Name: Not known. Recognition: U.Z
The huge destructed wall was as intimidating as always. However, on it was moving a small figure. As if sliding on the ground. As if forcing his feet to carry his body. At the place where fissure appeared, it stopped. After a second of eternity, it heaved itself in air and jumped...
And after few millenniums, the air was ranted with the fearful resounding splash of water. Once again, the bird fluttered back to the safety of its nest.
****
He was in his element, his usual good-humored, good-natured element. He saw her across the street. Anticipation pounding his heart, he started to cross the street...
He opened his eyes again. He looked at the deep abyss in front of him. He looked at the stillness of the environment in that part of night. What was the time? Was it nearing
Her eyes... Her beautiful eyes, which seemed like pools of unreachable light. How can anybody be so enchanting? What magical power makes somebody so beautiful? He reached for her hand, and pressed it heartfully. She smiled. He swooned. His lips moved. The unnecessary interruption of sound spelt; I love you...
He looked back into the depth. It was a long winding gap between the two parts of the dam. The scars of that long forgotten tragedy still intact on its body. The jutting spikes of concrete sticking out at odd angles in odd ways. The perilous height juxtaposing him to the brink of insanity. He looked around. Everything was still passive. The cloud moved away in the sky. Moons first rays fell on his face. They, for some seconds lightened his deep eyes. Then he was a blur. His eyes closed, he leaped into air...
He saw it before it came to him; the great currents rushing towards him, like pack of rowdy hungry Alsatians hounding for food. His immediate thought was about her safety. Then he realized she must have been the first one to be swept away. The water was just about to reach him, its tongue wagging in obscene hunger, when he got back in action and ran for the cliff...
He was swimming in the air, somersaulting, nose-diving through the nauseating void. And after moments of unending adrenaline rush, he tore apart the rippling surface of the running current, going head first into the deep fathoms of water. Bitingly cold water of the river stung him like needles. He struggled himself back to the surface to inhale the life giving lung-fulls of dawn air...
He saw the destruction. The havoc. As if some monstrous wind had come and swept away with it everything remotely worth being swept away. Major areas of the region were submerged inside the water. The hotel was destroyed. The love of his life had been carried away by killer tides in front of him. Jobless, loveless if all he could have done, he should have himself taken the plunge. But he didn’t. If only he would have had...
He swam against the gushing currents of the river to reach the opposite shore. The dam stood like a tall, yet humbled bastion. The wide fissure running in between was allowing a decent stream of water to flow to that side. The strong gust was making it difficult for him to stay afloat. He would anytime be carried off, if he didn’t concentrate his might to reach the other end. He closed his eyes, as water over lapped his face again...
He could have torn himself off in parts for being alive. The sadness of life was too unbearable. The deep set anguish seemed to scald his body as a searing knife would. He just wanted to die, to get freedom from that isolation. He wanted to kill himself for being the only one to be unlucky enough to survive. He saw fear in every government rescue persons face. They clearly understood the depth of his loss. And what it could have driven him to. All he could do was to wait patiently. To go on. To do nothing but wait...
He stood still on the shore as he reached the bank of the river. Facing directly the damned dam, he looked at the radiance emerging from behind it. And then through the wide fissure appeared the first rays of the day’s sunlight. And they hit his eyes like miniscule pieces of shattered glass. He looked away from an object which vibrated with so much hope… It pained him, the happiness surging his heart at the sight of its beauty. He wanted to punish his body to follow his heart once again and come one step closer to be happy. Slopping on the slush around the bank, he reached for the solid ground. There, he fell down on the overgrowth and once again closed his eyes...
He saw her happy smile. The way she used to walk as if she is dancing. The way she used to work as if her touch would complete the job in a jiffy. The way she used to spread happiness at the construction site of the dam; as if leaving a trace behind in the air. The inexplicable beauty of her charm. The innocuous magnificence of her charisma. The way she used to come like a zephyr and caress the pains of his life only to leave behind a smile on his face...
The light breeze made him shudder at the cold of the atmosphere. He allowed the wetness to punish his body for its inexcusable misbehavior. Pure contempt washed over him, and his ego purred in delight. After some while, when sun was up in the sky, he got up and hopped into the boat stationed nearby. A big family was supposed to come to the hotel that day.
