The photographs were scattered across the floor, thrown about by the wind like fallen leaves. She was looking at him, but he was evading her eyes, afraid of what he might see in them. Quietly, he peeled off the bandage tying her hand to his, making as if to focus entirely on the task at hand, trying to make the awkward moment disappear. But he couldn't do either. His focus was impaired by the gaze he almost physically felt, directed at him. And the moment was everywhere around him, billowing in the wind. She had walked in on him working on his scrapbook, and, snatching it away without knowing what it was, had seen all her pictures fall out and scatter. Having finally unbound their hands, he mustered up courage with an immense effort, and looked up at her. He was spellbound by what he saw in her eyes. It was everything he had thought there would be. Astonishment, incomprehension, anger...but there was so much more. Fear, vulnerability, denial, hope...it was almost dizzying. He blinked, and the spell broke. She looked down at the ground, at the photographs, looked up at him again for an instant, but before his gaze could meet hers again, turned around.
There's something about seeing people walk away. A sense of abandonment. Even if, somewhere in the depth of your soul, you know they're not really going anywhere. He watched her take slow, measured steps towards the door. He couldn't see her face, but to know how she felt, he didn't need to. She might suppose turning her back to him would prevent his discovering the anguish written across her face, but he knew her better than she'd ever know. He saw it in every step she took, heard it in every sigh that escaped her lips despite all her desperate effort at retaining control.
Control. It defines Sharon Raiprakash, she said to herself. Control, as if it were a chant with mysterious magic to drive away all uncertainty. But today, more than ever, she knew it was just a word, and no more. Control. Control over myself. Over whatever this is. I must keep it in. And then drive it out. Every little ounce of it. But every step she took made her want to turn around. Turn around to what? Why did it matter this much? Why did it matter at all?
It was as though the door was a hundred miles away. But unlike the weary traveler who despairs at the sight of greater distance to his destination, she was relieved by it. And she didn't understand. She didn't want to reach the door. There was no destination. The door would lead to an empty field. Would that be any different from the rest of her life? Growing up from a dysfunctional childhood, from a home scattered with broken relationships, she had spent years trying to convince herself that she wasn't broken inside. But she had done a better job convincing the world around her, than herself. Until he came along, and saw right through her. She could feel it at this very moment too. He was looking at her, and she knew her measured gait and turned back did nothing to fool him.
If she would just give herself a chance, Swayam thought. She's vulnerable, and she knows it. It's destroying her. If only she understood that it didn't matter. That it was okay to let someone in. To let in the love she deserves to receive and feel. If she would just turn around...but she had reached the door, and after a moment's pause, went out, leaving an empty doorway looking out into the darkness.
As Sharon stepped out into the cold, the night seemed to deepen as she struggled with herself. This was all wrong. Life, to her, felt like a precarious walk across a tight-rope. The fear of falling seemed to have paralysed and hardened her for years, stifling all her deepest desires and hopes. And now, below her, above her and all around her, all she saw was darkness...
