He was adrift in a sea of indecision. Life was a sinkhole and he was sinking further into the morass of a jaded existence. Lonely despite friends and sad despite the smiles. Directionless and vague ambitions and plans for the future. Existential crisis, quarter life crisis or whatever it may be termed he had diagnosed himself as depressed and the best times of his life seemed behind him. Corporate life seemed like purgatory; in fact his continued existence itself was hinged on his non-belief in God, heaven or hell and an afterlife. He was discontent and angry with himself and the randomness of the universe at large. He regarded the universe as an indifferent being which didn’t care about its’ inhabitants at all and everything was just a random sequence of events to be endured till his last breath was snuffed out by the tides of time and entropy.
Then he met Her.
She came like the fresh life of spring into his life. She was beset with her own stories of successes and failures, her logical and illogical insecurities, joys and sorrows, trials and tribulations, ambitions and whims. She was as fragrant as Petrichor as the rain of requited love fell onto the parched soil of his soul. She was new life and death of an old solitary one. She was heaven and the release from purgatory. She was smiles, she was tears. She was the balm that healed him on the worst of days and the song that soothed his frazzled senses. She was a dream, a vocal answer to his silent scream. She was purpose, she was hope. She was the woman. The one, love of his life, his breath, his desire. His lover, parent, child and sibling.
She was the woman. The one. She was everything.
He hadn’t imagined such happiness to be possible. Especially not for himself. He remembered his journey and the milestones. In his quest for something he had found nothing, and he was disappointed as he had wanted something. Then he had decided he would be a drifter and seek nothing. In his quest for nothing he had found something, something really special and he was confused initially but then he accepted that the universe may be random and brutal but sometimes , just sometimes, the dice were loaded in his favour.
The discovery of her was so precious to him. He was almost afraid that it was all a cosmic joke. But then she stayed.
He was never alone again and he finally knew what the opposite of loneliness was , what happiness was. What it was to be so invested in somebody that every waking moment without them was an eternity in hell. That being with them was a little slice of heaven and perhaps the only heaven that actually existed. He would have laughed at any suggestion of planning a future with someone before her. Now it came naturally. Life had taken a strange turn but for the good this time. He had her by his side despite the fact that cold rational thinking would have required her to leave.
Her laughter was the only music he would ever need and the most beautiful background track he wanted to fill the rest of his days with.He smiled. Genuinely, as he was prone to doing nowadays. For he was crazy and so was she. He remembered a line from one of his favorite movies. Rick from “Casablanca”- “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
And what a great friendship they were forging. He was alive once again and not just a blip on the linear timelines of some other lives. Being happy , being a human, being sane, it all boiled down to being with “Her”.
By- Aseem Mahajan