****
He was pruning the gardens when they came. He could not believe for once what he was seeing. Then, when he was absolutely sure of it, he could not believe the benevolence of nature. He was finally being provided with his reason for living! He was at last being reunited with his love…
And then he came from nowhere and held her by her waist. He could have murdered him right there, had he not seen her smiling face look at him and kiss him on his cheek. Then he understood. It wasn’t her. Nevertheless his urge to kill that man did not vanish.
When he was told to escort them to a room, he deliberately placed them to the nearest from his cottage. He wanted to keep a good eye on them. Specially on her. What did that guy called her as? Sheffy-something. Weird name. It didn’t suit Nisha’s face.
The guy left suddenly from the room as he was putting the bags down. The girl was busy talking. He seemed to have adopted a dreamy look all of a blue, and just left the room as if being pulled away by a magnet. The girl finished her talk which mainly was about some marriage preparation. She was giving vivid description of a Cliffside to the person on the other side of phone when she realised she was alone in the room with him. She asked him about where he had gone. He shrugged and pointed in the direction the idiot seemed to have taken. She went away behind him. He sat down for sometime. Then he also decided to follow.
When he reached the pond, he realised the guy was walking back to the room without her. He seemed possessed, the kind of look in his eyes. It reminded him of the zombies he had seen in that American film, what was it called? Mummy… Papa… he didn’t remember. After a few minutes, even she followed. He stood back amongst the bushes. The sadness on her face reminded him so much of Nisha…
****
The bubble was growing ferociously. The froth in the water exaggerated its size every second. The pond was rippling in its usual candour, the waterfall creating the wide circles of rebounding undulations. The bubble was growing minute by minute…
She was running ahead of him, turning back and again, flashing her coy smile. He did not run behind her. He was walking slowly and deliberately, with a knowing gait of a predator behind its victim. There was no rush in is manner, no hurry. Just pure anticipation. She turned in the direction of the pond and he followed her; unhurried and slow…
He saw the bank. The pebble strewn floor. The huge boulders providing unlimited privacy and security. The deep foliage shunting out the sun. Each grain of sand had her encapsulated, just as she had been. Each nano gram of matter had her memories. She still existed in every bit of the place. Unseen, unfelt… only remembered. Just as one remembers the touch of the wind on ones face moments after it passes away. She was there everywhere… in his memories…
She laid herself down on the floor, beside the water. Her stretched body had a magical quality of its own. Had Cleopatra laid down for Caesar in the same way? Had Hera waited upon Zeus in the similar manner? He didn’t knew. All he cared was that this moment is his…
Waves of current washed over him again, crippling him. He was defenceless against the mighty power of his helplessness. The pain of knowing that it was beyond his capacity, beyond his power to retrieve that time, even if he bartered it for his life. He could not do anything, but to watch the bubble grow… in a swift cat like motion, he jumped into the pond.
It started to rain suddenly. The water drops falling down from the high trees wet her body, wet her pink saree. She rose up and sat, her arms curled around her knees, locking her body in naughty defiance. He advanced towards her slowly. Relishing every moment of the killing impatience in his mind. Enjoying every rise in the crescendo of his heart beats. He bent down, and in one swift action of violence, he grabbed her head by her wet hair. And glued himself to her lips…
The bubble was growing incontrollably. With every new addition of air, it was reaching a point it would explode. He was struggling against the water, against the growing expanse of the lake as rainwater and the gushing waterfall were increasing the size of the lake. He was swimming, or trying to drown himself? He was rising or submerging himself? The memories were too strong to be easily borne. He had to do something to overcome it. Time was ripe to reach absolutes. The bubble was growing…
And then, just when it seemed it will not be able to grow any bigger, just when it seemed that it is impossible for it to take in anymore; the bubble burst.
His limp overturned body was carried by the strong ripples on the shore. He opened his eyes and the thick raindrops splattered on his face. He felt blank shock at that sudden release. The numbness of disbelief at such an abrupt end of torture. His mind was in a zilch. No thoughts whatsoever came to him. Just plain comfort of oblivion.
He jerked himself out of the water and moved towards the boulders. Standing over one of the biggest ones, he could easily see the drenched highway and the bridge built over the river. And on the bridge he saw a figure. A small feminine figure. Nisha’s figure.
