She was the bird

She was the bird
And the cage
A dichotomy
Of identities
And directions
She pulled
And pushed
Herself into
Webs, spun
Of dreams
And beliefs
She called
Her own
And yet
They weren't.

Talking

They sit
And talk
But don't
For all
I hear
And see
And feel
Is a tattoo
Of me
Me
And me
Where's the
Us
And where's the
You
Why do I
Just hear
Two people
Talking
With each
Other
But not
To?

Infinities

I stare at the skyline
Spread ahead, then disappearing
Lights blinking in and out
Writing stories in the sky
And telling tales I can’t hear
And I think of the ripples of water
In the inky sea, too dark for me
To see anything but wavering
Reflections in; distorted stories
And trembling tales I’ll never know
And all I can think of is the fact
That I’m thankful for the skyline
And the lights
And the stories
And all I don’t know
Because if it was only the sea
Stretching without a break
In front of me, I’d think of things
Like forevers and promises and
You. I’d think of things I can’t have
And I’d think of words that mean
Everything, and nothing
And I’d be a wreck because all I
Know is that infinities scare me.

Something Odd About Odd Numbers (Part-4)

Click here to read Part 1
 Click here to read Part 2

 Click here to read Part 3

I was working on a little PowerPoint presentation that was due at office the very day, when I heard a splat in the kitchen.

Natasha had dropped an egg, and on seeing me, she ran straight to the bedroom.

When she came back fifteen minutes later, I was done with boiling an egg and making coffee for myself.

‘Go and get another egg. I’ll make you breakfast’

‘It’s okay, honey. I’m okay with just one egg’

‘No. You always have two eggs. Go rush. I can’t go out.’

‘I’ll have something on my way. I’m late for a meeting anyway’

‘GO GET ME ANOTHER EGG!’ Her demands knew no end.

‘Stop screaming at me, Natasha.’

‘Stop being intolerable, then.’

‘I’m not being intolerable. You’re the one being intolerable. ’

She started crying again, and I as I rushed in to comfort her, which had by then become almost a reflex to me, she pushed me aside.

Haplessly, I fell down and hit my elbow on the breakfast table. 

She didn’t even grace me a look as I curled up into myself in pain.

I didn’t know what stung more- my elbow, or her complete nonchalance.

I knew I couldn’t retaliate. She resonated between strength and weakness, and I couldn’t tell one from the other.

My phone had fallen out of my hand during the fall.

The lock screen read 8:05

‘Shit. I’m late. I have to go, Natasha. I’m sorry. I’ll get an egg when I come home’

I came back from work at five past eight but I had to wait outside because Natasha had locked the door. My knocking was futile, and so were my cries of apology. Finally, I used my spare key to open the door. I always kept a key, just in case.

The house was a mess. The curtains were pulled down, and my bookshelves were no longer shelves.

I had come home to a disaster before, but this unprecedented.

 The door was locked from the inside, so there couldn’t have been a break in. My next natural instinct was to search for Natasha to ensure her well-being.  A few frantic minutes later, I found her in the bathroom tub, covered to her neck in water, murky with her own blood.

‘And then?’ The officer stared at my face?

I took her out of the water, I mean, the blood, and I rushed her to this hospital. She was breathing, by the intensity was decreasing with every breath she took. I had covered her wrists in large swabs of cotton, and that had significantly reduced the bleeding, but she had lost a lot of blood already.

Upon reaching, the doctor had informed me that he would need blood. Since I wasn’t a match, we had to put her on a list.

 ‘What about her family? Our yours?’

  ‘Her parents are dead. My parents are diabetic.’

‘Well, in that case, we’d need to wait for her to be approved by the committee, but till then, we have to carry out some procedures that I need your consent for.’

‘I don’t care. Just get her back to me. Please’

I signed, hapless. Helpless.

