A Short Story – by Shalini.

Its strange you know… it always is..

The first time I heard his name…it didn’t ring any bells…

The first time I heard him…even that didn’t ring any…

The first time we laughed together…our voices rang…

When I say goodbye now…the silence…rings bells.

This silence sure does…

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As a rule, any existence alien to me, always aroused my curiosity! And when I am curious, I think I smile!

So it was another exciting day of my life! I was supposed to meet someone this morning who’s supposed to assist me. Not that I wasn’t supposedly capable of dealing with it all myself… but what did I supposedly have to lose anyway? Feign a smile if he’d supposedly turn out to be a boring bear and make faces inside myself…and say if I did supposedly wrench at a particular point, just say…ahh that’s just the supposed tummy ache doing its business!!!

But in life.. I have my rare days too…

It didn’t start with the pitter patter of a heavy downpour, wasn’t sunny either. I remember enjoying an early morning drive under the grey sheet… smiling…letting the radio blare in my tiny red lil’ vehicular love…@120 mph – did I forget to mention that?

But I had no clue that I was racing towards…him…that day!

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I set my eyes on him for the first time at the breakfast hour. I was looking all made up, dimpled and smiling…ready for the day’s work!

He…he hardly laid his eyes on me!

It felt natural though when he reached out to touch me, standing in that hotel lobby…the courtesy-sake-handshake I meant. ‘Hey, happy to meet you (lets be nice to each other – we got business to do together)’. I could see that none of us felt it, nor meant it. He was remote…and I was quicker to switch off!

Pleasantries over, we steered off in different directions.

An hour later I guess, after I was done with my regular hi-five-ing, elbowing and joking with my regular acquaintances from work…I found him again, this time within my radius. And this time, his eyes held mine.

It was finally time to get down to business! I walked towards him…

He was fair as the white porcelain cup in my hand, and at once, like the black tea in it…not usually my pick, not my taste! I walked up to him nevertheless…did I just taste something with a hint of lemon? I couldn't be sure…

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I spoke and I heard…regular business! He spoke and heard the regular business too! Nothing out of the blue. Nothing that’d warn me…

A while later, our hands started ticking. An invisible hand of clock pushed us to work! I was a friendly loud presence. He, a subtle sleek silence. And in those moments that I spared to catch one of my own breath, I observed his marvelous style of going with the flow…sly, I thought! Unknowingly, I made a face inside me, it was smiling!

I found that the pair of eyes that were mine... kept observing his. The darted look…remote, lost…but darting. Every time, the few polite seconds that my gaze rested on him…this was all there was to comprehend. The man remained at just that. Speaking up furtively only when I pulled him up! Alert, yet absent. Present, yet lost!

No wonder he lost me, soon.

Actually pretty soon…to some rest a huge cushiony chair that the lounge offered and happily so, to making a new acquaintance…a particularly tall, dark and handsome one at that! If at all he had watched me, he must caught me smiling and dimpled!

But whether he did or not…I would never know, for I was absorbed, in reality, smiling into another pair of eyes, a well groomed sturdy figure, with a booming baritone voice, definitely my style, my pick, sitting right opposite me, with poise, and I, in turn, had held a pose…chin up…

But I wonder now. What had led to what? Was it a known and exciting gravity that had simply gravitated me towards it …or was it that I had consciously, in a subconscious way, decided to test the unknown black tea in a white porcelain cup? Brewing it some more, in time, and secretly so, to test, if it’d indeed taste of some lemon?

I didn’t have to deal with the answers! Coz back then, in the reality of that moment, time had drifted me off, nearly so, from this distant Arab in the desert, slow as a camel…to a far more exciting, Dravidian, lush and rocky landscapes by the ocean. I could almost smell the homeland, its spices and hear those sea waves crashing…until they drenched me…and left me cool, smiling and dimpled…

In that particular reverie, I knew I had always dreamt to be a sailor…and so it was for me, to catch hold of that rope, hang and make a dive, climb and board…hold tight that fantasy…and set the rough sails sail…

Instead, for some odd reason...I stepped back into the hotel lobby! 

The heart never seems to sleep, for it dreams every reality.

The heart never seems to beep, a secret that it shouldn’t hear.

The heart never seems to fail, to observe what these eyes watch,

Or pinch that dimple… outside…and the one on the inside too…

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A damsel suddenly appeared out of the tent in that camp near the little Oasis they’d found. The woman’s eyes quickly darted to the Arab's face and followed his gaze. Even though the sun was beating down on her, she cared not to frown. She cared not to shield her face, her thoughts. She just counted the number of breaths, his gaze rested on that pretty damsel, as his eyes in natural minute, noticed her. She observed the length of his stare…almost baiting it that it’d stop to stare, but he pulled down his, in the very natural movement. The woman’s eyes held the Arab's face a moment longer, to ensure, his didn’t dart back to the damsel. She was satisfied with what she saw.

And my curiosity was aroused yet again. Watching that man and the woman…near the Oasis. Was it even a Oasis?

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Lunch on the 3^rd floor! My phone beeped. A tall man of a sweet boss hovered on us while we ate. Only the boss ate to his fill! The he-man and me… were still too young to not worry enough!

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The Afternoon

As luck would have it, we were even made to run in the rain, around trees as well, and sweet talk some street children…all a part of our work! (The last bit, I fared at better!) Sounds sweet? Madness baba…esply when you have to get business out of that!

But in the midst of crossing that busy roundabout outside that hotel, trying not get crushed under some speeding bus...suddenly, and for the first time...we shared a special something…the worry of chasing a deadline! 

And in that helpless moment, thrown together to make work happen, with no boss to smile at us…just our feet to carry us through...we took what we had and bonded at that! Trusting our speed and each other! There was no time for otherwise!

The wind kept carrying the Arab’s voice to her. And his silence. Both, part of him. He materialized only when the woman rested her eyes on him, as if waking up to the reality only then. He disappeared otherwise.

And yet, his voice floated back every time mine did to him, in the midst of that madness! We somehow managed to hear each other on top of the honking cars and buses and the pitter patter of the rain and the shouts of the entourage that we had. He made a good team actually! I was comfortable…a feeling that I prized! Maybe that was the minute, I knew, a silence was to ensue. 

Winds do carry voices. Breaths carry thoughts. Silences...feelings! At times alien, at times known. Both women knew that these were just signs and knew better to not make omens out of them. 

We hurried back to the hotel, without finishing our plan outdoors. The rains were to blame! Bad that was! It washed away some of my make-up as well …but so it did, some unknown element…I wasn’t an alien any longer!

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The stars shone… but the womEn knew, that stars always shone on the desert, for the desert skies were never clouded! 

My feet ached as we sat on the red slab on the hotel porch, waiting for the cab. When I started growing impatient in thought, he started finishing my sentences for me. I started pressing my feet with my hands, wishing the tiredness away. Inside I was alert…but outside I was yawning, as if I was a Queen to be waited upon, no matter what I did!

And… the womEn were waited upon. The Arab stood beside, throughout.

Standing beside me...he told me little stories to make me laugh. And I was laughing by now.

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Its strange you know… it always is..

The first time I heard his name…it didn’t ring any bells…

The first time the woman heard him…even that didn’t ring any…

The first time we laughed together…our voices rang…

When I say goodbye now…the silence…rings bells.

This silence sure does…

And both the women, now smile!

One knows everything about her Arab! The other knows nothing about the he-man! 

The women only know each other... and this short story by Shalini.