Before the bubble could regenerate, it was prematurely murdered by dank realisation of her death. The figure was too far away to be distinguished. He was hallucinating.
****
He overheard them while he was passing by their rooms. He couldn’t help it. He hadn’t intended to, but the manager pleaded him to attend to a problem which had come up with the big family stationed at the other part of housing. He was just picking up his tools, when he overheard them.
“I really love you Arpit… Promise me you will never leave me alone…”
With an inexplicable fit of rage, he threw his tools down and moved on in a huff. The manager and his orders be damned. ‘HE’ was the uncrowned king of the place not some stupid city returned fellow who had been ‘put’ to charge by the owners. He had earned the ownership, not bought it. Some junior staffer would do the job. He just needed to gather himself at that time.
“Bloody heck!” he cursed the skies. “How come you start leaking like a mad hose in midst of winters???”
****
He was about to retire for the night, when a shadow appeared across his window. “What was it?” he wondered. It was leaping in the air. He got up and opened the door of his cottage. What he saw made him disbelieve himself. The guy with Nisha was moving again towards the pond. He did not seem occupied this time though. His walk was having intent, some sort of compulsion on his body.
He followed him into the darkness, lead only by the falling lights of his torch.
“This man is crazy!” was his only thought. He was walking, unescorted, uninitiated into open void, not knowing, not understanding where he was leading himself. He crossed the blank pasture adjoining the lake and came to the place where water cascaded down the cliff. He followed him, but somehow couldn’t stay with him when he reached the waterfall. Stationing himself at a distance, he waited for some unexpected move. When none came for sometime, he decided he’ll just go behind him.
That’s when he heard the creaking. As if somebody was moving one of those boulders away. His heart started beating faster. He stood and tried hearing what it was. But he couldn’t hear anything over the croaking cicadas, and tinkling waterfall. He was about to move a few steps when he heard the low wail.
It shocked him, the sound of it. Not because of the spookiness of it. But because he had heard it earlier. He couldn’t remember when. The voice made him think of some long lost connection. Something you do in innocence of childhood and conveniently forget. He thought he had heard it long time ago, as if the voice had personally whispered into his ears once.
He quickly moved in the guys direction, Arpit or whatever his name was. He moved aside the huge palm frond blocking his face, and was just about to reach for the cliff when he realised none was there. All that was there was a huge gaping fissure; an entry to a cave!
Full of forebodings, he decided to enter the place.
And just as he stepped inside, his consciousness got wiped off! From then on, he could not remember one second of the time passed.
****
Her face was inches away from his. She came down and rubbed her nose on his. Her hair fell on him, and the small water drops fell into his eyes. He smiled…
The sunlight hit his eyes as if something foreign entered in them. He was lying as if unconscious in the open field. He got up and saw the mountainside in front. A rainbow was emerging from beyond the clouds. He shook his head in disgust and sudden realisation hit him. He had missed it! It was already daybreak! And the next moment, like the burning glare of a laser in darkness, he remembered.
“The Hotel!”
He ran.
When he reached, the first thing that he saw was Nisha walking here and there in a helpless way. The look of her face and the frustration of her actions suggested that she was in search of something. He moved towards her.
“Left! Without even saying a word! Without even informing once! Is this the way? Where is he?” she asked him.
He felt non-plussed. Then he remembered the previous night. His hope were starting to soar when she resigned. He looked at himself. He noticed he was dirty. He went to his cottage and changed.
****
He was moving out of the reception lounge when he saw him. He felt as if the balloon of his sudden happiness was burst by a prickly needle. In absolute contempt, he pushed the door away. In the end, the blonde foreigner almost tripped. He turned around and looked at him. Their eyes met just for a second, but he felt as if a lot of understanding was exchanged in that duration. He couldn’t formulate its exact nature though.
He was about to go to the gardens once more, when the manager rang the bell. He went inside again, and he was signalled towards the bag. He picked it up and went to the only room left available. And then went to the kitchens to supervise the breakfast.
He closed his eyes in resignation. Her face appeared. He opened his eyes again. He saw her with that fellow.
Sudden burst of energy inside him told that he was ready to kill him that very second.
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