I am tired.
Tired of feeling so miserable.
Tired of waiting for love.
Tired of thirsting after affection.
A thought gnaws at the back of my mind.I might never have someone in my life.
I might never again know what it feels like to be wanted,what it means to mean the whole world to someone,to see someone go to sleep with my name in her heart and wake up with my name on her lips.
It's a sickening feeling.It is like a disease which I can feel crawling into my brain cells,pouring its cancer and gangrene into them.My mind feels polluted,corrupted,raped.And most of all,I feel a heavy pain settling in my head.Before I realize it,it's there.Like a dull throb.And the pain doesn't want to remain confined there.It spreads downwards through my body,moving away from its focal point,down my face,into my throat,making me want to vomit.It makes my chest burn,my heart want to cry out.
Every bad memory I have accrued in the recent past comes alive in my head.They make my neurons want to shrivel up and just die.They become like an ugly nauseating black mass filling my chest and my throat,tearing me up from the inside.
I am chasing shadows,wishing mirages turn into real oases.Wishing she would still run into my arms one day,and I would clutch her so tightly,with so much feeling,that the heat of my passion would fuse us into one inseparable entity.I would never let her go away from me again.I would never let her away from my sight again.
Sight.Funny I should mention it.
She was blessed with the most beautiful smile;her cherubic and child-like innocence spoke to me through her smile.The brilliant sparkling of her teeth dazzled me,as if I was lost in a diamond mine.
The soft kindness of her face and soothing voice warmed my heart and melted my soul.
Her presence was magical.Like the alchemist's stone,it made my dull life glitter and come alive in a golden splendor.
She was blessed with so many things.Except sight.
An accident took away her eyes at a very early age.
Images flash before my eyes.My parents conveying their disapproval of a blind girl.Them drilling into me the prospect of a fulfilling marital life I would be denying myself if I stuck with her.My growing uncomfortable in her presence,torn between my feelings for her and my own selfish interests.My spending sleepless nights twisting and turning in guilt and anxiety.The sweetness with which she accepted the whole situation.
"You don't have to worry about me,R," she had said smiling,killing me softly with her gentleness."I understand everything.I am just glad we became friends and I had the opportunity to know someone as wonderful as you.I still want to remain friends with you.That is,if you are ok with it."
I could feel myself melting away.How could someone adore someone else so much?I couldn't miss the tiny flicker of pain in those otherwise blank eyes of hers.That pain seemed to pour out as invisible tears which ran down her cheeks and disappeared without a trace into her smile.
She was like the jigsaw puzzle which could never be completed because the piece of her vision was missing.The other pieces,I searched and searched in vain.In other women.
Women came and went.In each of them,I searched for her.And every time,I retreated disappointed and heart-broken.
Her gentle love towards me never lessened.She still made me feel special.Made me feel no one could take my place.Three years sped away.In these three years,I lived with the solace that I could always return to the sanctuary of her heart.No one could take her away.
I was wrong.I should have known-at some point of time, someone would come along who would not be blind to the treasures she had to offer.Someone who could not remain oblivious to the intoxicating fragrance of her essence.She was the bright red rose in the middle of the garden whose silky smooth petals would one day captivate that someone's heart.I should have known.
"How come you never told me anything about him,Pri?" I asked her incredulously.
"I didn't know how you would react,R," she said ,her soft face pleading me to remain calm."And even I wasn't so sure about him.But now I am.And you are the first person I am telling this.Please...pleasee...don't remain mad at me.Pleasse???"
Mad at her?I was mad at myself.How could I not have seen this coming?
"I just hope you two will be happy with each other,Pri," I said,trying to force a smile.
"Oh we will,R.We sooo will," she said,hugging me."Thank you so much."
At that moment,I felt hollow.As if something precious has been dug out and taken away from somewhere deep within me.
Maybe I should have told her then what I felt.Who knows she might have still become mine again?But now I am just doomed to forever ask myself those dreaded two words......
What if?
She had never been so happy.It seemed Sanjay had been born to make her happy,born to make up for the pain she had suffered so long.Pain which she had suffered because of me.
Pain which was now burning up my entire existence.
It was becoming too much for me.Every night I writhed in agony on my bed.Every day I woke up to die again.
Her memories,every small happiness I shared with her,every burden on my heart she lessened for me-all these started to permeate every single blood vessel in my body,spreading the poison, spilling venom into the very things which I had once needed to sustain myself.
My life had turned against me.Without her,there was nothing to strive for,nothing to live for,nothing to love for.I was trying in vain to justify a purposeless existence.
This had to end.And it ends tonight.I looked at the bottle of sleeping pills which I had just now emptied into myself and then took one long last look at a photo of she and me together.In happier times.When the photo had been clicked,I had promised her,"Pri,I would never let you out of my sight."
Time to fulfill that promise.
*******
"He..what?????"Pri's eyes welled up with tears as R's father broke the news to her over the phone.
After another 5 mins,she hung up the phone.She couldn't go on.She was crying inconsolably.
"Pri,what's wrong?Whose phone was that?" Sanjay asked visibly concerned.
"It was R's father," she managed to say between sobs."R is no more.And he donated his eyes to me."
The End
