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The End of Eternity
The End of Eternity
When I was little, I used to write some. Not much, - just little snippets from my life…. The birthday party my parents hired the clown from the amusement park to come over for… The time the girl with buckteeth poured tomato juice on my dress - my favourite dress - and Mother had to spend hours soaking it in hot water…. That night in the dark shrubbery, when I felt male hands on me for the first time - an alien presence but longed for, all the same… Little, normal things like that. When I was little…
Well, then, not exactly little - the Shubbery Incident didn't happen till I was well past the onslaught of puberty, for instance - but that's not the point. The point is, somewhere, back there, I lost the ability - the inclination - to do a lot of the tiny things I used to do. Things that seemed so frightfully inconsequential when I was doing them - things I pine for suddenly, in the middle of doing something else, today… I suppose that comes with age.
There was a time, for instance, when I used to love. Not love - not in that bland, insipid way everybody thinks of today. Not merely physical attraction, and not merely a welding of mindsets. Not a Romance Novel kind of love, where you feel your pulse climbing as soon as you lay eyes on that magical, mysterious man around the corner. I don't suppose I can explain it, you see. I've lost some of that… vigour… that I used to have before - before when I used to write snippets, I mean. So I can't explain it to you any better than to say it was an easy kind of love - a kind that came quite naturally and unbidden to me - and that he reciprocated for me in quite an equally unhurried fashion.
I don't even suppose I'd have thought about all this if he hadn't died last month. Somehow, sometime, one evening by myself on the settee, gazing out through the window at the dense dark leaves, the memories came wafting in. Tenderly. I suppose that's the way the good times drop by - softly. A smile formed on my lips then, and after savouring the delicious sensations, I arose to find the box. It was old by then, of course, and at first I couldn't remember where exactly I had kept it. All I could think of was the wonderful strain of the music… and the two of us dancing, gliding across the floor in harmony with the violins…. I suppose that sounds foolish - something from an old movie, - but that's exactly how it was. I opened the lid and clutched the plain gold band within. All those years… and still, as I held it up in my palm, it shimmered almost as if it had been waiting for that day, that moment when I would need to feel its reassurance. They say that Time dulls a lot of things, Memory being not the least among them… and yet, that's how it seemed to me. A lost artifact, languishing in its solitary splendor, waiting for its mistress to at last recover it…
Almost at once, the memory sprang up before my eyes - the day I first saw him. He wasn't tall, nor was he dark, and even though I suppose there were some who doubtless considered him handsome, I wasn't one of them. I was quite immune to his charms, even as he seemed to be smitten by mine. I didn't want him, - and I made my displeasure clear. One day at last, things came to a head when he caught up with me on the long walk home, and demanded haughtily that I give in. I was just as haughty then in my refusal, - I proclaimed that I could have any man I wished - and he was certainly not my intended. That was a challenge of sorts for each of us - and after that episode, we were strangers, on the lookout for other people, - newer people who resembled not in the least either of us.
I remembered the first time the ring slipped onto my finger. It was cold and smooth, and to my naïve eyes, represented the wealth of the entire world. Here was the man then who had proposed to me. Somebody who was taller than every other person you meet on the street, whose dark black eyes glistened with mystery and strung chords of passion within my heart, and even somebody whom I could consider handsome in every explicit and implicit form of the word… I wrote about him, of course - small paragraphs which described the soaring emotions of a young girl on the threshold of love. I wrote about him and fantasized about him - day in and day out. He wooed my parents, my entire family, and a date was chosen. The day I would fly…
And then, gliding onto the floor after the engagement, I saw the look on his face. He was standing there quietly, behind all the rest, in his pinstriped suit that wasn't particularly striking. His hands were clasped before him, and his head was downcast. It was only a flicker, a slight downturn of lips that didn’t particularly bespeak strength, - the flicker that immediately died away as soon as he realized that my eyes were searching him. He came up to me, and held my hands and proclaimed his joy at the final culmination of both our happiness'. And then, he was gone.
I went after him.
There are people who treasure things that remind them of the loves of their lives. A bangle that was gifted on the fiftieth anniversary. A picture of doting parents with the firstborn. A worn sweater that relives a wintry night in Nainital. I have all of these… somewhere. Somewhere hidden carefully, and somewhere I shall search sometime soon in the wake of the resurface of another memory, another day. For today, I have the old teak box open next to me, its contents a dull shine of emptiness, save the lone circle of gold. Save the memory that one night, I had the foresight of what true love really means - of being there even when it's not asked of you. Save the memory that one night, I had the courage to act on my convictions. Save the knowledge that my knight who was neither tall nor dark, but ever-handsome in my eyes, afforded me the best years of my life…
In spite of the advancing years, there are some things you never abandon. Writing little snippets from your life may not be one of them, but loving somebody is a task that carries on for eternity. And who can tell when eternity ends…?
-Rahul Mitra
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