Saathi Rey

|"Walks and Wanderings!"|

"Hoon khud se judaa main
Hoon khud se alahada
Ye aadha sa dil
Main kaise basaaun

O roothe dil, roothe dil, roothe dil
O jhoothe dil, jhoothe dil, jhoothe dil
O toote dil, toote dil, toote dil
Hai kya teri mushkil."

-Just Go To Hell Dil,
Dear Zindagi
******

(Edited)

The weather wasn't particularly nice that day. No sign of the gentle bustling breeze that would cause the trees to sway, no wind to ease her laboured breaths, to absorb her battered soul.

And yet she walked, paved her way through the weary path she trespassed upon daily, her eyes a bit lost and her feet stumbling on a stone or two, unable to quite comprehend the speed of her treacherous thoughts.

"Where do I live? Why? In what?" She thought to herself, her eyes almost invariably traveling down the length of her arm to settle on her thin, pale wrist.

There she could see her veins, the blood vessels that carried the unpurified blood back to the heart. And in there too, she could hear the voice of her heart. It wasn't loud albeit, not the typical pitter-patter she had expected to be roaring in her ears, but it wasn't some slow, gentle rhythm either. That was new! 

Her pulse was a mix of the two, a bit loud one moment, and too soft for her ears, the other.

It unsettled her. Having heard too many a heartbeat throughout her life, she knew what those drumbeats on her chest pad meant, knew of the quiet prayer emitted from the shaky lips of a weeping mother, when the sound would grow stronger or; the unrestrained shriek a sobbing wife would let out when it would fizzle out.

It hadn't been easy, she recalled, witnessing those expressions each day, listening to those guttural sounds every time her feet would step out of the Operation Theater. But, she had prevailed, forcing herself to see all of it as one giant game.  A triviality, wherein results did not matter. Only efforts did. 

Her profession, after all, demanded nothing otherwise. Promises could die out, empty and hollow. Emotions had no role. Sentimentality could cost lives. No wonder, the world praised her so vehemently for her ability to understand the heart, its complexities and whimsicalities, its strengths and weaknesses.

And yet, today, as she put her wrist to her ear, she felt an unsettling lurch. As if she would sink, drown into an unending abyss, go further and deeper down into that brown, murky water, and never come out. Inhale. Inside, air whooshing through the nostrils, to the heart. White, clear, pure-

Exhale. Darkness, nothing in sight. Black. Fear. Panic.

Abruptly, she crossed her fingers, yanking herself out of the black hole that she knew would pretty soon destroy her very existence, which made her question herself, every day. How long? Why? Why me? 

Her questions were growing desperate by the second, the noise in her ears rising, and her visions dizzier. Just a bit more. Only till her room. Bed. Lie Down. Deep Breaths, Calm down, no more, In-

Warm slender fingers suddenly slid onto her own, and startled, she looked up. Only to find herself staring intently into his deep black eyes. Swirling orbs, full of mystery, yet alight with that tint of love she had come to associate as her own. His love for her. Strong, compassionate, and unwavering. It distracted her, but only for a moment. The monster in her chest, was rising again. She could feel it, hear its ugly laugh in her head.

"Wha-What are you doing here? How many times do I have to tell you, Khadoos Shergill, I don't like people interrupting my alone time, whether on the terrace or here! Don't you know that?" Her voice sounded foreign to her ears, loud and high-pitched, and involuntarily, she winced. Failure. Loser. No perfect mask. Breakable. Like Glass.