Please find the first part here.Always
Maya couldn’t concentrate on reading. She was bored, bored of one activity which defined her. Various thoughts revolved like a cyclone inside her mind and she couldn’t focus on one. She grabbed a paper of unimportance from the pile on her table, placed it between the pages where Mr. Biswas had just hired someone to get his house built, turned off the table lamp and went to the kitchen.
She brew a coffee for herself. It was 11 p.m. by the clock, a cup of coffee at this point of day wasn’t a good idea unless one didn’t wanted to sleep. And that was what she exactly wanted. To not to sleep. The idea of having to close her eyes and immersing everything around her into darkness frightened her. She couldn’t let her subconscious take control of her. Caffeine intake helped her maintain reign over herself.
“Why can’t there be enough sugar in this house” she uttered these words loud enough to be hearable in the bedroom. “Never mind, I think I like my coffee this way too” she tried to comfort herself.
It was a cold winter night which though made her uncomfortable while standing in the balcony, didn’t made her miss out the dark night that she adored. Dark night with stars sprinkled around its fabric with no consideration to their homogeneity, but apparent mystic importance to them forming patterns here and there. Dark night with one big piece on the fabric outshining others and changing shape night by night. Ironically she could never confront the darkness that prevailed inside her but in some way she cherished the darkness that engulfed her. Maybe because she could keep her eyes open and be in control of herself, or maybe because she could find some resemblance in this darkness. The stars reflected the infinite thoughts strewed in her mind, the darkness the obscurity she felt, the moon resembled that one thought which she could manage to increase focus on, which then waned with time. Maybe because it was her attempt to elicit a clue from this darkness to resolve her internal storm.
Abhi had had a stressed day at work. “Why is it always has to be a coffee place, the people around here seem so intellectual. Look, that girl can’t keep her eyes off the laptop, and that gentleman over there can burn a hole into the newspaper anytime. When I’ll be over with everything, every single thing, I will get into my best suit, head to the bank, take out all my money, put it in a bag, throw that bag into the trunk of my car and get the car to some place distant. And of course you will be with me”. Abhi couldn’t hold his anger and blurted out these words fluently as if he had them written somewhere inside his mind. “What would you want to do if you were free from everything Maya?” She couldn’t think of anything.
Maybe having sleepless nights and getting to stare the night sky was what she always wanted. Maybe getting to recognize patterns among stars was what she wanted. Maybe to find him in the vastness was what she wanted. Maybe she wanted them to be together. Always.
