As He Closed The Doors

As He Closed The Door

It burned.

That area where her soft, snowy palms with its dainty fingers had landed in the most contrasting and baffling manner possible. As if, even those hands were, in reflex, in an abrupt moment of impulse, made to do something that was uncharacteristic of it. Just as much as it was for the fuming owner of the same. It burned for so many reasons, some seemingly fathomable to him some beyond comprehension in that moment of daze.
It was more than just a slap.

Burns are but the progeny of fire, having the capacity to intoxicate, captivate, bless and then have the exact obverse effect on the one it is in possession of.

Khan Murtasim Khan had burned. Burned for this woman in every sense of the word since....well, weirdly he could never really put his finger on the exact moment since when this fire found its fuel to feed on.

 Was it a deep seated attraction found in the tentacles of disapproval and consistent bickerings, imbibed in his young heart since the early days of their childhood? Or Maybe it was in the exact moment she had stepped out from Waqas Ahmed's luxurious car on his first Eid at Hyderabad upon his return from London post graduation .

Decked in a pastel lavender designer anarkali, the colour getting accentuated against the milky rose tinted hue of her skin, those long raven locks let loose on her petite yet firm silhouette, those large doe eyes -
-          those eyes and the confident virtuous chocolate in them strong in its intelligence  composure and kindness –
 
her rose bud lips pursed together in a line of cloaked disapproval, the lapse of the years only bringing out the absolute potential of her beauty and grace. And her guroor... always her guroor over the person she was. And as much as he hated to admit, rightfully so.

Beautiful. Vivacious. Audacious. Authentic. Sensually flawed that only heightened her appeal, she had never failed to vex him for too many reasons to list and more so, he himself found it to be a subject of fierce frustration as to how dangerously attracted he was to her. To Every single thing about her. It’s just that he had chosen to ignore and turn down those insane, inconvenient suggestions marking them to be too absurd, too bizarre an impossibility to even consider.

Until the day, that one moment where he owned up to the reality of how hard it ached when her heart pained. When he knew how much he wanted, no needed her prayers to get answered -anything...anything if that would have her smile, scowl, smirk, argue, jibe ,giggle – anything, for Meerub to not feel lost. To be alive as herself, her head held high.

Therefore it could have even been that one unrivalled instance in the dargah when during the namaz she had raised her moist, tear brimmed eyes to meet his awed smouldering ones. In that lingering moment he had perceived nothing short of an insight into her soul. Something which he knew was a rare happening in Meerub's case. She did not allow that privilege to just about anyone. There, He had felt it all. Every bit of the devastation, the heartbreak, the helplessness, the utter viciousness of it all – her eyes had resonated and his ,deservedly perceived.
 
There could have been all too many instances, those uncountable possibilities since when it could have all begun but in the end it burns down to that one indubitable truth – He burns for her. He fell in love with her. Every cell of his being, every inch of his existence called out her name. She was the dream, the “chahat" that he could chase without the burdens of the world or the shackles of the society hindering his way. She was his life ,the worthy feed to the primal, animalistic fire in him. His wife. His pride. His Jaan. His Meerub. Murtasim's Meerub. His. Only and only His. That one person, that one chapter of the narration that he could really call his own ,fight for as his own and chase as his own.
 
Yet here they stand.
In an ugly twisted, labyrinth of virulent situations, of repressed emotions, the turbulence of it all growing – emerging as a potent threat to everything they had and are to have, still. The forces of fate cruelly lashing at them, making them bleed their sanity out. Sometimes in the form of the fiasco instrumented by Malik Zubair, sometimes in the form of the leech that Rohail was. Undoubtedly a cheap, unworthy yet undeniably a vicious blow on Murtasim Khan’s obsessive possessive love, his passion and above all the deep seated insecurity he held against his wife. The final blow on the coffin, however, left them standing in the present situation-baffled and lost.
 
Haya. Again.
 Yet this time, for the first time, Meerub's response did not simply bespoke of jealousy – it was the crazed ,devastated flare of a woman passionately in love. She knows now that the poets had always been right, women(or men alike)in love fail to see reason and in all likelihood, justifiably so. Her response came out of that exact same deranged frenzy that made Murtasim ask her to jump off the roof to prove her innocence. Whether they trusted each other or not, hardly mattered. It wasn’t that simple and with them? They never did well with the word, ever. No, he wasn’t thinking that day. The deceptive cold composure and insensitivity of his was only but a failed stifle of the catastrophe he held within.