Love Short Story – The night
Its strange that how sometimes the smallest of things brings back the plethora of memories you have been holding up inside . It touches a cord in such a way that one thing follows another and before you know it you are lost so deep in the labyrinth of memory lane that coming out seems an uphill task.
Something similar happened to Siya that day. She was sitting on the balcony of her fifth floor apartment in Dwarka..It was the month of august, the sky was overcast but the wind was blowing so the chances of it actually raining were less. The air outside was pregnant with monsoon humidity typical to Delhi weather at this time of the year. It was a Saturday evening so she had come early from her office. Her husband Sarthak had gone out with friends for an evening of drinks and she was alone at home. Actually she longed for such occasions of solitude where she can be alone with her thoughts, where she had no agenda to discuss, no task to fulfill, when she can just allow her mind to take a flight of fancy, to take her wherever it wanted. This alone time she considered luxury in her hectic schedule and today she was happy that finally she had that time in hand.
As soon as Sarthak left she went into the kitchen and made herself a cup of strong coffee and sat down on the bamboo chair on the balcony. She intended to spend some time there and just be and enjoy her coffee. Downstairs from the park she could hear the screams of children playing in the park..Taking one small sip at a time she let her mind wander……and out of nowhere she found her mind taking to the beach in Goa..The trip she made last year with two of her female office colleagues . It was a girls only trip where they planned to have uninterrupted fun, to break away from the daily routine of being a working woman, a wife ,a daughter in law. Luckily on her part she didn’t had to do much of an effort to convince Sarthak..She just told him one week in advance that she is planning to go on a trip next weekend and he was okay with it.
So the three of them landed in goa on hot Friday evening in June. The other two girls were excited about the trip, the booze, the parties but what Siya was really looking forward to was to spend some time on the beach alone. Although she didn’t tell this to her friends but this is what she actually longed for. As soon as they touched down the girls started making plans for the party they are going to. They checked into a hotel, changed into fresh clothes and set out to explore.
They reached a popular night club where the party was in full swing with the lights, music, booze and the works.Sia had always felt little out of place in such surroundings .It’s not that she didn’t had the confidence to carry out meaningless conversations with complete strangers at these places but to her all this seemed superficial. She felt as if everybody is in a race to outdo each other, both sexes trying to get most attention. It was a game she was no longer interested in. But she went along anyway and sat down in a corner with a mojito in hand. After finishing one of her drinks she took another in hand and wandered about to the nearby beach just adjacent to the club.
The sky was clear , the full moon was glowing and making everything seem luminescent in its light . She looked up and she could actually count the stars and a smile spread across her face. She didn’t remember the last time when she actually had the time to look up the sky and gaze at the stars.
She sat down on a small rock on the beach with a glass still in her hands and just looked at the vast ocean before her and the star filled sky above. A t this moment the sense of contentment just filled her. Time generally loses its pace at such situation .She doesn’t remember how much time had passed when she saw a shadow coming out of water in the dark. As she looked closer, she realized that it was a male probably a local fisherman as can be made out from his chiseled and tanned torso. A blue loin cloth was draped around his waist.
As he came near the water drops on his bare chest shone in the moonlight and the water coming down from his hair made a small trail on his back. She was so engrossed in looking at him that she didn’t realize that he had come quite close to where she was sitting. At this time he also looked at her and for a brief second their eyes met. Siya sensed something stirring inside her but she avoided his direct glance and turned her back towards him.
When she looked back again in that direction he had already left and she could see his shadow walking in the dark. To this day she can’t understand what made her follow him that day but she did. She just stood up from where she was sitting and started walking in the direction where he was going as if under a spell. He had disappeared into the dark but trusting her instincts she followed his footsteps in the sand and after sometime she found herself standing outside a shack on the beach. It was as if some unexplained force was guiding her and she had to obey it. She touched the door and it opened with a slight creaking noise where she saw him standing with his back towards her, water drops still glistening in the dark. Time melted into eternity at this point.
The next thing she remembers was that she woke to the voice of ocean outside at dawn in the shack and the only reminder of the last night was the damp blue loin cloth lying beside her. She was caught in these myriad of thoughts when suddenly the doorbell rang and she was startled.
Outside the evening had turned into night.The doorbell rang again .She opened the door. SarthaK was standing outside with a bag of Chinese food he had got packed while coming back.She gave him a smile and he asked “what took u so long to open the door:.”
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