Present.

” One day you will look back and realize how you treated me. And maybe, if you finally grew up, just maybe, you will have enough heart to actually feel bad about it. “

Revisiting.

Date : 16th December 2015.

Place : Kolkata. India

1 year. Regards.

 

As I was driving down the vast streets of one of the most famous places of Kolkata “Park Street”, I noticed nothing much has changed over the span of a year. Strangely last night the city experienced the first chills of December. Strangely the date is 16th December 2015. Maybe this only happened to make me remember all those merry times, this date 16th December. I decided to visit that very place from where this overwhelming journey began. This exact day, that exact place. I parked my car, and decided to walk. As I walked through the pavements a tear cornered in the fortress of my left eye. It blurred my left eye, and strangely a flashback, of every single moment, of every passing second, of every beckoning minute, of every exciting hour ran past me. I experienced a strange chill that ran down my spine. I was wearing the exact same clothes as I wore exactly one year before on this very day. Our desired destination was in front of me. The majestic gates of “The Park Street Cemetery”. It was kind of scary, at first I was scared to enter. I was shivering in some thought. Then I gathered all my courage to put forward a step, and there it was, that exact place. The weather unknowingly seemed to catch the exact resemblance as it was last year. As soon as I entered I took the narrow lane to the left, that exact lane from where we used to enter the magical place. As I walked past each and every monument, tomb or grave I could see myself along with you, laughing at each other’s jokes, holding hands, smiling to ourselves due to some reason what we must be thinking at that time. I tried to remember some of those things. It was taking quite a long time to move each step forward. It was kind of exhausting for me. Due to some reason I could not breathe sufficient amount of air in me. Somehow I decided to move forward and increase my pace of walking. Then I reached the place where we sat on this very day. It was the same. Mysteriously in front of my eyes I could visualize everything as flashbacks, the journey from where it began, and everything ever after. Then something happened, strangely every single thing of that place was in silence, the leaves were completely still, there was no one talking nearby, there was no breeze, nothing moved, as if time has stopped, everything was in standstill. I started trembling. I decided to sit on that tomb. Uncontrollable amount of tears washed my cheeks, I sat there for quite a time, revisiting each and every laugh, those pleasant and beautiful moments which we shared, that tremendous amount of trust which each and every cell that counted me as a whole had in you. After some time it was getting kind of dizzy, I decided to leave the place at once. I couldn’t take a stroll of the entire place. I stood up and ran, as if someone was behind me, as if someone was willing to attack me, as if I was running for my life, as if I was going to die. I ran as far as I could, so that I won’t get the intoxicating smell of your perfume, so that I forget that place, so that I forget that I visited this place again today, so that all those memories which were sucking my soul out could somehow magically be erased, so that I run past all those things which broke my trust in you, so that I can get a moment of peace, a moment of sheer silence. My hands trembled as I took out my car keys from my pocket; I somehow managed to open it and sat in my car holding my steering. I ignited my engine and released the clutch. I drove past “Park Street” literally sobbing. I stopped in front of pizza hut. Exactly repeating each and every thing I did with you last year. I wiped my eyes and face with my puff and stepped out of the car. Entered the restaurant, and took a seat, that exact seat. Luckily there was no birthday party going on in the restaurant, as it was last year. I ordered a large size cheese Mexican pizza. He jolted that down in his small pocket sized notebook and he left. I thought about a lot of things as I sat there, as if some movie was being projected from my eyes into vacuum. I decided to put my head down for a while and close my eyes.
“The day was a Monday, exact date : 2nd February 2015. Mother came to wake me up at 9.00 am in the morning. As soon as I woke up my phone rang, the screen of my phone flashed your name; you called me after two days. I hurriedly took your call. As soon as I took your call you apologized for everything you told me, for every chaos that was taking place between me and you. As if the warmth and essence of you which I was yearning to get has come back to me, as if everything was falling in place, and you asked me to meet you. Overjoyed by your proposal I decided to meet you in that exact place, drinking the same liquor, buying cigarette from that exact shop and dreamed of everything being perfect. As I walked down the stairs of the park street metro station I saw you standing wearing that white shirt which looked so nice on you, which you wore on the first day we met, I could smell the same cologne which you were wearing. I walked down with you to the cemetery. After we sat on the same spot where we used to sit always you comforted me so much, I believed you with my heart and soul that everything was all right from that very moment, and that I have got a friend in you, a soul mate, or perhaps something beyond the definition of everything, something beyond the concept of love, something out of this world and I was too happy for everything that happened, to make our relationship even more stronger. And then that hug, that long platonic hug. That immediately washed out all hatred, I could feel peace inside me, I could actually feel happiness inside me, a kind of happiness which can only come out of you to me, a kind of happiness which I have always yearned to find inside me, my whole being felt happy, I became a total different person that day. I said to myself as I hugged you or rather I promised myself as I sniffed that intoxicating essence of yours that ‘I will never let you go’. ”
My dream broke as that same waiter stood in front of my table with my cheese Mexican pizza. I realized that I had fallen asleep. He kept my ordered pizza on the table and left. I opened the box and grabbed a piece in my hand, took a bite and swallowed it somehow. I could not eat; I left after paying the bill.
I got back in my car and sat there for a while. I thought about the strange dream of mine in the restaurant. I thought about that happy times, I thought about how you promised me that from that day onwards everything will be fine, and that you will always understand me. How much I believed each and every word you said, how much I started believing in the fact that there are different forms of love and that we are meant to be soul mates, but our love is of different form, it is dissimilar from the normal form of love. Moreover it cannot be defined in words. It is something beyond any form of description, its limit is infinity and beyond. Engrossed in my chain of thoughts I could not decide whether I was happy or was I sad, somehow something felt empty in me, something was too fragile and hollow and hence it was slowly crumbling. I quickly drove past that place. I switched on the car stereo system so that I could not respond to my thoughts. I cried I laughed as I drove past everything which I yearn to get back. Then I lit a cigarette and thought, a single drop of tear rolled down my right cheek as I smiled to myself. I wanted to go to south city to take a stroll in the Starmark’s kids section but then I could not. The process of breathing was getting harder; I was feeling uncomfortable and exhausted. I wanted to run away from all these, I wanted to be alone maybe in a far off place where nobody knows me. I drove and drove all over the city, smoking packs and packs of cigarettes. Ensuring myself that I was celebrating. And that it has been one year.
Finally I decided to come back home. I went straight to my bedroom as I stepped inside my house, without talking to anyone.
Reaching my room I locked it from inside. Switched on my laptop, updated my status in Facebook which said, “And this day descends. Memories revisited”. Then finally I crumbled down in bed.

~~~ Adelemagic.