Valentine Vertigo

It was dark. Sky bled black and I was enjoying the scattered drops of rain falling as if to guide me in a certain direction. The wind was brisk and so was the pace of my thoughts. I was lost, unaware of where I wanted to go but felt a certain inexplicable pleasure in my escapade. Losing your identity momentarily was over-powering and addictive. So whenever I felt a storm swirling within myself, I casually dragged my lazy legs to wherever my instincts guided. More than anything else I was lost in her thoughts. 

It was Valentine's eve and as much I had tried to keep her away memories boomeranged like stubborn waves of a French beach dragging me to a shore where I have been before. Locks that put the monsoon clouds to shame, emerald eyes deeper than Atlantic-with a tint of azure, lips red as if the evening sun had gifted it’s molten hues, eyebrows bringing a flash of lightning to life and face fuller than a full moon. Her voice was the music for my soul. They say ninety per-cent of love is due to voice, they are true. Know that I was not wrong in being lost. 

All this in mind and drizzle magnifying my loneliness I kept on walking. It must have been a good couple of hours after dusk that I found myself en-route to nowhere on an amazingly deserted boulevard. My silence and her laughs were my sole companions. Suddenly I stumbled and squinted my eyes to confirm the presence of a silhouette. The shadow was short. Curious, I doubled my pace to know who else found perfection and companionship in the dark of night. Few steps and I froze. It was her! The very girl I was dreaming of was right in front of me. At first, I moved my head side to side to check whether she was a projection of my incomplete fantasies or real, but when after a couple of times the image didn’t go, I felt myself looking like an idiot and looking at her. “Seeing me for the first time or do I look like a ghost?” she demanded. “But you….but we……don’t talk….it’s been some time since we…..” I stuttered and went blank. “Hold my hand and walk; the rain will wash away your doubts in some time.” I was too taken aback to respond and too weak to deny. With trembling hands, I slowly took her hand and started walking with her. For more than an hour we kept walking, hand-in-hand, under the dim light, the light rain-drops washing away every ounce of regret from us. She smiled truly and I was too busy to live every second as if it was my last, profound silence and awe gripping me like the struggling leaves of a climber. This went for a long while which otherwise was like a split-second to me.

The time I dreaded drew near. She gave me a parting smile and left me stunned, lost for breath and words. She walked away in the yellow light of the street-light, her shadow drifting away, her dark silhouette a part of night itself, leaving me in a silence so profound that the breeze against my ears was like a child’s hushed whisper. The yellow light made the rain-drops on her skin gleam like the early morning dew and it was as if I was painting her with my own eyes. Moments pass and I was left wondering about the advent of my feeling towards this girl, turned to stone. I came back to life and before I know I started running towards the alley from where she left. To my astonishment, I searched for her everywhere but she was nowhere to be found. She had just vanished into thin air. I asked an elderly sweeper by the road if he had seen a girl go by and he said that it was only me who was strolling there lost in something. I turned and walked a couple of steps and then turned back again to ask something from the old sweeper. He was also nowhere to be found. I sat on the sidewalk and smiled within. Were the most beautiful moments of my life just a projection of my escapist mind? Broken, I retraced my steps and went to bed only to dream about her. I had lived a million years in those stolen moments. 

The next morning I woke up early and went to class. By now I was convinced that yesterday was all about hallucination. Valentine breeze in partnership with cupid trapped me in a surreal enticing mirage. After a tiring day, I headed back to my room. I was perplexed when I saw her walking towards me. This is real life. Face it. She won’t talk. Just walk past her. I kept telling me all this when she came to me and said- “Listen this may sound weird but yesterday I was all alone and thinking of you and the times we had together. I was out for a walk and saw you walking by, approached you and emptied my heart out. We walked in rain and I was in love all over again but then for some unknown reason, I felt if that was just a hallucination. But now you’re right in front of me. Let’s walk together and understand each other better.” With this, she held my hand and we walked to a new beginning. I was now smiling and trying to decipher the mystery of yesterday night. Who was the sweeper? Why couldn’t I remember where I was walking? Why was it like a dream? 

I held her hand tight and walked away cherishing her wind-chime voice. Rain had started again and was weaving magic between us!

"A part of you has grown in me and so you see, it's you and me together forever and never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart. Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be."