For today was no ordinary day. Today he was so content with his own self that he desired no further contentment and from no other source. Today his mind, heart and soul was so high with the hopes of a promising future that he did not have any feeling for the dull present.Today he was going back,after a long and tedious wait of two years.
Coming soon, sweetheart, he said to Priya silently, coming soon
***
The war with Pakistan had started.
"So, you're going tomorrow", Priya asked, though she knew the painful answer very well, praying quietly that he may be safe and alive at the end of the war.
He nodded his head and looked into her eyes, took her hands in his and said, "Yes". His eyes, deep, brown ,soulful and disturbed, penetrated her's so fully that she felt like crying. She could see he felt like that too. She looked down to suppress her tears, and then faced him, forcing a smile upon her lips.
"Don't cry about it, you fool!", she said teasingly, battling her eyelids hard to prevent the tears from draining on to her face.
He pressed her hands tightly and fondled them, suddenly feeling scared, and not knowing the reason.
"I'll miss you", he said, leaning forward to her and holding her hands even tighter, "I'll miss you too much, sweetheart!".
They hugged, feeling each others tears break through their eyes,clutching each other in fear and sorrow.
***
He looked about himself tensely. He grabbed a water bottle and drank in large gulps until his breath was restored. He consoled himself that there was no need to worry and turned to look out of the window. Like a ghost that terrible image sprang before his eyes. In panic he turned his head, shook it, clutched his hair and closed his eyes, but the image refused to abandon his scared mind.
He
was not superstitious at all, he never really believed in intuitions
and he could not make out why this was happening. Priya was crying.
Crying so softly, so piteously, so much that the image seemed real.Her
sobs were impossibly sad, so that he himself felt like crying. Her
tears seemed to carry a message which he could not decipher.
He
knew this was not a fragment of the past. He had never seen Priya
crying, she was too proud to cry in front of a man. Her tears were
always private, though she shared her sorrows. This was what scared
him.
"Why am I seeing her like that? I can't make it out.What is happening?" he thought over and over again, seeing in fury and fear the ghastly picture, losing his patience, losing his courage.
He closed his eyes again, putting his head in his hands, trying to suppress the headache that was beginning to form. But all in vain. Each nerve of his body was stretched and tight. Something was wrong with Priya, and he realized in sinking anger that there was nothing he could do about it.
The image did not elude him for even a second throughout the journey. She was constantly before his eyes, sometimes wailing, sometimes sobbing, but always upset, always calling him, always deathly, frightening.
The whole of the remaining journey he spent in drinking, so furiously and so much that the fear, the unreality of his images strengthened even more. Now he was drunk, very drunk, tired and weary. His head was as burdensome as though it was too full of painful things, his heart was beating slower now but painfully still, and he could still see that strange illusion.
There was no doubt in his mind. No first moments of confusion. No initial numbness. He knew it immediately and he felt dead immediately.
His mother, dabbing her eyes with her dupatta, came running to him. "They dropped a bomb at the market. She-Priya-she....beta, please don't cr-" and burst into tears.
Raj went straight to his room and cried hard. He did not think or do anything other than pouring the pain of his heart through his eyes. He was scared no longer, not shocked either, but only sad, so intensely sad, so hurt, so lonely, that all he could do now was cry . All of his body was paining badly, his eyes burnt with crying so long and his ears rang with the memory her voice. He did not eat or sleep or move the entire day. The world had collapsed, the reason for his life and happiness had vanished.
It was midnight, and he was still crying, lost, crestfallen, hazed, trying to think up some way to get her back, and failing.
Suddenly,he looked up.
He had seen a vision again. But this time she was not crying. She was happy, her face was glowing with her smiles. She seemed to be calling him. He felt better at once. It was so relieving to see her safe, alive, comfortable. The image stayed with him through the night, and he spent all of it talking to the image, telling her again and again how much he loved her, how he adored her mischievous eyes, how each quality of her's, each habit was loved by him, how he could do anything in the world to be with her.
Those were the most pleasurable moments of his life. He relived all those moments of love they had shared, the conversations they had enjoyed.
And also, that night he arrived at the decision. He had to do it and he was surprised at it, because he had always prided himself on courage. But now he did not think it cowardly. In fact, he did not give his decision a second thought, being what he was.
"I have to go to my real home. And, I can live only where you are, sweetheart!"
"Hey" she smiled,her eyes filling with tears that she let fall on her face for the first time, "that was a pretty bad homecoming you had down there"
Raj looked at her, his deep brown eyes twinkling and his face finally back to its usual naughty self.
"You bet" he said affectionately, and hugging her again, he whispered in her ear, "and, you know what, this one is so much the better"
They hugged each other tighter still and wept happily.
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