His was love of the unrequited kind. Twenty three million seven hundred and sixty thousand seconds—and, this figure was no sham—prior to the moment that was today, August 5, 2012, he had made himself tell her what he really felt for her.
Time equivalent to three-fourths of a year had already passed and still he was failing to give some semblance of a ‘shape’ to his life. Perhaps this was because of the response he’d received when he had laid bare his feelings in front of her. He was still living a frenetic life; feigning to be busy although he knew he was not. All this because of an action that had been unprecedented until then!
He still remembered exactly what he had said, and what reply he had received. “To put it simply, I like you,” he’d said, and that had ensued a spiel—one that mirrored to exactness the dismay that she hadn’t been able to hide in her words.
After a few clumsy statements had come the answer, “It’s not that I don’t like you...” A dim ray of hope had risen within him upon hearing this; he didn’t know where it had come from, but it had surely come, only to be shattered into smithereens some moments later when she’d added, “But it’s not that I like you, either.”
His mouth had sagged, flung open; not because he’d been sleepy or beat but because he’d been hit by an ambivalent, confusing (and moreover, outlandish) answer.
‘Neutral’! He had never heard such an answer.
He is watching the dead of the night now, resting the weight of his body upon the window pane, probably contemplating on how darkness overcomes the streets and environs that are lit up bright during the day. His vividly animated life is likewise shrouded by a cloud of darkness.
The difference, he notes, is that the darkness, which is now omnipresent in the streets, will soon enough—four hours later—turn into a bright dawn, but his life has nowhere to reach.
He picks up his mobile phone and goes through all the calls he just missed. All hers.
He knew how captivating the thoughts of a desperate one were. He hadn’t gotten what he had wanted, and he had been brooding for quite long; plus or minus eight months, forty eight hours, and he’d been brooding mostly, for the last eighteen hours.
•••
She doesn’t know what to do. She is at the helm wherefrom she can make a decision; a crucial decision that might take or save the life of a person she silently and furtively loves—make that ‘likes’ . She can call it a bluff, his bluff; but he’s not a person to joke around with, at least not when he says he’ll do something the desperado’s way.
Eighteen hours—and twenty minutes, to be exact—ago, her mobile phone had chimed a ring she had not heard for the last eight months. The ring, which had rung early in the morning, at 7 am, was the one she had assigned for all the SMSs her mobile would receive from his number. This morning, it had carried what one could only call a ‘ransom-cum-suicide note’:
Look, I’ve been waiting for whatever answer you have for me
What I need is only a reliable answer
I’ll find no way other than to offer myself to you otherwise
The part that had frightened the living daylights out of her had been the “offer myself to you” phrase which, as one might make out, meant something morbid.
The carefully placed “for you” bore the potential to make her culpable for whatever transpired. He was one of a kind—serious all the time. One who could do things without completely knowing what he was doing, even in full consciousness.
She is scared; chilled to the spine. She needs to confirm if he was sober or in a stupor when he messaged her, so she has been calling him. More fiercely since he hasn’t been answering her calls. She is trying now. Again.
•••
He is finishing his entry for the day in his diary (after eight months of inactivity). He completes the eight-page-long entry with:
“ambivalent again, got to see what my mind brings up, maybe until the eleventh hour of my life…”
He has written things irrelevant, as he always does when writing in his diary. Now he is mulling over what else he can possibly do after the latest call he’s received.
“Stop threatening me!” She had said even before greetings had been exchanged.
“Why do you not give me an answer I can rely on? Why am I the one suffering?” he had hit back.
“You’re not alone, the only one suffering, in the entire world, are you?” had been her retort.
Anticipation that had amalgamated
with anger and—he could feel it—care
was evident in her words.
“Who else suffers then?”
This time, it was his answer that was drenched in mixed feelings; more than
half of the words were bred of anger
and sarcasm.
“I told you then, and I am telling you again. You are neutral to me,” she had said.
“But... ”
He had been cut in. “Don’t disturb me now. I’ve already suffered a sleepless night,” she had gone on. “Bye, and never say to me what you did this morning, ever again.”
This talk with her had made him more ambivalent. The things she'd said told him that she really cared, but her decision still wasn't as direct as her words. What Paulo Coelho once said flickered in his mind, "Waiting is painful, forgetting is painful; but not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering."
He, too, was indecisive.
She senses him, his thoughts—mostly the desperate ones—and worries, fretting. She knows she can call him anytime and tell him that she doesn't like him, although that will hurt her a lot. At least she won't need to accept him or, god forbid, discover his corpse the next day. But she won't—she can't call him. Isn't she was the one who ended the latest call? Calling him again will only give him the wrong idea.
She can feel her compassionate side pit against her pride. She is hurt; she doesn't want to hurt anymore. But is there an easy way out?
He skimmed through all those conversations they had through SMS throughout the best two months of their lives. He scrolled through all photos he had of her, read everything they'd shared, contemplating once again the darkness outside, with his phone placed in his hand. He tossed his phone on the bed, walked across the room to the window and rested on his burly forearms.
She'd been crying ever since she'd begun to feel him and his insecurities. Every now and then, she'd scoop her phone, only to toss it away instantly. She went back to her diary entry. Hers was not very different from his—irrelevant stuff, without rhyme or reason, the only palpable things within her diary entry gave the impression that hers was a mind more turbulent than his. At least, that was what the number of spots where tears had blotted the inked paper showed.
There were less on his diary,
more on hers.
In all this turmoil, she picked up her phone once again, dialled his number for
the umpteenth time. Only this time, she managed to press the 'call' button as well, and to her own consternation, wouldn't let herself cancel it.
The ring went on full swing, but no one received it at the other end. A whirlpool of dread began to wind through her mind, making her body wrench in pain and swelling up her tear glands. She started crying a river.
The seventh missed call was followed
by yet another call, not hers, as his phone would display. Eight missed calls within
10 minutes was not something his phone was used to.
When the ninth call arrived, nobody must have heard the ringtone, barely
audible as it was under the deafening sound of an ambulance.
- Sharad Duwal
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