Short Story Love – The Puff Of Life
Photo credit: blary54 from morguefile.com
She didn’t hear the thud of the receiver as it fell to the linoleum floor.
It wasn’t like any of those moments in the movies, where everything seemed to spin around, your head reeling and incoherent words rendering space non-existing. It wasn’t like in the books when your mouth gaped open and you stared at the unfortunate person in front of you. Your eyes didn’t blare open; your skin didn’t tingle with goose bumps of any sort; tears didn’t fall right on cue. But it came pretty close.
Her eyes were unblinking, but they did not stare. Her lips were lifeless, yet they grew no paler. She was alive, but oh so still. Everything was still.
She didn’t hear the sobs coming out of the receiver – “Ashi, you there??…Ashi…”
Her body sat her down on the couch, ignoring the pile of books that tumbled down as her weight pressed down on one end. It was still again for what felt like an eternity to her, to her who couldn’t feel anymore. And then, the first signs of defeat broke upon her face.
The eyebrows crinkled down, and the lifeless lips puttered to life. Something seemed to well up in those eyes, and time stood sentinel as a form fell to the floor and wrapped itself around it. She couldn’t hold it in but with all the hope of an unknowing child, she willed herself to stop. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to know that only the truth behind the words could have quelled her like this.
“Noo!! You can’t …you can’t do this to me Varun!! Varunn!! I told you!! I TOLD YOU NOT TO!! I ..” –
Her tears choked her words dead and she rasped for breath among the cries that escaped her. She threw her head back and she screamed. She screamed knowing that he wouldn’t hear her and that she could not stop. Her body rocked back and forth as she tore at her hair and screamed. Her hands clawed at her forehead, at her eyes.
She looked around helplessly and catching hold of the table, prised herself off the floor. She bit down on her fist and ran back to the receiver that lay on the floor. She snatched it to her ear and screamed “Sneha! Sneha tell me he’s ..SNEHA!!!” into the beeping silence. She held onto it as once again she broke down on her knees and her head hang. A wail, a moan of a mortally wounded animal rose up from the crumpled self that held on to the receiver with whitened hands.
He had broken every promise he’d ever made. He’d left her alone, hurt.
And from within that wound rose a rage that consumed her whole. Her eyes blazing with tears, she threw the receiver across the room. The clatter of the telephone fed her flame and she rose up with a quivering frame, but now the grief had given way to rage. She flung everything in her reach to the extremes of the room and rejoiced in the uproar they made as they were hurt and torn apart. She fed the roaring beast within her and stood amidst the remains, her whole body heaving with the exertion that had taken its toll on the inanimate. The clattering and the banging had come to an end. The stillness crept upon her again.
And it all came back. The sorrow – the betrayal – the loss. And his face swam in front of her eyes, grinning with the soul of a time that had since passed into infinity. And as she looked on at the blurred shadow, it broke away, as though tendrils of smoke had crept up amongst the pieces and pushed them apart. She relapsed.
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