Lost ground

The wind updrafts have died long ago…The eagles aren’t circling above them anymore. There were no boats in the lake. The trees have shed all the leaves. He mumbles as if asking himself “Do we die in an instant……” She looks with an air of surprise. ”…or over the years??”

Sometimes she feels as if this guy is just mad. He slips out almost imperceptibly into a different world which she can’t access. And then she is left wondering whether to remind him that he is with her. It’s a curious struggle. She has to keep him engaged in conversation other wise he would “slip”. But she is afraid overdoing it. He doesn’t like talkative people either.

This has been going on since an year now. They did have beautiful moments together. Like that morning watching the lake change its color from dark black to green. The defrosting action of sun bring life back into flowerbed which looked almost dead in the morning. She doesn’t recollect what they had talked during that entire morning but she remembers the warmth of that moment..or was that a shawl.

By all accounts he is much more alive than any normal human being. When he is at it you can’t shut his mouth. When he is curious you can’t just lull his curiosity by reasonable looking answers. But she wonder if he has been that alive in love. He can spark her emotions almost at his whims but when she tried it she has always found him immovable.

He would be humming a song and suddenly ask her how is it? She almost feels as if she has heard it somewhere. Then he would show a crumpled piece of paper and tell her that he wrote it about her. She would cajole him to repeat it and he would. With each word she would feel a swell of emotions. The blissful embrace would be interrupted at the sound of stones disturbed by the steps of passing Nepalese coolie carrying a load almost as heavy as his on weight. Sweat lining his eye brows in that cold evening.

Then he would pick his camera and carefully position himself to take a photograph. The Nepali would give a shy smile but he won’t click. He would just wait until the wrinkle in his forehead tells the story of weight and perseverance. A click later he would smile and beacon the Nepali to have a cigarette. The subject and the photographer would be lost in intimate talks. She won’t understand what Nepali said about the cigarette and she won’t understand whether he understands Nepalese. She would feel the loss of a beautiful moment..feel being forgotten

But no. he would come back…grab her hand to take her to patch of jungle left untouched by the burgeoning town. She would find it hard to keep pace. At the top of the hill amid wild rose plants he would point at a gorgeous red flower. He would tell her that he has gifted the flower to her even before it bloomed, carefully taking of a paper strip wrapped around the branch.. Written in an unmistakably bad handwriting .“For my love”.

She doesn’t know if she loves him. She knows when she does. She knows when she doesn’t. Like that day when he told her that for him, she is nothing but a subject of his photographs, much like a beautiful flower. She was hurt..even more so knowing the fact that he know precisely what she would feel when he says it. But she forgives. She yields to his weirdness.

He looks at her and she too is lost…just like him…what if he just walks away… never to come back…Many things which made his life till an year ago, are losing their meaning.… The shadows were slowly reclaiming the ground lost during the day…inch by inch