Angeline - His Uninvited Queen ✅

52 - The Clue

Arun's POV:

The forest swallowed the remnants of light, enveloping us with a darkness as if it was late night by evening 5.30 itself. There was no one as far as our eyes could see. The air was filled with only the music of birds, rustling leaves and the waterfall. Me and Dinesh were sitting on a rock, dipping our feet in the running stream of water while the flashlight of our mobiles was spreading a dim light around us. While the soft stream of chill water sent a tranquility to my body, my mind was somewhere else, my eyes staring at the running water. I was also running like that water for the 31 years of my life from my birth, without a respite except my fleeting restful moments of three years with Diya. I started running again, this time in a more hurdled path.

Dinesh shouted dramatically, covering his mouth between his palms. "Oooooo..."

I startled as if some ghost attacked me and frowned at him. "Dinu, why are you doing like this? I thought some ghost came."

"You believe in ghosts??" He laughed.

I blew the air and shook my head. "No. But the echoing sound out of nowhere in the middle of a forest made me feel like that."

He laughed and shouted again. "Ooooooo..."

The air echoed his voice. This time I laughed.

"You too shout, anna." He laughed. "It's a thrill to hear our own echoing voice in the forest."

"No. It's childish."

He frowned. "Anna, why are you being like a frustrated old man? You are just 30 na?"

"31," I replied.

He rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Too old to enjoy life." and then frowned. "Shout with me, anna."

"No."

He scrunched his nose. "Is it your nature? Or you changed after your wife's death."

"Changed," I replied, picking pebbles in my hands for my children. Pari and Mahi had a fish tank in our home. They would love to decorate it with shining natural pebbles, I knew.

Dinesh's voice was saddened. "I think you should have married late. My cousin brother is 32 now. Now only he is going to marry next month. But you married when you were young, had children, lost your wife and became like this in 31 itself."

I let out a sarcastic smile. "Yes. If I thought about marrying late, my wife would have been living now. It was my mistake to marry her when she was just 21. And she died at 24."

His voice turned exasperated. "Oh god! Anna, I said something and you are taking it to another route. Know a thing. No decisions can change our fate. My mom would say that everyone is born with a certain fate and that fate will definitely win in the end. She would tell a story for it. The story is, the God of death, Yama was staring at a little sparrow. Garuda noticed it and thought that Yama was going to kill the sparrow and in an attempt to save the sparrow, Garuda carried the sparrow to a place which was a thousand miles away and kept the sparrow safely in a nest of a tree. Instantly, a snake from the nest stung the sparrow and it died. Karuda was dismayed and felt guilty for bringing the sparrow there. Yama noticed it and said to Garuda, 'I was staring at the sparrow because its fate was written as it is going to die soon in the place which is a thousand miles away from its present location. I was wondering how it was going to happen. Finally, It happened as per fate.' So, Anna...Whatever is written for us in our fate will happen anyway. None of our decisions to escape from it can win against it. Even if you didn't marry your wife, she would have married any others and died at 24 in the same delivery complications. Take it positively that the lovely you married her and filled her life with all the happiness before she left the earth."