That afternoon was a dent in her inner spacetime continuum, subsequently, her wounds would warp in a long-drawn collapse of all her known frameworks. A tale for later, that one, for now, she had to jump off the ever-accelerating obsession with the happily ever after.
He slouched at the far end of their living room – right hand clutched the doorknob, eyes brushed over her face – gently mocked the self-help book on the dining table, cruised away. Space in Mumbai apartments is scarce, the walls bounced his eyes back to her.
His contours – those shoulders, that neck, his beautiful porcelain face. She had held on to this for five years. Time had stomped through her, pushing its footprints in her face but airbrushing his blemishes.
Two people, under the same roof, lived different lives, plunged into each other occasionally, piling up the debris. Their relationship had morphed from lust – love – abuse – anger – disgust – tolerance to finally indifference.
She folded her legs under her buttocks, the wrought iron chair squeaked. Her elbows rested on the table-top, spine stretched, and inclined forward to conserve the remnants of dignity.
The stance . . .
Affection flapped wings, a sour memory clipped it halfway on his lips.
He had asked her something. She wasn’t able to focus.
They had painted the walls peach with blotches of bright yellow and blue. Early on in their marriage, she had cupped all the racket in her head and splashed it on the walls and ceiling. It was therapeutic, but the racket had embedded in her space. This house was a temple of her rage.
. . . softer shades of blue and white, it should take a day or two to repaint . .
She dodged the volatile in the moment, logged in to the future. She was painting the ceiling, a nerve in her shoulder ached.
Can we postpone this for some other day? We better be cleaning and shopping instead. Isn’t Bhaskar coming for dinner tonight?
He dragged her to present.
Phone please.
She dialed Bhaskar’s number.
Hey B, the dinner today, it is cancelled . . . hmmm, it is rude, ‘m separating from my husband, hmm . . . today, right now.
You, this sure . . . Huh!
His green-brown-blue exotic eyes locked into her mundane ones. Somber, resigned, clueless. The looped graphics in the green-brown-blue sucked her in. She gasped for air.
Oh, yeah.
She kept his cellphone on the table, picked up the book – some author’s vomit on how to fix her life, a current companion through an inner maze. The error of their coming together had extracted a disproportionate value from them. She had drowned herself in abusive rants, and he had cloaked himself with indifference. They stayed afloat, each at the other’s expense. It was not a long-term solution, but the happily ever after scam was addictive. Lately, tired of her own rants, she had crouched her inflamed self inside numbness. It digested her fears and stunned her into vacuity.
Cool . . .
He sighed.
If they had their way, they would wring out apologies from each other, and return to a safe few notches behind the edge. Their marriage was a strange being. It took effort to make it happy, it could, however, automatically roll down the incline forever. It was genetically wired to immortality, it suckled on the lowest of their lows, it refused to die on its own. One of them had to choose to kill it.
Choices are tricky wagers.
This was the fourth time in the year that she had initiated their ‘break’ ‘freeing the me from the we’ and like every time, right before the finale, doubts rubbed their guts in worm shit.
Their spirits begged for it to end.
Their vulnerability invoked undeserved miracles.
Their miracles had terrible timing.
They were stuck outside of each other, all entrances to the inside were closed.
The terror had turned decisive, someone had to call off the miracles and take the lead. All hope must retract this time.
She smiled. The muscles in her face took a deep breath and stretched lazily.
He grabbed the far end of her smile . . .
Let’s revisit this after lunch. There’s a new Parsi joint in Malad, you will love it!
Sweetheart, it’s over.
Let’s give it one final try.
This was the final try. We have been trying for three years.
It is a marriage.
It was, this is my last stop, I get off here.
What if I refuse to leave?
Uh umm . . . not an option anymore. I am not moving from this place until you leave.
I have no stuff to live on my own.
Take all you want, take everything, but leave, please.
And, go where?
