Love Short Story – Insane, In Love
Photo credit: earl53 from morguefile.com
They said love had no bounds, no walls, no boundaries it could be held behind. And yet, I lie here, untouched.
It was a cold autumn night when I first saw her. She was this beautiful illusion who had wings that could soar so high, it was impossible to scale. Rhea, was her name. She was an enigma who I could love only from afar. Afar, because she was shackled to someone else. Tied taut to a man who could only be called a monster. He had a scent of alcohol, a hoarsely voice and an arm of steel, who let it all out on the little bunny who nursed his pride and watched her life fall apart.
Now, I lay here on the cold and hard floor, waiting for someone to patter on my bars and tell me that I was free to go. Still waiting.
One day I tried to approach her and tell her how I actually felt. But I could only walk two steps to her and then I stopped motionless and watched her pass me by unnoticed. I was no hero, I was nothing actually. I was this dark-alley-thug with tattoos and all, with no emotions to spare because I sold them all for a bottle of Jack. I was a low-life gravedigger for all she cared. I was nowhere near the lines she drew up to be her best man. I was nothing.
Yet she was ‘in love’ with a man no better than me and she was doing ‘alright’ with him. And he, well he was in levels worse than me. He had the most precious thing and he kept throwing her from wall to wall. When it came down to me and him, I could be the logical choice.
Then one night I saw her run out of her deadbeat home and into me. That was the first time she looked at me, with her grey eyes all teary and her cheek bleeding. I offered to help her but she ran farther. She looked at me like I was the same scum as the man she loved. Only that she did not love me.
They stayed silent that next few days after the incident but the man was incorrigible.
It was Valentine’s day when I saw her carry a bunch of roses into the house and I knew she was doing something to bring back some love from the block of stone she called a lover. There was a window from where I would often see her and I saw her put on a red dress, though it was nothing but a few scraps of scarlet, yet she looked as pretty as ever.
Well, he came home and there was the usual yelling. But that night, I felt severe and I felt stronger than usual. I heard a glass break and blood splattered on the window. She ran out from the house and I saw her run, her hand bleeding from the broken glass and a deep gash marring her beautiful face.
I ran into the house and took the man down.
I took him down, stuck a knife into his chest.
And took his life.
For she deserved so much better.
She came back and screamed in horror and turned me to the cops.
Now, I lay still in the cell, waiting for her to visit.
Six years, eleven months and twenty seven days, she had not come.
I would usually fall asleep from her comforting thoughts but somehow I could not. I watched as my other cell mates vanished and departed and I just stayed there, with hope that I was to see someone bid me away. They all wished me luck but asked me to let go and move on. I took their wishes and rejected their advices.
I knew she’d come.
Or at least I hoped she would.
The ticking of the clock down the hall was deafening. My time had come. I had to go.
The men in uniforms came to take me away. They said my time had come and it was the end of it all. But even as they did, I held hope, she would come. I kept asking them to wait, wait just for a few more minutes. No, they wouldn’t. Why would they? I was a heartless murderer. A cold blooded killer that deserved no love, no sympathy, nothing.
“Please, wait, she might come,” I pleaded.
“Dev, we’ve been over this. She won’t come,” the man said.
“She will, oh God, she will.”
“Dev, she is dead.”
I looked at him in horror and realized it all. The same white halls and the usual discrepancy of love.
I was crazy? No, I was not. I looked across the door to see, my dear, Rhea. She had come, in that same red dress. But wait, she had a knife lodged in her chest. She was bleeding and I screamed the same but no one rushed to save her. She was dying, I screamed but they just held me down. They asked me to calm down while my love lay bleeding. It was Valentine’s day that I set her free from her monster… or did I?
A man read aloud, “Dev Sinha, aged 36, in custody for the murder of Rhea Dutta on February 14, 2005, going in for electro-convulsive therapy after declared…
mentally unstable.”
__END__
