Short Story of Husband Wife – A MELLIFLUOUS TEMPEST
Photo credit: taliesin from morguefile.com
Little had I realized how haggard and listless I looked and perhaps felt when I pushed my heart, soul and body to pursue a perfect house. A house worth an interior designer’s delight. I sat to ascertain the accountability of my life of 60 years. Moving away from an abusive marriage I jointly raised my children with a rather dominating husband. I earned enough to pay my bills and indulge in few luxuries. My husband and I remained friends till the children got their emotions straight. My father was the only male anchor in my life. I adored the excitement, thrill, challenge and constant love I got from him. But soon I lost him and it took sometime to get focused in life.
Loneliness drove me to punch……nothing seemed to fill my emptiness. I was hospitalized for few days for traumatic treatment. These few days suggested me to start a new life. The nurse who attended on to me seemed preoccupied by another patient. There are 80 per cent chance, he won’t survive. He is going to die. I listened to her as she unfolded the trauma of an elderly man whose brain was damaged by an unknown virus. His memory has erased and he was likely to end up as a vegetable. I learnt that he had nobody to take care of him and he seemed to remember a woman named ‘ Hasah ‘ whom he remembers for a fleeting seconds. Nobody remembers who ‘ Hasah ’ was as it was quite an unusual name.
On the day of my departure, fresh from the shower as I blew my dried hair, I gave a close look to myself –there was someone I had left behind years ago.
“ How would he be now. Married? No, he was too boastful to kneel before a woman His sexuality was too animal and basic to admit that he needed a woman to complete himself or rather compliment himself.”
Well, I shrugged the thoughts off and dashed off to the reception to pay the pending bills. I was feeling energetic and renewed after the stay at the hospital.
“It took you so long to bring those flowers, Hasah” said a familiar voice, besides me. Amazed, I turned and saw the old man, he was Mr. Desai—my husband—old, frail and terminally ill. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I touched his cheeks, unable to control my copious tears, and he played blissfully with my aged looks.
“Saurabh” I had left you 20 years ago and you are still ten minutes away from that fateful night”.
Suddenly Saurabh failed to recognize me.
On weekends I visit him as he makes me feel important now as an amnesiac, which he never did before. How true is life’s honest face yet so ruthless at times.
–END–
