Its was twilight, the short one that we have here in India, and it was a late monsoon/ early autumn day of the year. It was a particularly rainy day; having rained through most of the day, Sunlight wasn't allowed to touch this small hill town today. The leaves of a rare few deciduous trees were already starting to burn in the bright splendid rust colour which is usually the aftermath of monsoon on trees. The mighty and eternahucalyptuses were still green and the overall scenery was as if someone had started numerous small, isolated fires throughout the forest. Fire indeed it was that burned in my heart, a fire not due to senescence, as is the case with the trees, but it was the fire of my love for her.
A high aroma was in the air, actively making you aware of your surroundings. Perhaps it was coming from the rich Eucalyptuses. There I sat with my beloved in our balcony overlooking the forest below. As is accustomed in India, heavy rainfall almost always brings some short-circuiting in the electric grid. As a result, we were left in the dark. She lighted an old, coarsely made lantern I had bought once during one of my excursions. It was small, the metal was painted black and the glass had a deep blue tint. It was a candle-lantern, in which you put a candle so that the wind doesn't burns it out. She put it on a hook on which a small flower pot was already dangling. I looked at her, she looked somehow from out of this world. Lean, fair body, on which she had put on her brown long armed tunic; graceful, long legs, which had so often kicked me in my shins during the frolics of our younger days; her face, as fair and innocent like a doe's. I turned on my old radio which had been my companion of long. It had given me company during the long nights when I used to prepare for my school exams, it was there when I was helplessly in love with her. Those were the days when I used to turn the radio up and danced to the music all by myself, whenever I got a call from her! That was a secret shared between the radio and myself.
An old number from an old Bollywood flick was playing. It was as if the radio had also sensed the atmosphere and had decided to add something to it. This was a moment, that I wanted never to go away. The wind was chilly, biting into the flesh each time it turned against us, but we both didn't feel it since we were holding each others hands. The warmth ur love flowed through each of us to the other. Because your own love cannot warm your own heart- love is a beautiful song you sing that only others can hear, it is not meant to be heard yourself. My heart could only be warmed by her love.
I asked her to dance with me. It was a waltz that suited the song. I filled the slender small of her back in my one hand, my other hand never leaving hers. She rested her other hand on my shoulder and we both began to move, slowly, closely.
As I leaned on her, I fell through her wraith, crashing on a wooden coffee table, knocking myself out. In the cemetery, from a five year old tomb stone belonging to my wife, a small piece of stone chipped off.
