The Falling Petals...🌺

Even-when-I-laugh-I-taste-my-own-tears...

"For past few hours, we were seeing the signs of improvement in her, but all of a sudden, her blood pressure fell down drastically. The impact was so much that it led to her heart collapse," said the doctors.

The family wanted to see her. The doctors said they couldn't hand over the body to the family. (Did you notice? Yes, body. That's what they said. She no longer had a name. She was just a body. A dead body.)

It was an accident and the police had to be involved, there were legal formalities to be taken care of, after which her body was to be taken for the postmortem. The family pleaded with them to spare her from the autopsy, but the authorities drove her to a place where the rest of her mortal remains were torn apart.

Far away from all that was happening, I was still in a state of shock. The truth was so hard to accept. I don't know what happened later, but I could imagine what was happening at her place ... I heard those cries of pain around me.

I saw her fingers, and I clutched at her ring in my right pocket. I saw her being swathed in white and I grabbed her colourful dress close to my heart. Something within me was going numb, realizing that I could not be there during her last moments.

Moments later, I could feel that something innocent was being burnt. I didn't even get a chance to kiss her dead hand ... A dead silence persisted in my house. Unlike me, my parents cried in private, for they had to strengthen me. They didn't even get to see the girl their son wanted to marry.

In the evening, Dad booked the tickets and the next day, both of us left for Busan.

A day later, in the afternoon, I opened the door to their house. Amidst everyone (I didn't know them all), I noticed her mom and I rushed to hug her, before we both burst into tears. The irony of it ... The home, which was going to sparkle in celebration of their daughter's marriage, had such a different atmosphere now. People in dull clothes sat on a giant mattress on the floor of the vacant drawing room.

There were whispers and there were sudden cries. And there were those eyes in which the tears had dried up. A curse had fallen upon us all. Amid the ordeal of surviving without her, at her home, the very place where she was brought up and nurtured, my day passed somehow. Evening approached. More distant relatives, more acquaintances had arrived. And this led to more cries and more tears.

Seeing all this, I wanted to run away to some place where I could be alone with just her memories for company ... to room 301 maybe ... Everything was so unbelievable. Yet, it was real. It got dark at about eight. I was at a photo-studio getting a picture of my dead girlfriend framed, to keep in the funeral home during the last prayer for her, scheduled for the next day. Guess which picture ...?

It was one of those, which she stayed awake till dawn to send me, when I was in my US office. Never in my worst nightmare could I have thought that someday I'd be using her picture for this purpose.

When the shopkeeper handed me the frame, I happened to look into her eyes in that picture. They were beautiful. Seconds later, I felt Ami unnie's fingers wiping my wet eyelashes. We paid and left for home.

The next day, we all assembled in the funeral home. A last prayer for the peace of her departed soul. The moment I entered; my gaze fell upon her photograph which was now decked with flowers. No one on earth would want to see his girlfriend's picture decked with flowers. It just kills you. And it's so hard to face this truth again and again and, yet, restrain yourself in front of everybody. She still appeared so beautiful. Everyone gathered there was dressed in black. A few people were praying.

When I passed by the row of ladies, I heard a few murmurs, "This is the guy who was going to marry her." I heard but I ignored them and made my way to the extreme corner, away from my dad, her dad, her family and God.