This was cruel – asking him to leave at an hour’s notice. But they had made a deal – two months of sincere efforts to fix the falling apart. By his own admission, he was too occupied to begin, while she had lost her self-worth and decency trying to stop its decline. She had turned verbally abusive. She hated who she had become. Indecency must have an expiry date. The cells in her body were flipping into raging, sarcastic monsters. The acid in her veins must be siphoned out before she dissolves in it.
Alright, so this is where I get off too . . .
Finally, his ego succumbed. Her spirit crawled back to numbness. She picked up the book. The words waltzed, her vision blurred chasing them. She let go of the effort to read, and performed.
What new plans now . . .?
Hope trampled ego and galloped those green-brown-blue eyes, his fingers on the knob weakened. His arms called out for her. Their happily ever after cast a new spell.
The lesson had been finally learned – the most beautiful desires sometimes turn blood-sucking vampires during their manifestation.
She held on to her stance,
the door-knob held him,
each a victim of the other,
skinned in the service of their happiness.
For a split moment they connected in the pain of what had been, then the indifference smudged familiarity.
It is none of your business, JUST LEAVE
She wanted to stand atop the dining table and yell, hoping the world around her would disappear, taking her with it.
Instead, she poured bitterness in her eyes and said,
Well, to begin with, I will celebrate this New Year, my way.
Those things, you pine for in a frustrating relationship, suddenly lose potency, once it is over. It was the 23rd of December, at that moment, the New Year seemed far, far, away. And the power of her words drained even before she spoke them. She clung on to bitterness. His smile cut into her, there it was – the curve that had caused such a tremendous slip. What was it she had fallen into?
He saw the fire, he had fallen in. He was his ashes. Neither the questions nor the answers mattered anymore.
Au revoir, mon amour . . . enjoy the candles, New Year, and your self.
Bull’s eye! His face beamed. The sting of ‘and your self’ incapacitated her reactions, the slam of the door behind him swallowed his tears.
She rushed to their bedroom. Empty drawers and shelves.
The room had shrunk in size,
bloated in void;
fleeced of the unknown something, which renders a couple’s bedroom private, it had stopped breathing.
Why were bedrooms so sacred for couples?
She picked up his pillow and rushed out the main door. He was arranging his stuff in the elevator.
Yours . . .
She pushed the pillow towards him. Wearily, he flung it atop the cartons and pressed the elevator close from inside. Her spirit stayed there to see him off, her body returned to the living room. Frailty held her from breaking down . . . Her rage and energy had tagged along with his stuff.
Seven little diamonds on a gold band – her thumb, in reflex, would push the wedding band down every time it slipped up her slim finger. She gently slid it up the finger, let it fall off, sparkles rolled and settled near the rug.
Kitchen counter was dirty, the sink was loaded with dishes. She hadn’t cooked and cleaned in days. A minor ecosystem had sprung on the leftover food, milk, and vegetables in the refrigerator. Fungal remnants from the post-monsoon humidity freckled bookshelves and wardrobes. The home had rotten itself crazy in longing for love! Their . . . her home needed a hose wash. On a glass shelf, opposite the kitchen platform, sat the brass idols of Annapurna and Gopal.
They will watch over your marriage.
Her mother had cajoled them in despite her aversion to religion, rituals, and idols.
She kept the idols outside the main door. So much for second-hand faith.
The farce was over.
The cleansing had begun.
The condoms in the bedside drawer were gone! Absence of emotion was gratifying.
Cautious not to trip into an inconsolable breakdown, she scrubbed the house to the last speck of memory, tossing away every bit of ‘we’ in the garbage bags.
Once the house was clean, she showered.
Scalding water scrubbed her brittleness off.
She wore a seductive little red dress, dabbed some perfume, lit candles, poured herself some wine, and flopped on a beanbag, mind barren, breaths deep winding roads in and out of her body.
From the floor, the wedding band flung contempt at her. She stretched her leg, with the big toe, pushed it under a cushion, and caressed her half of the happily ever after corpse by her side . . .
She waited for the silence to spend. The moment loitered over the decomposing corpse . . .
