A strange feeling is seizing my mind, a mixed reaction for the days to come. I’ll be alone, left completely on my own. It’s been a while since I tasted solitude. At the farthest scratch it lasted only few hours before my domestic would show up. Like a five year old she would throw questions to anything I’d say. Her query would be repeated again in a few days, the same one that I resolved only the other day. She has problems registering anything told once. Even repeated a few times over would make an impression only for a few days or weeks at the best. She is travelling to her hometown to see her parents.
For over ten days in a stretch, I’ll be coming home in an empty house. I would miss her company and a companion. My office life would remain un-gossiped. Speculations would have to wait. It’ll be silent with no one asking queer things and with me not having to talk in order to reply. I’ll be enveloped in a sphere of my own. Last time she travelled was over a year back. She had taken that trip without informing. I hadn’t handled the change very well. What I got into in those two months is something I would never imagine myself getting into… but, I did. It was an experience alright.
Of all the sorrows I earned here, she is a witness; more like the walls of this house… mute, yet observing.
Each time she took a vacation, I stepped out a certain distance off this maze. I am the weaver and the un- weaving happens just as she skips states. The relevance remains to be an unresolved mystery. Something moves forward in a direction unchartered yet pulling me out of this loom. I realise then; I exist. She’s one of my real relationships and the only acquired one. Friends don’t meet every day or for years ongoing. So far, I have been careful to not get clicked in the same frame. Geographic distance closes in to balance the proximity in the picture captured. I find it cruel! I love being photographed and with people and yet, that does it. That marks the end of it; sometimes, in real way.
She’s left for the day. She’ll start her travel tomorrow and I feel a change trying to cave in already. I’m a bit anxious to know the nature of it. I know there isn’t any way to predict the course of events to follow and given how fast my mind is whirling, I think I could take a vacation myself. That’s what she wished before she left. I have only a single day off in these eleven days to come; so the possibility seems bleak. She had another theory then: how about if I am sent on an on job training. We’ll see. The very fact that she is only a phone-call away and thirty minutes on foot if I were to reach out still is re- assuring. She is a part of this sand clock life. Time runs out and the clock is turned to start again, there’s no escape for the sand trapped within.
I see myself in her; naïve and vulnerable. The degree of intelligence varies and yet, I haven’t achieved as much to say so out loud. What I did ever; is lost, without consent. Next was me breaking into dust gathered at a corner for long enough to have got swept. In my case, the particles assembled into a shape and life breathed into it. She alone stands sole audience to this ordeal, of all the others. Overall, it isn’t as bad as it looks. I achieved a few things long pending, including my self
I’m sort of planning my days ahead. I know what I’ll be packing for tiffin. I’ll decide my outfits on daily basis. I’m not seeing myself eating much back home. I’ll go on a detox diet. I’m thinking about what I shall brood upon. This is what I was referring to- my mind wanderings!
On the other side, I’m happy for her. She didn’t know how to go beyond the houses she worked in. Today, after six years, she is equipped enough to travel all by herself. She is independent- financially and morally. I hope Universe is watching and preparing my share of returns of it.
Olivia's life instances... 