Millions of questions begins to cloud up
Resa’s mind, but all she could say was “whh.. houu.. wha..?” , Before she could
refine her speech, Sera shushes her and tells her she needs rest. They lay on
bed by each other’s side. Sera didn’t know the perfect way to explain it to her,
as she herself wasn’t quite sure of the things that had been happening. Sera
and Resa; once again, they are in each other’s company. Sera notices that Resa
smiles wider than before. She has grown warmer, but still a girl of few words. Resa
decides not to press Sera for her whereabouts among a few other things as she
thought Sera must have had her reasons for shushing her.
They decide to go on a walk like the old
times, without a destination on their mind. After walking silently for more
than half an hour, they reach a busy road. Sera’s mind has deviated elsewhere. She
has realized that the world has changed in some unknown ways; but everything was
still there. Neither anything has ceased to exist, nor has anything extra been
added to the world she knew. Things seemed odd to her but she just couldn’t point
a finger at it. Now, everything starts spinning, making her dizzy. Then
finally, it struck her. Everything was mirrored. She’s gasping for air now. She’s
unable to make sense of it. Meanwhile Resa can’t make sense of Sera’s wide
opened eyes and the dropped jaws. “Are you okay?” Resa asks Sera, “What’s the
matter?”. Sera replies without any hesitation, “I am just awestruck by the
beauty of this place”. Resa takes her word for it. “You and your love for
getting lost”, Resa says, as she nods sideways, smiling.
Resa looks closer at Sera. Sera parts her
lips slightly showing her upper teeth and squints her eyes. The longer Resa
looks at her, more she looks like she is grinding her teeth. Resa had never
looked deep into her smile. She had only taken notice of the pretty little
crinkle on her nose, formed when she smiled.
They sit beside each other at a bus stop. Resa
reminisces the first time they met, the night when she learnt to see the stars.
She turns to her side to glance at Sera. She notices now that Sera has lost a
lot of weight. The sunken eye sockets, the protruded cheek-bones. She wonders
where Sera had been all this time.
Sera pulls out White Rabbits (milk toffees)
from her pocket. Both of them gobble up the toffees. Resa is fiddling with the
wrapper while Sera is busy scrutinizing the one in her hand. Sera points out a
flaw in the design of the wrapper,” Why would they put cows in the wrapper of
white rabbit instead of rabbits? I get that cows provide us with milk, but
still rabbits would have been more relevant”. Resa stares at her for a brief moment as
though Sera admitted to committing someone’s murder. Sera raised one of her
eyebrows as if to ask “What? Why are you acting strange?”. “They ARE rabbits,
honey, not cows. How do you even see a cow?” replies Resa, with her face
clouded with questions again. As it turns out, the rabbits were the voids in
between the “cows” or rather the voids were the rabbits.
They returned to their regular chitchats
but, Sera couldn’t turn away from the fact that she had been looking at voids
instead of the images her whole life. She begins to question her life now. “What
if I’ve been looking at everything the wrong way? What if the world is in fact as
ordinary as they say? My whole life was a lie.”
One day, the girls decided to go out for a
morning walk. It was chilly. They walk in unsynchronized steps, as the sun
begins to rise from behind the trees at a local park. The half-awake reddish sun follows them as
them move ahead, all the while hiding unsuccessfully behind the silhouettes of
skeleton trees. Sera raises her pale hands and faces her palms towards the sun,
in order to warm them. “No use”, she thinks to herself, yet she still wears her
smile. Sera sees a pile of burning embers at a distance, and pulls Resa by her
elbow, rushing towards it. By the time they reach there, the embers have
already turned into ashes. Sera starts breaking down on the inside while, still
bearing the curve on her face. “Smell the ashes. Take it in. It’ll warm you up
from inside.” suggested Resa. It did
warm her up indeed. Resa takes her by surprise as she wraps her hands around
her and hugs her tightly. Sera hadn’t realized Resa’s hug was what she needed.
She couldn’t contain herself anymore and burst into tears. She weeps for a more
than an hour as she had been bottling up her feelings for a very long time.
Resa keeps comforting her without saying a single word.
After the tears have been wiped, they sit
on the steps of a pedestrian crossing bridge, eating doughnuts bought from a
nearby vendor. Sera’s hair has become messy. Resa runs her fingers through her
hair and then, tucks them behind her ears to get a better glimpse of her face.
Red-eyed Sera catches Resa looking at her and gives a smile. Resa notices that
the crinkle on Sera's nose had disappeared.
No comments:
Post a Comment