That afternoon was a dent in her inner spacetime continuum, subsequently, her wounds would warp in a long-drawn collapse of all her known frameworks. A tale for later, that one, for now, she had to jump off the ever-accelerating obsession with the happily ever after.
He slouched at the far end of their living room – right hand clutched the doorknob, eyes brushed over her face – gently mocked the self-help book on the dining table, cruised away. Space in Mumbai apartments is scarce, the walls bounced his eyes back to her.
His contours – those shoulders, that neck, his beautiful porcelain face. She had held on to this for five years. Time had stomped through her, pushing its footprints in her face but airbrushing his blemishes.
Two people, under the same roof, lived different lives, plunged into each other occasionally, piling up the debris. Their relationship had morphed from lust – love – abuse – anger – disgust – tolerance to finally indifference.
She folded her legs under her buttocks, the wrought iron chair squeaked. Her elbows rested on the table-top, spine stretched, and inclined forward to conserve the remnants of dignity.
The stance . . .
Affection flapped wings, a sour memory clipped it halfway on his lips.
He had asked her something. She wasn’t able to focus.
They had painted the walls peach with blotches of bright yellow and blue. Early on in their marriage, she had cupped all the racket in her head and splashed it on the walls and ceiling. It was therapeutic, but the racket had embedded in her space. This house was a temple of her rage.
. . . softer shades of blue and white, it should take a day or two to repaint . . .
She dodged the volatile in the moment, logged in to the future. She was painting the ceiling, a nerve in her shoulder ached.
Can we postpone this for some other day? We better be cleaning and shopping instead. Isn’t Bhaskar coming for dinner tonight?
He dragged her to present.
Phone please.
She dialed Bhaskar’s number.
Hey B, the dinner today, it is cancelled . . . hmmm, it is rude, ‘m separating from my husband, hmm . . . today, right now.
You, this sure . . . Huh!
His green-brown-blue exotic eyes locked into her mundane ones. Somber, resigned, clueless. The looped graphics in the green-brown-blue sucked her in. She gasped for air.
Oh, yeah.
She kept his cellphone on the table, picked up the book – some author’s vomit on how to fix her life, a current companion through an inner maze. The error of their coming together had extracted a disproportionate value from them. She had drowned herself in abusive rants, and he had cloaked himself with indifference. They stayed afloat, each at the other’s expense. It was not a long-term solution, but the happily ever after scam was addictive. Lately, tired of her own rants, she had crouched her inflamed self inside numbness. It digested her fears and stunned her into vacuity.
Cool . . .
He sighed.
If they had their way, they would wring out apologies from each other, and return to a safe few notches behind the edge. Their marriage was a strange being. It took effort to make it happy, it could, however, automatically roll down the incline forever. It was genetically wired to immortality, it suckled on the lowest of their lows, it refused to die on its own. One of them had to choose to kill it.
Choices are tricky wagers.
This was the fourth time in the year that she had initiated their ‘break’ ‘freeing the me from the we’ and like every time, right before the finale, doubts rubbed their guts in worm shit.
Their spirits begged for it to end.
Their vulnerability invoked undeserved miracles.
Their miracles had terrible timing.
They were stuck outside of each other, all entrances to the inside were closed.
The terror had turned decisive, someone had to call off the miracles and take the lead. All hope must retract this time.
She smiled. The muscles in her face took a deep breath and stretched lazily.
He grabbed the far end of her smile . . .
Let’s revisit this after lunch. There’s a new Parsi joint in Malad, you will love it!
Sweetheart, it’s over.
Let’s give it one final try.
This was the final try. We have been trying for three years.
It is a marriage.
It was, this is my last stop, I get off here.
What if I refuse to leave?
Uh umm . . . not an option anymore. I am not moving from this place until you leave.
I have no stuff to live on my own.
Take all you want, take everything, but leave, please.
And, go where?