She looked up at the starless sky, and it began to swirl, as though alive. The oppressive silence gave way to a deafening ringing...she snapped open her eyes and found herself staring straight at the ceiling of her bedroom, in broad daylight. It had been a dream. And yet it had been so real. Sitting up with a jerk, she scratched her arm cautiously. No, it had been a dream and she was awake now. But the surging relief that usually follows the revelation of something deeply disturbing being a dream, entirely eluded her. If anything, she felt a deeper disturbance. The uneasiness faded away slowly, as she made her way through the day as usual. Classes, rehearsals, friends...ordinary life brushed away the disturbance until she seemed to have no memory left of it. There was only one constant nudge: there was no sight of Swayam at college all day. She couldn't help noticing, her eyes searched for him almost against her will. Feeling oddly empty, she declined Rey's invitation for coffee after class and turned to the only thing that could possibly fill the void, or at least push it away from her notice. Having the keys to the rehearsal hall, she stayed back to dance. And dance she did, losing track of time until a chance look at her watch told her that it was almost half-past eight. It was also at this precise moment that she remembered the presentation she had to make for Prof. Mallik the next day. Forgetting all else in her agitation, she snatched up her cellphone and dialed Swayam. To her surprise, she heard his ringtone resounding in the hall outside. She stepped out, and sure enough, there he was. Hunched over a big red notebook he seemed too engrossed to notice his cellphone blaring right beside him. "Swayam'?" she called out, but received no reply. "Swayam...SWAYAM!" "Huh?!" he jerked up his head in confusion, and an odd expression of disbelief came over his face. "Kal presentation deni hai, tumhe yaad hai? Ya bhool gaye the? Tum vaise bhi kabhi kuch...ab aise ghoor kya rahe ho? Kal subah tak khatam karni hai to abhi shuru karni padegi. Swayam...?" He was still staring at her in incredulity, as though expecting her to disappear. Agitated as she was, she snatched out of his hands what he had been doing to make him focus on what needed to be done now. But as she snatched the book, the pages fell open, and out fell a bunch of photographs. And in that one instant, it all came flooding back to her. It was the same red book, these were her pictures...she couldn't believe it. Her hand was bleeding, but she couldn't feel even the slightest twinge of pain. Stunned, she looked slowly up at Swayam, and something even more unexpected greeted her. Looking at his face felt like looking into a mirror. She saw on it everything she felt raging inside her. But most unbelievably, it echoed the one feeling paramount in her at that moment: recognition.
Swayam couldn't understand or believe what was happening. He had spent the whole day at home, mulling over the dream he'd had last night. He had thought and thought until the walls of his room had seemed to be closing in on him, and he had picked up his bag and made his way to the only other familiar place in the city, St. Louis. Seeing as it was long past sunset, he had calmed himself down with the firm belief that he would never find Sharon here, of all places, at this time of the night. And since the fact that he had left off his scrapbook halfway the previous day was making him uneasy, he had decided to finish it right there, to prove to himself that he could finish putting in the pictures without Sharon ever knowing a thing, and that the dream, therefore, was a dream and no more. When his name had rung out in the hall he had felt a jolt in his stomach, as though he had and had not been expecting it, all at once. When she snatched his book, dropped it, and cut her hand on the scissors, he was almost convinced he had fallen asleep again, to be haunted by the same dream. As though in a daze, he set about bandaging her hand, bandaged his own hand to hers by mistake and then began to unbind it. But then he looked up, and he saw mirrored in her eyes what was running through his heart and mind, and saw that she knew too, like he did. He blinked, she looked away, turned around and began to walk towards the door. Swayam felt his heart sink, leaden. It was over. Everything ended, he thought, as each step took her farther away from him until she finally reached the door. Not wanting to see the darkness framed in the empty doorway again, he turned towards the scattered photographs, knelt down with an effort and began, slowly and sadly, to pick them up. His hands absently groped the floor for the pictures for a few minutes, and then suddenly, he felt his fingers touch something else. He looked round, and to his amazement, found Sharon kneeling beside him, picking up the pictures and bunching them together. She continued to gather the little photographs in complete silence, as he attempted to gather his wits, picked up the red scrapbook, and placed them carefully inside it. She stood up, and he stood up with her, trying to read her face, not understanding, and not daring to believe. They looked into each other's eyes at the exact same moment, and Swayam saw in Sharon's eyes what he had never seen there before. It filled him with something he could not define, and he pushed his feet down harder into the ground, half afraid of floating right off it in his elation. She had not said she loved him, he knew she wasn't going to say it, and that she didn't know whether she wanted to, just yet. But he knew they were embarking on their way to a beginning he had hoped for ever since his eyes had alighted on her for the first time.
And Sharon, she felt too many things to be able to explain even to herself what she wanted to do now. But she knew something had changed, in that one moment of hesitation at the door that had made her turn around and head back into the room instead of walking out into the night. Life still felt like a precarious walk across a tight-rope. But she felt no fear of falling any more, because now, below her, above her, and all around her, darkness was giving way to a subtle glow. All was not well yet, and nothing had ended. But something had begun.
Would love to know what you guys think. Cheers! π