If it's not forever...it's not love

I Am Still Awake

Deb's P.O.V

I can feel the soft skin of Avantika's hands running over my chest. She is sleeping, tired from what we finished about an hour ago. Avantika has always been good in bed. Over the last five years, she has only gotten better. Even tonight, when she crept up on the bed, her eyes dripping with passion and her hands going to all the places they should have been, I felt like a man bereft of love since eternity. It had taken me just a few seconds to rip every shred of cloth off her and subject her to pain and ecstasy.
     She was incredible with her hands, her tongue, and her body tonight. I know the reason. She wanted to tire me out and make me sleep. She had her reason. She was getting worried about me. I was getting worried about me. I have not slept for the last fifteen days. Neither have I been to my office or the gym. She was afraid that I might fall sick.
     Last night, she asked me to see a psychologist or a therapist. I was totally averse to the idea.

'Are you sure you don't want to see a therapist?' She had asked.
'No! I have not gone mad yet.'
'But Deb, you need help,' she said. 'You have not slept since the blast.'
     'I am trying, Avantika. It's just that I can't manage to push those images out of my head'.
'What images? You want to talk about it?'
'So you will be my therapist?' I smirked.
'I can try,' she said and gave me one of her trademark cute smiles.
I paused for a while and then started to talk.
    'Umm... there.... there....were people who were looking at me. With no hands, or legs, or whose stomach were blown apart...they were begging for help. And I could do was stare. I wish I could have saved them....At least one of them.....'
    'It's not your fault,Deb.'
    'I know. But those faces, those eyes that looked at me with sheer horror in them, they want me to help them. I... I....just can't forget that. There was a small kid who tried getting up thrice, but his legs were blown off from below his knees. He... he was bleeding. He looked at me. He was crying, screaming.... and then went silent..... his eyes went vacant as he lay there in a pool of his own blood. I couldn't do anything. There were scores of people like that kid... they wanted me to help them...' My voice trailed off.
     'They did not want you to help, Deb. They wanted anyone to help them, and you were there. But it was not your fault that you could not be of help. No one would have been.... It is not your fault. You're only human....' Avantika said.
  She came close and hugged me. I closed my eyes and those images flashed in front my eyes. 'I wish I had saved just one of them.'
      Maybe I did need to see a therapist. It is not that I have not tried sleeping. Sex. Sleeping pills. Nothing worked. Ever since that day, the images have been hunting me. I don't understand why it is taking me so long to recover. I never though I was so weak. Why should I care about unknown dead people and their families? I mean – who does that, right? I should go on with my life and forget what happened. After all, I am alive. Why should I care about others? I know I should move on. But that's exactly what I have not been doing.
                                ******
Avantika is happy today. I am smiling today, although forcefully. She thinks it is the sex from last night. Yes, it was good, but that is not the reason. It is just that I don't want to end up crazy. It was just a blast, right? It happens every month somewhere or the other. People die. Some more painfully than others. Big deal! I have to forget that day. I have to get over it. Many people have. It should not be too hard for me either.
     'Are you feeling better, baby?' Avantika asks. She is wearing a skimpy, silver night suit with white lacy embroidery on it. I a sure she expects me to skip breakfast and make love to her. At least a shower together. I can sense it in her eyes, in her lingering touches and her quite whispers. However, I have to disappoint her today. I have to leave for office and not think about the blast.
    'Yes, I am,' I say. 'Can you pack the breakfast? I will have it on the way?'
     'You are going to office? Are you sure?' She asks.
'Yes,' I say and get up. I can see Avantika's face droop. Obviously! I should have been making sweet love to her and not be thinking about what happened fifteen days earlier, but I cannot help it. I take my bag and leave the house.
             *******************
'Deb?' Shrey picks up the call and says.
'Yes, I am coming to office.'
'You are? Everything fine now?'he asks.
'Yes,' I say.
    It is embarrassing to admit to your guy friends that you are bothered with such petty things. People die every day. It takes only one gesture to lose all respect as far as being macho is concerned. You can lift ridiculous weights in the gym and stop trains barehanded all your life, but the moment someone spots a pink stuffed toy in your hand, you are screwed for life. The blast was the pink stuffed toy for me. I faltered. I am screwed for life.
   After all, for everyone else, it was just a boom blast, and I was at least 200 feet away! I spent fifteen day locked up scared like a little kid. I had lost all my machoness.
   I look out of the cab. It has been long since I stepped into one of these. But now, for few days, this will have to be my mode of transport. My car was burnt beyond recognition. Call me a sissy, but I was little sceptical about the cab too. Who knows? Another boom carrier?
    The cab takes a different route. It takes left, and I see the blast site from a distance. The car are still lined up in their burnt state there and my car is amongst them.
'Excuse me, can you drop me there?' I ask him and point to the parking lot.
     The cab driver nods and heads there. I pay him 2 dollar more than the fare and get down. He smiles. I hoped I would feel good after helping a stranger and making him smile..... Something that I couldn't do that day. But nothing changes. Money can't buy you happiness. But it does buy terrorists stuff to make boom for. I am pissed at myself. Why can't I think about anything else?
      I walk towards where my car was parked that day. Everything has returned to normalcy. The blood has been washed off the streets. People have found places to park their bikes amongst the burn cars. There are hawkers on the street again. I am sure some of them are missing.
   I trudge my feet towards the place where the boom had gone off. The ground is black, charred and there is a huge crater there. I could have been there , I think.
   I no longer want to go to office again. I take a deep breath and started walking close to the pavement. There is a guy cleaning the street. I wonder if he was around that day. He seems unfazed. Life goes on for him.
    
  'Watch it!' The cleaner shouts out as I step and stumble over a dustbin.
    'Fuck,' I say to myself and get up. My shirt is ruined and I curse the road. It is just not one of my better days. The road cleaner helps me up and I smile at him. I thank him and keep walking ahead. Suddenly, a voice call out from behind.
        'Hold on!'
   I look back to see cleaner running to me, waving his hand frantically. He is carrying a notebook in his hands. He show it to me and asks,'Is it yours?'
      I look at it. It is a diary, which is in tatters. The back cover is totally burn and its edges has been consumed by the fire. I stare at it for a while. It must have dropped out of the dustbin I had just stumbled over. I look at it again. I want to shake my head and walk away, but I can't.
     'Yes, its is mine', I say, take the diary from him and thank him. I take out a three-dollar note out of my wallet and it to him. He smiles, thank me, and walks away. I clutch the diary and wait on the side of the pavement for an cab. The sides of pages of the diary crumble in my hands and are reduced to ashes.
    The sun has come out and I start to sweat. I look at the diary. It has nothing written on the cover, except the year, 2010, which has faded too.
There is no cab in sight. I sit on the pavement and flip through the contests. It is almost full. The first few pages are damaged beyond recognition. The top right corners of the pages keep  crumbling into charcoal.
     I stare at the burn diary. This diary is of someone who must have gotten seriously hurt in that day's blast, I think. Not many people survived the blast; I was one of the few who did. The diary is in bad shape, it Doesn't look like the person to whom it belongs would have survived the blast. I open the first unburned page. There is no name.
     Just the initials –– RD.

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