Elope!

A true love story.

Whenever she was expecting to see him, her arteries worked second shift. That was one of such situations. It pumped and jumped like a frog in the jar. He was all she wanted in her life. That day she was waiting for him. Counting the cells in my body would have been much easier she thought, seeing the amputated clock. There was no one around. She couldn’t let anyone know.

He would be there to hold her hands soon. In that ‘soon’, she smiled and gave her mind a perk- the first time they met- a stereo meal for her mind. Huh I never thought I would fall for a man the first time I meet him. But it happened. I ,with all my I’m-a-nurse metaphors, He, with all his bard-y dialogues, it happened. I was at the hospital lounge, waiting for him..there, he came late, I would be equipped with a big bound book to kill the time if it is happening now. I didn’t know him well that time. I was working as a nurse and he the topic of girls talk, the football champion. As he always mentioned it to me, he was fortunate, the first time, when he broke his leg. I would always ask why. He would smile and tell “if it wasn’t for that, i would have never met my dream girl". That was the day he was supposed to leave the hospital with all joints fixed. He came to me, all poetic, “there is something I would want you to fix.” And I know what he was coming at. I was all for it. We joined our hands, in the backdrop of a romantic song playing somewhere from a patient’s rusted radio. He promised “I would never break the two joints ever in my life.” He failed, they made him. She dusted away the mist with a smile of hope. The agony melted away.

Water in a lotus leaf, like he would say, Blood in the cryopreserved state, like she would say, her mind was not letting the idea get used to it. Eloping was the last thing she ever wanted to do. What would the people in the family say? and the surroundings? The kith and kin, the way they put it.  The more she thought, the more she got the anxiety, then the agony and then audacity to do it. He will come now. We will fly away. He promised me not to leave my hand. He better keeps it. She giggled.

It came to her suddenly, uninvited, the day the hands of promises were ripped apart. The phone ringed. She didn’t know they were the trings which were going to change her life. “Ma, what the crap was he thinking?...is he a teen to roam around with street guys playing football? He is seventy.” What is this noise? I can’t hear anything. Oh my god, it’s my heart. It’s pounding in my ears. I can’t hear anything. What has happened to him?  “What happened to him?”

“He broke his legs, got admitted at the hospital.” The pre-excuses echoed in her ears like coming from the underwater. “What is he thinking about me? A banker? Robber? I’m done with scrapping my hands for him. I have a family. Huh he has a family. You have other son right? Or is he dead? I’m not paying this one.” Thus ended their bond, when their younger son came and took her love , the promises, her life and the bliss with him.

What were they thinking? Were they thinking, by the time you blow your sixtieth candle all the love in your heart dries away? Did they think, I didn’t have the right to stay with my love, my husband, the wanted theirs? The looks they gave me, when we held hands. The sarcastic tones when we chatted. Huh. When will they understand that I will love him until I have a heart to live?

Shut up. Enough with this. She was all for makeup that day. She redid the saree the fourth time, grabbed glances by the mirror. It was her day. He was going to come, they were going to elope and start their life again. Her ears were so rusted by those sixty-five years of experience to hear,

“Why did he jump the fence? Trying to impress the girl next door?.............the doctor said he wouldn’t make it? How am I supposed to tell mom?......... No I don’t know anything about his Will.”

Author's Note

In case, you are doubtful about where is all these things happening? In some parts of India, It does. Constructive Comments and reviews are most welcome.

Reviews

[Robert Guttersohn]

I'm not sure what is going on in this piece. I think readers need more information. Also, good writing. I like your writing, but it can only be so abstract for me.