An incomplete attempt

She looked at the clock. The hour hand hadnt moved.Why did'nt it? She had patiently waited for a year, but this last one hour was taking forever. She looked at the clock again. Did it move ? or were her eyes just playing tricks on her? She looked around her. There was almost no one else in the station, just the porters lying around. She got up, went and got herself a coffee. It did nothing to soothe her nerves. She walked up and down, sat on the bench, the beautiful sunrise went un-noticed. She paced up and down the platform more than a hundred times and yet that darned clock hand wouldnt move.
"I will be back on the 17th". There was no hi-hello, she picked up the phone at the first ring and she heard the hoop of joy and "I will be back on the 17th". It was the 17th today, all of 5.30 am. Then she heard the whistle of the train as it chugged into the station. Her eyes looked searchingly at every door, into every window, where was he?
He found her before she did him. She was knotting and unknotting the edge of her dupatta. She always did that when she got nervous around him and it always made him smile. Everytime he had heard her voice over the phone, he had imagined her doing that or throwing her long plait over her shoulder like she would when playfully teasing him. Sigh, he had missed her so much the last few months. As he looked at her now he felt it more than he had in all his moments of loneliness, than all those moments when he spent hours looking at her photo and cursing himself for having gone away from her.
She saw him, he was half-hanging out from the train. He was here. The guy with the cutest smile she had ever seen, the guy she had her first crush on, her best friend, the love of her life, her husband was here. He had his broadest smile on, head half tilted, that unruly mop of hair falling over his forehead. She broke into a smile and then into laughter, the whole year melted into nothingness. The train screeched to a halt.He got off the train and walked towards her. Time stilled around them. She was laughing, her happy laugh- oh how he had missed the sight of that.

She stretched out her hand and touched his face. She let her palm linger over his cheek, she felt the slight stubble.As her fingers curled backwards, he held her hands to his face.Her soft fingers against his skin felt like pure magic. He sensed her moving her fingers away maybe because of the place they were in, but he dint really care. He pressed her fingers against his face and close his eyes, letting the sensation sink into him. He opened his eyes and saw the expression on her face had changed. She was trying her best not to break down.
The tears were welling up within her. She dint want to make a scene. It hurt to be so close and have to be away.

0 comments:

Post a Comment