EPILOGUE

Note: This short story was first uploaded on my other blog "The Bookstore Bandit". I have now decided to take down The Bookstore Bandit, and hence, i am reposting this story in this blog. Here on, all my writings including my short stories will be available only on this blog, 'The Philosophical Itinerant'. My poems will be available both on the blog and my Instagram account.

 PROLOGUE

I remember it hurt. When he looked at me, it hurt. His red gaze locked on my blue ones from across the room, amidst broken things. Everything was broken – the tables, the chairs, the shelves, the glass, us. Framed memories were scattered all over the floor. A few strong ones were cracked, like our wedding day and the day she was born. But the rest, the weak ones were broken beyond repair. Our fingers bled and bled from trying to pick up the shattered pieces of those memories, the glasses were too sharp, and we eventually gave up. We gave up, what a shame.

He kept saying I needed help, but help wasn’t what I needed. I needed him.

THE FIRST SIGNS

Remember the good days? When the only fights we had were on whose turn it was to do the dishes, when these metals around our fingers were something that bound us together. Since when did they become so heavy, love? Since when did they feel like shackles? You told me that night, under the blanket of stars that enveloped us, that I was your favorite home you’ve ever been to. What happened to that? Tell me, what happened to that? I remember it all too well. Even after 6 years of marriage, those words ring sharp like a bell in my head. They are the moments that keep me from falling apart. I hold on to them in times like this, in broken times. But they have faded from your heart, I know they have. I can see it in your eyes. You don’t look at me the same way you used to. Your eyes once told me everything I will never hear again.

You left me when I needed you most. You left me when I thought it was you and me against the world. The world turned its back on me, and just when I naively believed I had no one except you, you turned your back and walked away. It hurts to look at you. Do you know that? It hurts when my eyes get hold of your hands that once traced the curves of my body as though they were maps that led to freedom. It hurts when I see your lips, lips that once let out all the right words. Because now, all I see are hands that touch her the way you used to touch me, arms that hold her the way I used to be held, lips that tell her all the words I need to hear now.

I guess the curves of my body were really maps that finally led you to your own kind of freedom.

SECOND CHANCES

I walked in on you making love to her on the bed you made love to me. I heard as you helped her let out sweet little moans for you. It took all the strength I had to close my eyes and turn away. Why did you come running after me and beg for forgiveness if all you were going to do is hurt me again and again? My love must have blinded me then. Why would I have had forgiven you so easily? I’ve never had reason to believe that your love would fail me. Even during my stormiest and darkest nights, you were always there. My hands would clumsily search for yours in the dark, and you would find me, even when I couldn’t. You were always there. And I thought you would always be. Now I am lost, and you have taken way too long to find me.

Was it guilt? Or was it sympathy? All I know is that it definitely wasn’t love that made you run after me and apologize. Tell me one thing. Why now? Out of all the times you could have chosen to leave me stranded, why now? When I’m almost getting over our loss, when the scars she left are almost healed, when I need you most to give me one final pull. Was I too much to handle? Were the scenes of hundreds of bottles of pills, midnight breakdowns and trips to the hospital every weekend too much to handle? But I remember the words you told me 6 years back when I wore a white dress and you wore my heart. You said you would stand by me for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. Did you not mean it?

Now I know that love can die a natural death when your promises no longer bind you.

THIRD TIME’S A CHARM

I walked in on you making love to her on the bed you made love to me. Again. But this time, I opened my eyes. This time, I looked, then I turned around and left. And you didn’t come running after me. I didn’t expect you to either. Neurons can’t keep responding to the same stimulus, you know. They get accustomed to it after a while. I have also learnt not to react, I have learnt to become numb to the world. But that doesn’t mean all the pain has left me. And on some days, it just hits me a little too hard, and I fall. I fall and you are not there to pick me up. Nobody is ever there to pick me up.

I remember she left when she saw me. Atleast this one had the decency unlike the two others before her. Then you came out of the room and saw me holding her picture framed in delicate glass. Our baby girl, she was gone. She was never coming back. Three short years were all we had with her. We knew that our days with her were numbered. But what we didn’t know was that our days with each other would also be numbered after she was gone. It was a pathetic situation, really. The things love can do to you. It can build you and break you the very next minute. Then it all happened so quickly. I lost it. I threw her picture on the floor and I watched as it smashed to pieces. Still, she smiled at me through the shattered glass and it hurt. Everything I could find flew to the floor after that. One by one, they shattered to small pieces, too small to pick up. We tried anyway and they made us bleed, so I stopped trying. I told you. I told you to leave them alone, and you didn’t listen to me. You never listen to me.

So here we are, broken and defeated, surrounded by the downfall of all the things we once loved, including each other.

EPILOGUE

Life can be so heartless sometimes. It just keeps slowly shredding you of every little piece of everything good until you are left with none. It gives and takes, but mostly, it takes. You’ll have to part with everything and everyone you ever love, one way or another. Life consumes you, it really does. It even prevents you from living sometimes. Life prevents you from living; because life is a war. It just presents you with a new and harder battle everyday when you haven’t even won the battle of yesterday. And I am losing everyday’s battle.

So here I am, broken and defeated, losing the war of life.