Lamentations…

It was my usual Sunday evening walk, with me and my iPod. Lost in my own small world when, suddenly, I felt a pat on my shoulder as I was heading towards the vegetable vendor. The hand felt familiar to me. I pulled out my earphones from my ears and turned around to see who it was.

I saw him. I saw him today. I saw him standing right in front of me. Same face, same expressions, same hair. Nothing seems to have changed in him in past two years. I did not know how I should respond. May be the time gap between us has stolen the ability to make me respond to his presence or the ability to feel that he was actually there. Life around me seemed to have stopped for that moment.

I just kept looking at him. I saw him shaking his head, moving his lips, making hand gestures. He was trying to say something I guess, I could not help myself from getting lost in thoughts. To get back my consciousness he literary had to shake my shoulder and say loudly, “Helooooooo, What’s up?  Didn’t you recognize me?”

My silence and my blank reaction made him think that I might have not recognized him at all.

The moment made me realize, how can he think that I didn’t recognize him? When, he is still the one who can make the whole world around me come to a halt.  Whose, hands I can still sense without even learning about his presence.

I said I shifted to this city a year back for my job while he mentioned that he was here on an official trip.

Days, months and years have passed but he still seems to be the same, who had always loved talking and speaking whatever came to his mind, without even giving it a thought. Everything seemed to have gone back in time but I was not the same anymore. Don’t know whether I was even listening to him or just kept looking at his expressions. I just nodded when he asked me to join him to the pizza place down the street for dinner.

This usual Sunday wasn’t a usual day anymore. There was more to it. To add to the day, guess what I saw? Or didn’t see, but it really did happen. Here I was walking beside him but not with him and the same moment I see “ME”, a figure same as mine, walking next to him on his left hand side, holding his hands, talking to him non-stop, pulling his cheeks, tickling him, pinching him, teasing him, laughing her heart out. Ah!!! She looked so happy and charming. I haven’t seen myself like this in years. Where has she been hiding all this while? Why was she here now? She vanished the very moment I realized I’m not ‘Me’ anymore. The present me doesn’t have stories to tell him, the present me doesn’t hold him and show off to the world that he belonged to me, the present me doesn’t laugh like her, as she had no worries because he was there to take care of her.

The chain of events made me think as I lay on my bed that night. Time has passed, time has changed, and with time he has taken away a part of me along with him. The part of me what does not live in me anymore. The part of me what comes to life only in his presence. The part of me, who, was madly in love with him. The part of me, who, used to laugh, smile and blush. The part of me, who, used to be playful and naughty. The part of me, who, was his best friend. That part would never come back to me.

I met her today, my better half. 

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