“Though now I realize we can never be together. I still want you to remember that I loved you with all of my heart. And always wished to hear the same from you…”

That last paragraph, was the last conversation we had. It uncovered a book unread after the dust was blown off from it. I was holding her letter, without having any idea, what to do next. It was like I was handed the universe unknown to explore, but my size was shrinking by each moment, while the universe was expanding by tenths.

“Did you see her again?”
“No.”
“Any where about?”
“No.”
“How do you feel about it?”, He asked.

My Psychiatrist is a graduate from the Harvard. And he’s the closest thing that I have for a friend, as far as the generation-X definition of friend goes. It’s just that I pay him in dollars rather than scratching his back. But like all friends that I had, he just waits for me to come quickly at a point. And here I don’t want to miss, even the tiniest of detail.

“I have learned my lesson. Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
“Look Doc, I know I cannot repeat it, I can’t reverse the clock, I can’t go and check if I would succeed after all this. It’s gone to never return again. All I can do is replay the memory again and again, just to find myself at place, in those corners, under those shades, with that ambiance… where I missed everything, like I wasn’t there.” – I had no way to tell him, what I sought.

“And what good would that do?”

That eve after giving him a visit, I went to a place I and her used to hang around. The rocks are same, the bench, the garden, the trees everything is same. This park used to be the place where we use to discuss the books we read. Love stories, fantasies, science fiction, philosophy and what not. Everything was there, but unconnected, like they had a feud on something. And they’re giving me this look, like I’m some stranger that has walked in amid their thing.

I have a book, its jacket, the pages, and words on them, but I lost my bookmark somewhere. I have no idea what chapter did we left on, what was the last letter that we read… I have no idea from where to move ahead.

She once narrated to me a story of a sailor that was amidst a journey and due to a sea storm, his ship got sunk, and he barely made it to the island near by, he was stranded. I asked her, if he had a compass on him or something like a flare gun, anything to go find his way home… she said, “It doesn’t matter, the ship was everything to him.”

The leaves are falling from trees, like it is a ground that loves them more.  Though it’s too late and I should be going, but I feel like home.

– Written as a response to an engrossing piece written by Mam Aima Jamal Yousuf, “Unrequited Love“.

Art/ Picture References:
1. Undelivered Envelope For Letter – coronel.org.uk
2. Treecat Memorial – StarLink-IRC