The best expression of feelings, when words are not enough!!!
Once again, he looked at her, mesmerized by her beauty as always! The ugliness that the pain has caused her seemed to have been transformed into raw beauty upon touching her. He sat there near her bed, the bed that was of theirs once, where they took the vows of togetherness for life time and that bed where they made love for the first time and he unveiled her bit by bit through his lascivious eyes and lustful desires; the bed where they cried in times of adversities and held on to each other, the place where they laughed together and celebrated many events of life. The room which now smelled of sanitary napkins and medicines, he remembered the days when it smelled of perfumes and scent of love.
The colours in the walls that they painted and how excited his lady was to paint it as per imaginations and hang the paintings and sculptures collected from various exhibitions to make it the most beautiful place on earth! Memories were flashing in front of his eyes. He remembered the ever active soul, who used to fill his life with vigour, and then found her on the bed, lying in front of him, silent and numb!
The whole world was expecting time to pass soon. Everybody was waiting for the New Year to arrive as soon as possible for the celebration mood was getting intensified with each passing moment. But he just wanted it to freeze right there, through their locked eyes and intertwined hands; he wanted to steal some more time to be with his wife, the person he loved so much that everything else seemed unimportant. Somewhere within he knew that she is not a guest too long on earth and he just didn’t want to accept it.
Time listened of none, neither did it slow down nor did it fly first but it just flowed as it wanted to be. Sitting there he wondered how can anything be so perfect, never in a hurry or never lazy, flowing just as a regular routine, enthusiastic about nothing and loathing nothing yet just being a mute witness for everything that happens.
He just looked into her eyes, anticipating the silence to be broken once again by her soft voice. But it didn’t; she only looked at him with a completely blank stare. He as if realized each bit of her pain yet sat there being helpless. He is a doctor and today he is feeling the sentiments of the most helpless person in earth. The person whom the world worships as a doctor and who got numerous medals for being such a nice doctor, sat there holding the hands of his wife and feeling helpless and unable to cure the most important person of his life.
He remembered in the silence, every morning they spent together. The good morning kisses and the tea at the bedside that he received along with the news paper. He remembered her wet hairs and her seductive looks with them when she tried to wake him up from the bed and he would be so inclined to touch her and kiss her and yet she will just push him slightly to tell him that she had some sort of a fasting for some God or Goddess and he will wake up like a little obedient kid to give her the space for worship and she would smile with all her naivety at him. He remembered the day when he forgot about their anniversary and she didn’t talk to him.
He tried to give her a necklace but it didn’t work. Later she simply said, a necklace will be worn out with time but I will never forget this for it was a moment of my life.
He understood that his little wife is growing and growing beyond the point he could realize. She is talking of things that he never associated with the personality of a girl. He always remembered the jokes and the comparisons his friends gave in respect of women, regarding their material desires. But he experienced a completely different woman. He remembered when he confessed about his love to another girl in college and how she responded; only with silence. In that silence she simply kissed him on his forehead and walked to make some tea. He knew that his loyalty was appreciated but somewhere it also did hurt her and that was expressed in silence.
With her, he always felt silence to be deafening. He remembered that cold stare of hers which made him numb. Any moment when he would do something or say something bad she will simply stare with silence and that was enough of a sign for him to understand. She was not his first love but she made him love himself for the first time. She was not just a lady, she was not just his wife but beyond that a person. A human being too loving and the one who made him learn about life and man beyond the anatomy specifications in a book of medical science. He loved her, he respected her, he admired her and he appreciated her. She was not just his wife but everything to him.
Today again that same deafening silence persisted and it was neither to make him silent nor to give him any indication but just an expression of her tiredness. She was tired of living and leading a life. She didn’t speak, neither did he! She gave him blank stares and tears rolled down her eyes, showing her desire to stay and her compulsion to leave. He held her hands and left gasps of air showing his inability and helplessness.
They both sat, hand in hand; she breathed heavily, she searched for air in her surrounding but found none and he only stared at her, saw her suffocating and moaning in pain, he felt her suffering yet couldn’t help her; he felt as if his vows remained incomplete but he couldn’t help his disloyalty. And then he felt her hands getting colder and it slipped off his hand! She didn’t moan of pain anymore and she found peace, eternal peace…
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