The Exilir And The Poison

Chapter 15: Silence

Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.

Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge
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The afternoon sun slowly begins to dip down, the color of the sky turning orange from pale yellow, mountains nothing but a dwindling haze of the blue and green. The sky is partly covered with the clouds, auguring another round of spring rain. His heart pounds, furious tears kept at bay for too long begin to betray him, questions rise and disappear like ghosts in his room, visions blur, his feet wobbly, sweat beads covering his face. Despite the doctor’s words on taking precaution, Ranveer paces in his room, ignoring the chill that settles around him, his fingers moving towards the drawer with her photographs, willing to get rid of them finally, but unable to make a move. He kicks the footboard of the bed, paying no attention to the explosion of the pain it bring along. His heart must explode any moment now. But it doesn’t.

Ranveer sighs. No tears. No tears. He repeats the words again and again. With great effort, he manages to push back the remains of the emotions, suddenly feeling empty and devoid of everything he has known so far. Life didn’t have to be like this. He looks up in the sky, wondering what wrong had he done. Whom had he hurt to deserve this.

You’re all alone.

See? I told you. Nobody loves you.

You’ll never escape from what you did to me.

“Just stop!” Ranveer mumbles in the darkness, sweating heavily. Where’s Nitin? He hasn’t been around lately. For a moment, Ranveer stands still, wondering to himself if his own aloofness has pushed his only friend away from him forever, if he should have behaved differently. Ranveer regrets not being able to thank him, deep down realizing he deserves this. No one can stick with someone like him. No one.

Ranveer picks up a magazine, pretending to be reading something although the words swim in front of his eyes, take unintelligible shapes and disappear like distant stars blinking in the night. He slams the magazine on the bed, closing his hands in a fist, and barely controls himself before a knock on the door disturbs him. Again. Open the door! His inner voice suggests. He ignores it.

Ranveer finally closes his eyes, falling down, holding his head down, making his best efforts to forgot everything, forget Ishaani, forget his own self — for a moment he wants to pretend things aren’t spiraling out of his control. But all in vain. Peace isn’t an option for him; in another lifetime, it sure would be a privilege he had missed in this one. Hours have passed by since he found Ishaani asleep in the hall on the sofa early this morning, covered in a warm blanket, lightly stirring but not waking up. He knew she was there in this house, but hadn’t been able to muster courage to face her. Eventually, realizing it was inevitable, Ranveer staggered out of his room only to pause in his tracks before the space she slept. He looked at her for a long time, his vision fogged with the memories of their past encounters, questions rising and falling in his head. What he realized eventually, however, was how his breath did not hitch at her sight; how his heartbeats didn’t still seeing her there before him. It must be a dream, he told himself, like always, an alternate reality untouched from reality. The image of Ishaani he had had in his mind was entirely different. In spite of himself, Ranveer walked to Ishaani, kneeled before her, trying to remember the days before she left, why he had been hurting so much all this time without her, but it seemed he was blank about everything that concerned her. Strange. There was a time their memories were all he had— their marriage, their childhood, their changed dynamics; and how he had tried to hold onto his rapidly slipping life from the cracks of uncertainty, held onto the memories that pricked and mocked him. Every day, he had tried to remind her of their life that she chose to pretend had never happened but failed. The rage, pain, anguish he had felt before seeing her had finally vanished. His heart did not beat. He touched her palm, as though out of an old habit that he did not remember, and pressed his thumb into her skin, wanting to feel the lost emotions only she could evoke. It did nothing to him, did not enforce the same old feeling he associated only with this woman for as long as he could remember. But for the first time, he did not panic. It meant he was moving on. His life did not revolve around Ishaani anymore.