COMFORTABLE SPACE – Two Short Stories
Comfortable Space – Two Short Stories
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Short Story 1. Love
An old couple is sitting on a bench in a park. She is 58 he is 60. They met when she was 16 and he was 18. It was love at first sight. There were red roses, love letters, poetry, music and an abortion.
The bench overlooks a jogging track. The shade of a tree partially covers the bench. They are, like always, sitting in the shade. There is shade when the sun sets.
She is married and has two children. He is married and has a son. This is the last time they are meeting in this park.
He is looking down at his feet. She is staring at the ring she is holding with her forefinger and thumb. It is a wedding ring. He gave her the ring today.
She gets up to leave. He looks up one last time. His words, trembling and deep, break the silence,
‘I am incomplete without you. Marriage, children, money, family were traps and I have fallen in each of those. My responsibilities never gave me the courage to live with you. I want to now, when there is no one to question. It’s not late. I want you to wear the ring and be mine forever.’
She took a step further. He watched her move. She dropped the ring. His eyes followed the ring and she spoke her last words,
‘I don’t have the courage. The ring is immaterial. We have lost our comfortable space.’
He watched her walk away until she was out of sight. He looked at the ring and took a deep breath. He made himself comfortable in the bench and watched joggers pass by like every Wednesday since he first met her here when he was 18.
The sun set and it was dark. The shade was gone. He was gone too. The ring was still there where she dropped it.
Today was a new day. An 18 year old boy and a 16 year old girl halted at the bench to rest. He saw the ring. Her eyes followed his and she saw the ring. She picked it up. He looked at her and said,
‘one day, my love, I shall give this to you‘.
She smiled and then blushed.
Short Story 2. Time
‘I don’t know where I want to go. I am not staying here. This place does not belong to me. There is something missing here. It’s no more comfortable. I am leaving’– a passionate voice echoed in his mind.
It was the voice of a 21 year old boy. He looked up to stop the echoing. He noticed the window panes of the window were missing. The walls were dirty. The paint was gone. The curtains on were torn and dirty. A plant died on the window sill. It was green and fresh beyond the bars of the window.
He looked at his feet in shame. The floor was broken in patches. He shook the mud of his feet. A tear drop fell on the floor. The second didn’t. He noticed the ceiling fan was covered in dust. The chest on the right had lost its doors. There was a broken picture frame on the chest. The picture of a young couple smiled at him from the frame.
He was standing in the living room. He wore his best suit and a garland. He was 65. He retired today with millions in his bank account.
He looked at the sofa set where his parents spent most of their time counting money, every penny, for their needs. The voice echoed again,
‘…I will never come back. This place has negative energy and I want to run away from here. Far away…’
the voice started to fade. Reality hit. He was here again. It’s a full circle. There was nothing negative about the place. The smile from the broken frame gave positive energy. Where was the negativity now? It never existed. It was a fiction of his mind.
He wanted to leave again. The reason was different. He started walking towards the door. His steps calm, steady and peaceful. A voice called out to him from outside the door –
‘Dad – can we go now? I don’t like this place. I am not staying here. Are you coming?’
He continued his way out of the door with a smile on his face. He told his son,
‘Carry on. I’ll stay. This is my place.’ And the unspoken words were, ‘I am comfortable here’.
__END__
