Life goes on...

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon. And she made love for two, in her empty apartment.
He wasn’t around. A decade of nights had passed, since she last saw him.
She thought of him. And thought some more of the wretched night.

What emptiness! What death of a life!

That night, they spoke.
She intently heard to him speak about the woman he loved.
And she spoke of her engagement to another man.

He had called his fiancée "a comfortable compromise". She had never met her.
He didn’t know her fiancé. Honestly, neither did she.

She hated herself for being there. But she smiled - a smile too polite to be believed and to be taken as genuine.
She was about to attend his court marriage after 3 months.
She wanted to go there as a witness. To the courtroom drama.

They had loomed over each other’s lives for long 15 years.
Even when he had other girl friends, even when she was in other relationships.
They both had pervaded in each-other’s lives.
They knew they can never truly be with each other.

He had compromised on his love and needs.
He didn’t have any wishes or wants any more.
She settled with the thought of separation.
He would move back to their rickety little home town with his wife.
She would fly away to Canada after marriage.
They had different courses of life staring right ahead of them.

He asked why could they never be with each other?
She smiled and said nothing.
Every single moment of love which she felt with in her, was always out of his reach.
She never cried. She never believed him.
He wanted to lie in her arms all days. And he loved her.
They fell in love with each other at different times in their lives.
The times never coincided.
It was the futility of emotions, which wouldn’t ever see the light.
They both had questions in their minds.
For which they would never seek answers to.
It always ended in the same way. The Parting.
They looked at each other, ordered for their drinks and laughed.

It was probably to be the last night that she could be with him- alone.
With a different life right outside their doors, they laughed at the years gone by.
And they laughed at the years which would come, where they would have to sit with each-other with their respective spouses.
And how she and his wife would be gossiping in the kitchen.
And how he and her husband will talk about the stock market and politics in the drawing room.
And how they can never truly be with each other any more when that time comes.
It would then be a glance from the hallway and a casual smile, or may be a handshake or two; with all past passions buried in a smoke of smile and courtesies.
They laughed like it was a parallel reality, away from them.
Like it would never happen
They laughed about the kisses they could have had. And the love they could have made.
So they made up for the lost days and years.

They made love for the first time.

That night was like a mythical creature. It was a legend and a lie.
A story of the untold, which could arouse fear and ecstasy. The Nameless Night.
And it should have lived longer than it did.
The past and the future entangled into that one dark night.

The love they could have had.
The love they never would have.

They lay with each other the whole night.
She couldn’t let him go. And he held tight.

She couldn’t stand him after the night was over.
His thoughts flooded her mind all the time and she could run away.
He packed and quietly took a bath. She wore her clothes.

There was no guilt. There was no pain of parting.
Somehow, they had parted ways long before, but the door was never closed.
They had finally closed doors on the life they could have had.

They never said good byes and kissed their ways away.

She would go back to her life.
Try and fall in love with her fiancé.
He would go back in his flight with his fiancée.

To world, both were still good old friends.
Lies concealed the creaky bed.
Work and perfumes erased the smell of the skins.
Time erased the mark from her body.
But her mind stayed stained.

She thought more of the wretched night in her empty flat, as days went by.
She didn’t know how. That night was over.
And life still went on.