I couldn’t help but cry outside the ICU, checking every few seconds for that red emergency bulb to go off. I was ridden with penitence, but I did not want to feel morose because I blamed myself. I was afraid that I’d already lost her, and I had bid her farewell, but more so, I was afraid of being alone. 

She was a tattered blanket, but she was my tattered blanket, and I needed her.

As I stood there, I made a mental picture of the Intensive Care. I knew that I’d have to remember this place for a long time. It was one of those moments when a child has to part with his broken toy, only that he doesn’t want to believe it’s broken.

The next thirteen minutes seemed like an eternity, and I hadn’t had plenty of those.

The doctor came out, and broke the news to me. It wasn’t the one I had hoped for, but it was the one I had predicted.

‘I’m sorry, Mr. Chawla, but there was just too much blood loss. The wounds are fresh, not even an hour old. The problem is that she slit both her wrists. 

Most patients just slit one. That drained her blood at twice the pace. I’m sorry, really. We tried our best.’

‘Yes’

‘Was she depressed or on any medicines? We need to know before we conduct the post-mortem. 

Also, we need to inform the police.’

‘She just liked even numbers’ I told him.

He had a confounded look on his face.

‘I don’t know what you mean, but I have a surgery and I need to go prep for it. The nurse will prepare the body and assist you further. I’m sorry for your loss. I assure you we tried our best.’

And just like that, he was gone.

And with that, came a realization. I had been cooperative all this while, thinking that she needed my support, while it had been me who needed her all this while.

 A few seconds later, I was in the deserted corridor of the deserted hospital alone. Sadly, I had to get used to this kind of ‘independence’.

The nurse came in ten minutes later and explained the entire scheme of things to me, but it was all a hazy blur. I just kept nodding until she said something that left my spine chilled.

‘What did you just say?’ I said, as I felt the blood drain away from my face, and as numbness took over.

‘Time of death, sir – 8:48 PM’.

Something odd about odd numbers (Part-3)

Click here to read Part 1

Click here to read Part 2

Click here to read Part 4

 At 3:30, she used to pace around the room in small-entangled circles – the shape of the number ‘8’

She used to count every single circle, until she reached thirty-eight, and then come back to sleep. I never bothered asking why.

At four, she would decide to shake things up again.

‘The bed is dirty. The maid didn’t change the sheets.’ She would complain.

‘It’s okay, love.  We’ll wash them in the morning.’

She wouldn’t protest, but she would pace around the room, anxiously. Then, in an attempt to feel better, she would toy with the tube light switches. She switched it on, and then off again.On, and then off again.

It disturbed me for a couple of weeks, but I knew better than to get up in the middle of the night and argue.

Thirty-eight cycles later, she would come back to bed.

‘You don’t want to wash your feet?’ I would ask.

‘It’s 4:07. Maybe later.'

At four thirty, she used to get up again and walk to the window to count the stars. It was beguiling to see her at work.

‘One, two, three, four…five twenty-six, five twenty seven…ah drat.’

And sometimes, when the clouds would hide some of the stars, she would wait, hoping to see an even number through the windows. She was different, but then, she was just finding her solace, like all of us.

This used to happen every single night. The first two weeks had been a lot of surprises, but by the end of the fourth week, I had grown accustomed to her activities. I was in love with someone disturbed. I did not know the cause of the disturbance, and I could not help her. I could just be patient. And so I was.

Sometimes, I would go to work in June, and come back in August. She used to flip through the calendar as if it were her favorite book. Time wasn’t her best friend. She often complained about clocks too.

‘I don’t like all the numbers in that circle.’ She would say. I had replaced all of them with their digital variants but she had a problem with them as well. In the end, she decided to stop all of them at 8:48 PM.

Four weeks isn’t long, I know, but I was in love, and I had grown accustomed to her. She had embraced my life like a tattered blanket covers a child on a cold winter night. I still felt cold, but she was all I had.  Her idiosyncrasies had become a part of my life, and any deviance from this new found version of sanity would annoy us both.