvious to me finally, unfound and incomplete. I still love you. Too many things remained unspoken; too many things that we in life can never find.