Three In One

The cold water gushed forward in a brilliant white spray, stinging him as it exploded into a million drops on impact. His body shuddered involuntarily as if a high voltage shock had just hit him, as it always did when the chill first hit him. He both dreaded and loved cold showers for that reason – that first chill. He would spend a long time gazing at the water, testing it with his fingers, just postponing the inevitable. Sometimes when he was in a better mood, he would even scream out aloud just for effect. Today wasn’t that day though. So he stood as still as he could as the chill slowly worked its way up from his chest, over his neck to his head where it met the migraine.

The migraine had started in the freezing stillness of the bus ride back home. He had tried to turn off the cold air streaming through the nozzles but it was ineffectual. He silently cursed the government, trust them to provide a luxury bus service and then freeze you to death. The passenger in front of him decided to recline her seat completely; the cheap plastic dug into his knee. Why does everyone have to recline their seats completely, he wondered. Personally, he found it distinctly uncomfortable and he preferred to sit straight as far as possible. He requested the lady in front of him to ‘un-recline’ her seat a little and she condescended with a disagreeable murmur.

The bus was already on its way. He stared outside as familiar landmarks glided silently past. He had switched on his ipod long ago; it was playing a familiar playlist… his favourite one actually. Till a few weeks ago, he used to listen to it every day on his way to work. His day refused to begin till he had worked his way through all 22 songs in the list. Today however, the songs seemed to drown him further into his self-inflicted sorrow. Good songs should be like that. If you’re feeling happy, they should make you feel on top of the world. If you’re depressed, they should make you want to shoot yourself. It all depends on how you relate to them anyway.

He had tried to be casual about it, but as the bus labored up the climb alongside her house, he couldn’t help turning around to stare but she was not standing there to wave at him. The curtains were drawn and the lights betrayed no one. He felt his heart tearing within and the pain rose, holding him by the throat in its vice like grip. The lump in his throat was real, as real as the emotions that suddenly rushed to his face and his eyes, threatening to consume him in their passion. Meanwhile, the bus heaved itself on to the highway in a final, triumphant lurch and sped on, past the distant lights of her old office. The playlist moved on to ‘their song’ as the haunting strains of the guitar wafted through his senses and she started to sing. He had been waiting for this moment and he hadn’t known how he would react to it. And when the moment did come, he remained perfectly still, as if in a stupor. To a casual glance, he appeared to be staring into the distance. It wouldn’t be wrong, except that he was glancing inward. He was blind to the faraway silhouettes of the mountains bathed in the silvery, ghostly light of the full moon. All he could see was her, them, moments spent together…and right then, he wanted to get off the bus. He wanted to run back and just embrace every person whose life she had touched, just to feel her life-force around them, as it was around him, in everything he did and everywhere he turned. It entered him through every pore of his body and lifted him and crashed him down gently, like those waves on the beach they had left their footprints on. He felt her deep within him, like a double edged dagger that at once defended life and took it too.

He had made his way home, smiling past his mother who had stayed up so he could have a hot dinner. He desperately needed that shower. And when the chill met his migraine, the chill won. As always. But it did nothing to blunt the dagger within. He cupped his palm around his ears and let the shower hit his hand. The roar was comforting and when he closed his eyes, he imagined that he was standing under a waterfall. He slowly turned around to change the tenor of the roar and it did. Now it sounded like a thousand waves crashing on the beach at the same time. He turned some more and suddenly it sounded like a strong wind blowing through a musty tunnel. He loved playing with the water like this, it distracted him and calmed him down. And sometimes, thankfully, like today, it even drowned out the clamor of all those disturbed voices within.

===========================================
She had some trouble swiping her card to open the door. Her arms were full from the shopping she had to get done. It had been two weeks since she had gotten here and she was yet to settle in completely. She had most of the necessities in place; thank God that P had been there for those initial days to help her out with things. She had even discovered an Indian restaurant on one of the streets close by. On one of her sojourns in the mall, she had managed to have an ‘Indian lunch’. Packing some for dinner had seemed like a good idea but she didn’t, preferring to rely on her cooking skills.

She dumped the shopping on the sofa and sat down. She was feeling mildly exhausted from the exertion. Her legs were beginning to hurt from the expedition that had taken almost all day. Walking up to her laptop, she put on their favorite song. She closed her eyes and tried to relax but she couldn’t. She checked her mobile for messages from him but there were none. She resisted the impulse to send him an SMS and started arranging the shopping instead.

I will try making the dal tonight, she promised herself. It seemed to relax her.


===========================================
Catch 22 once again. Why do I always land up in such situations, she asked herself. Why did it have to happen to me? Inspite of her best precautions, she had fallen. And she always fell hard. For her, it was all or nothing. But he was too good a friend (nevermind that he was soooooo cute!) and their friendship too precious for her to spoil by saying something he might not want to know.

She went through a mental checklist of tasks she needed to complete by the weekend and then she checked the date, Good God! It was Saturday already and she had done nothing. NOTHING! She groaned inwardly and got back to her thoughts. Sometimes, she felt like there were two people inside her. One – the rational she, the control freak who wanted to always be on top of the situation, the she who liked to plan things down to the minutest detail and ensure that everything happened as per procedure. Perhaps, it was her background in software engineering that caused it, but then that was how she’d always been.

Then, there was this other her… The idealistic, romantic her who wore her heart on her sleeve and wept during movies. The her, who hated plans and loved to spend long moments staring simply at clouds soaring under blue skies and day dreaming. Complete opposites, they both lived in her. Impossibly enough, they co-existed inside her, one making room for the other when needed, neither of them winning for too long.

Maybe there was a third her too. One that stared at the other two and let them take charge of her, willing her to do things and then undo them, to make plans and then ignore them and wish they didn’t exist.

She wouldn’t have it any other way. These were her identity, they were her and she knew no other way to be. That was why she found herself thinking of him today, as she had been for the past 7 months. Wishing him away and holding him close, both at the same time.

She turned to her blog, but the words never came. So she posted a song instead.