This was cruel – asking him to leave at an hour’s notice. But they had made a deal – two months of sincere efforts to fix the falling apart. By his own admission, he was too occupied to begin, while she had lost her self-worth and decency trying to stop its decline. She had turned verbally abusive. She hated who she had become. Indecency must have an expiry date. The cells in her body were flipping into raging, sarcastic monsters. The acid in her veins must be siphoned out before she dissolves in it.
Alright, so this is where I get off too . . .
Finally, his ego succumbed. Her spirit crawled back to numbness. She picked up the book. The words waltzed, her vision blurred chasing them. She let go of the effort to read, and performed.
What new plans now . . .?
Hope trampled ego and galloped those green-brown-blue eyes, his fingers on the knob weakened. His arms called out for her. Their happily ever after cast a new spell.
The lesson had been finally learned – the most beautiful desires sometimes turn blood-sucking vampires during their manifestation.
She held on to her stance,
the door-knob held him,
each a victim of the other,
skinned in the service of their happiness.
For a split moment they connected in the pain of what had been, then the indifference smudged familiarity.
It is none of your business, JUST LEAVE
She wanted to stand atop the dining table and yell, hoping the world around her would disappear, taking her with it.
Instead, she poured bitterness in her eyes and said,
Well, to begin with, I will celebrate this New Year, my way.
Those things, you pine for in a frustrating relationship, suddenly lose potency, once it is over. It was the 23rd of December, at that moment, the New Year seemed far, far, away. And the power of her words drained even before she spoke them. She clung on to bitterness. His smile cut into her, there it was – the curve that had caused such a tremendous slip. What was it she had fallen into?
He saw the fire, he had fallen in. He was his ashes. Neither the questions nor the answers mattered anymore.
Au revoir, mon amour . . . enjoy the candles, New Year, and your self.
Bull’s eye! His face beamed. The sting of ‘and your self’ incapacitated her reactions, the slam of the door behind him swallowed his tears.
She rushed to their bedroom. Empty drawers and shelves.
The room had shrunk in size,
bloated in void;
fleeced of the unknown something, which renders a couple’s bedroom private, it had stopped breathing.
Why were bedrooms so sacred for couples?
She picked up his pillow and rushed out the main door. He was arranging his stuff in the elevator.
Yours . . .
She pushed the pillow towards him. Wearily, he flung it atop the cartons and pressed the elevator close from inside. Her spirit stayed there to see him off, her body returned to the living room. Frailty held her from breaking down . . . Her rage and energy had tagged along with his stuff.
Seven little diamonds on a gold band – her thumb, in reflex, would push the wedding band down every time it slipped up her slim finger. She gently slid it up the finger, let it fall off, sparkles rolled and settled near the rug.
Kitchen counter was dirty, the sink was loaded with dishes. She hadn’t cooked and cleaned in days. A minor ecosystem had sprung on the leftover food, milk, and vegetables in the refrigerator. Fungal remnants from the post-monsoon humidity freckled bookshelves and wardrobes. The home had rotten itself crazy in longing for love! Their . . . her home needed a hose wash. On a glass shelf, opposite the kitchen platform, sat the brass idols of Annapurna and Gopal.
They will watch over your marriage.
Her mother had cajoled them in despite her aversion to religion, rituals, and idols.
She kept the idols outside the main door. So much for second-hand faith.
The farce was over.
The cleansing had begun.
The condoms in the bedside drawer were gone! Absence of emotion was gratifying.
Cautious not to trip into an inconsolable breakdown, she scrubbed the house to the last speck of memory, tossing away every bit of ‘we’ in the garbage bags.
Once the house was clean, she showered.
Scalding water scrubbed her brittleness off.
She wore a seductive little red dress, dabbed some perfume, lit candles, poured herself some wine, and flopped on a beanbag, mind barren, breaths deep winding roads in and out of her body.
From the floor, the wedding band flung contempt at her. She stretched her leg, with the big toe, pushed it under a cushion, and caressed her half of the happily ever after corpse by her side . . .
She waited for the silence to spend. The moment loitered over the decomposing corpse . . .