Five years. F***. F***. F***. Five years. Five very f***ing long years.
All spent figuring out what exactly hit me. Trying to comprehend what exactly happened. It’s funny how falling out of love is so just like falling in love. It’s the same thing. The confusion. The mindlessness. The thoughtless actions. The yet to sink in feeling of the reality. The enormity of the truth that the life next is never ever going to be how it was just moments ago. Just here you are facing it alone. All alone.
We had decided it was not working out. Funny, how we never thought we were so different earlier. I loved icecream and she loved the chocolate that comes with it. I loved the sunny outsides and she loved the breezy evenings that come with it. I absolutely detested pinks and she would die for them, turning pink on everything. It was in truth a conjunction of contrasts, the contrasts which we chose to ignore. But ignorance is bliss, isn’t it? It’s just a function of your blindfolded world view, just one reality check and all the ignorance you just can’t afford to ignore anymore.
Every week we used to meet. Slowly, then we started meeting every fortnight. And then days became weeks and weeks became months and before we knew months turned to years. And five of them already! We had as we chose to believe ‘grown’ over the years. Our views were more ‘mature’.
Now we knew sitting in a park is wasting time. Stopping the bike and eating an icecream because you ‘want to’ is not the way to do it. And now you don’t call anyone because you want to; you call them because you need to. Its now a generous does of realism and a high dose of cynicism, you had to survival to do, didn’t you? It all comes with growing up you see; its all a package. It’s a jungle out here.
And five years, we still stayed friends, we still are. We know the zing has just died. We still stick to the tiny teeny weeny thread that hangs by it. It was the closure that was missing. We could never give it a meaningful closure. It was not enmity. Neither was it a completely mutual happy ending. That was the funny thing. It was never an ending. It was never a closure. It is just like gum that sticks between your fingers. Pull your fingers away, and thin strands still stay unbroken, slowly solidifying. Somewhere while moving your fingers away you stop, wait and watch the strands of gum in wondrous amazement. Beautiful to behold, you stop and stare. All it needs is a snap of the fingers, a closure. But it’s the snapping that we are not able to get ourselves to do. And then when the snap happens, the beauty will be gone and only the ghosts stay.
Five years in the same city. Unexpected encounters, uneasy smiles, complicated hellos and prolonged byes. It’s the closure that never gets to happen. It’s through the small crevices in the solid lives that there is a ray of hope. Seeping in, crawling, catching you in awkward postions, uneasy situations and unspoken cacophony of long drawn silences.
Today was my chance to give this a closure. A closure that would declare itself loud. My friend told me famously to let go of the past to make a new future. And today my future shall be the end of my past. And finally I’m settled. Unnatural the world around me now.
Today has come the chance for me to make a pact with my past. To erase the past that won’t fade out on me. A past sticky, like bitter bile threatening to throw up in uneasy places.
Three thing are certain. The past was beyond me. Now I would be truly lonely. And she would come to see me go.
There she was. Smiling; but something amiss. I guess that’s how it’s meant to end; after all beaming ear to ear is not how you end something, unless of course it’s the new year eve. It’s funny how she still pretty much smells the same after all these years, the tiny scent of roses and vanilla. Funny how things haven’t changed much except of course for that hint of cynicism. But the tiffs still stayed. The love lost, the chemistry gone, the seriousness gone, but that childishness still intact. The innocence that stopped the closure…
“Long time to be gone, huh?”
“Yeah, another five years…”
“Another?”
“Yep. Let’s see how we fare up”
“So when shall you be back?”
“I’m not really sure, I mean I don’t know yet. It’s a consultant job and you know the life of the consultants right? Flying, moving, staying, talking, designing, solving, its a pain.”
“Yes sir I do know and of course not to speak of the beeeautiful ladies that come with it” she nudged.
“Hell yeah.”
“And so where is my parting gift?”
“Why should I give you, it’s you who should give me one. It’s me that is leaving, remember?!”
“So no succor for this damsel?”
“Wwwwhattt? Don’t you cry out on me this time ok. Like the last time you clutched my sleeve and wetted it with my tears. How embarassing!”
“Yeah right. And you wouldn’t even hold me or wipe my tears. Giving that furtive glances all around when your love is missing you so much and you won’t even hold her! Gawd! You were such a wuss.”
“Oh yeah?! And what were you? What about the time when I asked you to come on my bike. You refused out flat to even acknowledge my existence?! You wissy sissy”
“Ok, i hurted. I wont talk to you. hmpf”
“Aaaah very clever lady. What a way to diss my gift”
“You are just so cheap thinking of the gift when you’ve pissed me off. You have the lady here in distress and you won’t even brighten her day up!”
“Hell yeah, as though we are still together…”
And that’s when the truth whipped. A silent snap and beat missed. Things that come out that ought not have. Smiles and giggles vanished. Deafening silence. So this is how this was supposed to end, isn’t it? The closure ?
Then the world started blurring. Thin layers of brine flooding the eyes. Small gasps of breath yearning for space. Leaden hearts pounding in thunderous tandem. And then the deafening silence.
Just silence. Two minds. Two hearts. Two people. One thought.
And then she looked at the space before me. I looked at the empty aura before her. Eyes meeting inches ahead of another. Silence again. Another joke was tough to come by. But now it was a closure. We knew it has ended. And we acknowledged.
And then suddenly she rested upon my shoulders. She was crying, I was too. I stroked her hair and wiped her tears, she didn’t mind it anymore. People were looking and it was embarassing. But now, I didn’t care anymore.
So be there or be dead, iff you are an entrepreneur or aspiring to be one. 
