Stay With Me.

I've been wondering for some time now that I should write a book. or at least publish these stories that I write. Or at least copyright them ! Not that a Bollywood scriptwriter is scanning the web to pick out the next big blockbuster, but you never know (!). It's Diwali, my favorite time of the year : it sits perfectly a few months after my birthday and a few weeks before Christmas. My resolution this Diwali is to start writing happy stories again or maybe start writing one big story with many many many happy-sad parts. So before I start on that ambitious project, here's a last one from me. This story came to me on a rainy Halloween night. I wrote it first as a note in bullet-points on Google Keep, then transferred it to Google Docs, and then edited it a million times. Now, it's finally ready to be posted here. It's the story of a girl who is letting go of the man she once loved, and she doesn't know that yet. Fate has planned each step meticulously to aid her in this journey, so in spite of how tightly she wants to hold on, her grip is loosening day by day, encounter by encounter. This might be the last straw as the realisation dawns on her, that how much ever she wishes, it's going to be. And that maybe, that's a good thing. 

Happy Diwali! 
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And once again you and I found each other on two different ends. Suddenly I was scared and didn't want to follow you in. Sounds of clinking glasses and squeals of laughter and voices outlining animated conversations floated out of that half open door. As if it were inviting me in, but also asking me to stay away. A sense of foreboding filled me as I stopped in my tracks and stood rooted like a statue, un-moving and expressionless.

When I did find my voice, I used all the strength behind it to say your name. You turned and watched me. I had gone from walking by your side to falling behind to being on opposite sides of what looked like an un-crossable river. A river of shoes all around. Shoes that belonged to all the people I could hear on the other side of that half-open door. 'I can't do this,' I said to you.
You tried re-assuring me that it wasn't all that bad, there were people I knew inside, and I would be fine. I tried summoning the trust in you and returned empty handed. For I couldn't see the truth behind that assurance nor the security i was searching for in your eyes. Nor did i find the comfort i was looking for in your voice, so I continued to stand right in front of the elevator. 'How badly do you not want to do this?', I gave one last look at those shoes and said , 'very badly..... I'm going to go'. I stood there for 5 more seconds, wondering if you would take just two steps to come allay my fears, fulfill the promises of a 'friend I could always count on', but you didn't. You didn't.

I turned to press the button that would open the doors of the elevator that would take me down & I looked back just one last time to see you, but you'd already walked in, closing the door behind you. I stared at that now shut door for a split-second and then walked into the open elevator. I closed my eyes as I went down. I was in a hurry to get out and breathe. And as soon as I was under the open sky, I heaved a sigh of relief, but it sounded like the cry of a wounded animal, trying to find shelter, lest it gets injured beyond repair.

And then as if to hide my sobs, the skies opened up to send rain down that Halloween night. And I didn't care that I was wearing an expensive dress or walking on mud and gravel in my new pretty shoes or that my hair was getting soaked, I just wanted to get home. I sobbed, not knowing who or what I was sobbing for, all I wanted to do was to get away from the image of those shoes and the babble of those voices, which still followed me, the happier they sounded, the more fearful it made me.

Who was this person walking down a rainy  slope at midnight? What was she running away from and why? And where was she running to? For there doesn't seem to exist a place she can feel safe in nor a people she can call her own, not a door she could knock on for a hug or a warm cup of tea that she could cup her fingers around as she calmed herself down. Who was she and what had she done to me?