Notes

Sundown. The fervent sky melodiously fell gleaming with an auburn smile, mauve cloud, and warm shower of the brittle monsoon. With roses, as red as blood, spilled with the tears of the sky, and her favourite dessert, from the patisserie where they had met first, clutching his hand, he lurked at the tired yet gentle wooden door, lashed with a melancholy of cerulean.

Falling after a brief moment of woeful silence, he knocked the blue door seated above the floor spattered with broken leaves, withering rag, and rain. The little lucid minutes that passed suddenly spindled into a labyrinth without a beginning, and there he was standing amid the very beginning. Her footfalls reaching his welcome sautéed the cold dancing around him with dwelling warmth, and floated a cursive smile all over his senses. The door latched open.

The swindle of the door pushed her warm eyes into his placid cold; like the moon devoured by the wintry night, burning in the festive flames of the beautiful, mayhem, fireworks. There she was leaning against the wall, holding the fading white, warm metal knob of the door. Her presence, before his shuttering eyes, draped loosely in a white, silver bracelet dancing by her hands, drove his presence about a pale blue, white, rivulet stepping from down a snow clad path, from a distant past.

The moment lays still; like a scene from a pictured play – with him, and her amid it, with no emotion, word, or life; like puppets threaded, and stringed by a cold. Falling out, breaking off the moment, pacing her golden brown eyes, “Are,” he says, “you, alright.” and leered through the sound of his voice, not knowing whether his words sailed out his throat.

The house was no more lingering with the pleasant aroma of an evening brew, mild curry, or anything that paved a remembrance; leaving him with a sense, as those days once cuddled with them now as only a wading distant memory. He saw her walking past the living room for the wide veins running mahogany armrest in the amicable corner of the house, with a book, with her elegant finger running over like a quill bookmark.

The unclamped windows hushed the living room with the winter gale, lighting up every brick with a cold; like a solitary music with no origin found. A fortnight had fallen with no words between them, the silence alone screamed through the walls with silhouette of dying laughter, which once lived amid them. Every word of his devoured within himself, for reasons never told, might also her, he thought.

He strode towards her, for the diner, holding an amalgam of books, and loosened the paper wrapped dessert, a floating island, “The oeufs à la neige, a dream.” as she always called, on it, after shovelling few randomly opened paperbacks astride for her sea white ceramic plate, along with a note that read “I am sorry.” Lurking him walk away, a bijou smile broke amid her strawberry red lips; like the last fervent light of a falling winter sky, with a moonlit welcome. With unfastening the hemp twine, drowning the island in the sea of ceramic, she ran her spoon gently caressing the crème. Without, before, a thimble of the spoon, her gentle body tumbled over the parquet floor; like an autumn leaf.

“The apartment, sir,” paused the chauffeur.

The sudden jolt of his ride, a midnight sky hued sedan, shunting before his apartment, crashed his memories amid an abyss, and woke him facing a presence. A year had grown. The nights had burned, and seasons had withered, since her fall. The broken leaves, wet dailies, and uninvited letters, now garnished the steps looking his home, which once were adorned with summer, tulips, and morning kisses.

The emptiness, which held the house, conjured him at the very first step inside. The cello, breakfast honey hued, stood cloistered in her boudoir, donned with the remnants of seasons fallen over, leaving its long silvery strings yearning her touch. The chenille portières, and curtains, seeding the gaiety rays of the falling sun lit everything around with darkness rather with the fading gleam of yellow.

His steps loosing him, after with slow strides, amid the stillness, his cold fingers started running through the rosewood desk in her study, he carefully fished her sea white ceramic plate deluged in the randomness of her medical records, and prescriptions, ran a water of cold over from the kitchenette, and untwined her favourite dessert on the plate from its pearl white paper wrap.

Silence. Their room no more lingered with her scent, her laughter, or her music. The silence alone stood as a witness for the long lost sense about her. Her pale, crestfallen, tired, face strained a weak smile, seeing him standing aside the door with his dark eyes imbued with a smile. Like a blue jasmine cuddling with the first brittle snow on a winter morning, there she was donned in a pale blue gown, with an unspoken silence, rumbling through the sonnet playing, slumbered in her cot by the falls of white.

His smile filled eyes slowly deluged a solitary tear, seeing her frail eyes. The dancing sunlight, slowly dying, fell with stripes of golden yellow over her; like a ballad. The gentle knock on the door, he made, broke the sedate silence that lingered around. He sauntered toward her, and pulled the wooden stool, whilst holding the ceramic white plate still in his hands. With no words spoken between, for reasons veiled; the room that stood still, the furniture that lay in a solitude, the music that played for an ever, the clock that ticked, and everything seen, and unseen melodiously filled with words lingering between them.

With a hold, the plate under his palm, careful, he spooned the running crème off, along, the dessert; and held it floating for a cold minute, and he says, “The one you have loved, always.” before meeting her pale, white lips. Her eyes desiccated by the illness, clouded with a swell of warmth, straining a tear. The very kiss of the dessert over her lips woke her from the abyss she was long lost, falling; leaving a dew of solitary tear trickling down her cheek.

The night falls upon like a blanket over the falling day; a lonely, yellow streetlamp flickers to life, leaving a shattering slit of light cutting through the window into the darkness lit room; like a dancing blade of fire. Her words place a struggle to be heard; like the fumbling light out the cold street, that are shouting to be seen. The darkness that was scatted, suddenly, now conjured back, and deluged him, and her. He places a kiss over her forehead, gently, and whispers to her, “Your favourite.” A lone smile breaks, and struggles out from her lips. With her words failing, and cold eyes falling back again for the land adored by a night, an abyss, she says, “The oeufs à la neige, a dream.” Silence.

The silence fathomed upon the beginning, and the end. The northern wind fills the room with a cold. The warmth he had bought with him wades away, slowly, peacefully; like the stars in a morning sky. The night kisses every light around, a goodbye, for a farewell that are never to be returned. The lone streetlamp flickers off, to its death; for another farewell that are never to be returned.