Chapter VI
Day II
This was the last thing she had expected. She didn’t know whether she was ready for a relationship. How can she be so confident in saying this prayer aloud in her mind, of course? Is it essential to do so? Didn’t she require the freedom that was pulling her down? Was the definition of her freedom wrong? If love doesn’t make you free, then what’s worth that love is. She read somewhere and thought this saying had no relevance the life reality. She didn’t go in and talk to the barista and read it again like she would read a non-essential news in a newspaper. All day yesterday, she read the content of the butter paper but all she could was to laugh. How come the solution to her problem is this simple? The crumpled butter paper which once held the oatmeal almond cookie made irritating sound when she straightened out the paper. She found herself reading it just before she stepped in the coffee shop.
“I know he loves me. My mind which makes no mistake tells me so. He must have met many girls but I’m the one he will chose. He is attracted to me. His mind tells him the same thing. The glint in his eyes tells me he is the one. I know that for sure. Deep down I know it is because he is seeking me and I’m seeking him and that’s why we are attracted to each other. I know he will find me one day or I will find him one day.“
She sat on the assigned seat, put on her headphones again, sat upright on the sofa and marveled, half-heartedly at the black wall, like others. All seemed like a sophisticated and manipulative lie. The beat of music reminded her about the old song he used to love. It just occurred to her that maybe, just maybe, she was on right track but the presence of this song in this playlist might just be a fluke. Her mind resisted the trance as it happened to her a day before: she didn’t want to feel like stupid again. The barista appeared with smile and the drink. She picked the coffee cup. A sip of the dirty chai and it was pure bliss. Her thought process changed. Even if nothing happened, there was no harm coming here and drinking dirty chair. The blackness started to absorb her. She felt a darkness wrapped her despite the well lit surrounding. Or was this the trance taking over her. She wasn’t sure.
She exhaled and tried to bring herself out of trance. And that’s when miracle happened. The exhaled fumes hit the wall and a snow white emerged in the pitch black wall. She focused more. Her breathing got bit erratic because of caffeine in the drink. The whiteness grew in circles around a central dot where her breath hit the first. She teased unorganized thoughts in her head, which had organized themselves in white concentric circles. These thoughts were nothing but the questions she never pursued and thoughts which worried her unnecessarily.
At first, there were the thoughts like what she had been doing and what she would like to do at this moment of time. Just as an example, at this very moment, though she was busy with her thoughts but she felt like getting out for an ice cream. So, such ice cream thoughts filled the circle just around the dot. She had gone numerous time alone for ice cream but the workers only remembered him. “Only one? You used to get a couple?” One worker asked her twice. She felt like telling them about their breakup but resorted to smile. She didn’t want to accumulate the pity. Since then, the worker gave her the look but didn’t bother to ask about him for the fear of losing a customer.
The thoughts which started to took the shape of next circle belonged to expectations she had from her life, parents, family and of course from him. This circle had scattered dots of unmet expectations interspersed with immense pain. She followed what she was supposed to do and still she had been on losing streak. In the next circle, she faced the thoughts she avoided. Her friends who had not followed the common customs and stayed recluse had now been happily married to guys they met at coffee shops, Saturday market, library book sales, Chinese take-outs, and gas stations.
She, on the contrary, had met him, where 70% of students of this college town get hooked, in a bar-hopping sessions. How? That’s altogether a different story.
It wasn’t until she sat on the patio with her colleagues and had ordered some beers. The guy who brought them beer smiled excessively and whispered to her, when she asked for another beer, ‘the girl with big lips and smile to die for.’ Pleased yet taken back by some comment, she didn’t respond to his comments. Her friends asked what he said and she said, “Telling me about which beer has the nutty taste.” Carmine asked, “But how could he know that you liked that kind?” She raised her hands in the expression of I-don’t-know. And then, there was an obvious leg-pulling.
His words started an inquiry. While doing laundry in the evening, she raked her mind without reaching to a conclusion. In the morning shower, she remembered a broken dream and pieces she tried to put together as she shampooed her hairs. She had heard this dialogues for sure. She stopped shampooing her hairs and stood still. But where? The voice inside of her followed her in the dream, in the dark alleys, in the sunlit pastures, empty basketball grounds, crowded library halls, and fitness sessions. She sat under the shower and let the water drops pinch her body in pleasurable sensation like needle therapy and went to all the places where she had gone last week, last month, and last six months. She even thought of going back further but she realized that no one would wait this much for her because she wouldn’t wait this much for anyone.
to be continued…
