The Journey (2016)

The Absence

Not proofread or edited. Definitely not well-thought out.

"Adhura hoke bhi, hai ishq mera kaamil

Tere bina guzara, ae dil hai mushkil"

- Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

The Absence

The pitter-patter on the windows woke him up slowly. His eyes were warm due to the lack of sleep. He pressed his palms to his face and took a deep breath. Just as he sat up to freshen up, his phone vibrated somewhere under the blanket. He found it after a bit of annoyed search and answered the phone without looking at the caller-ID.

"Hello?" He answered with a groggy voice and cleared his throat.

"Nikhil!" The voice sounded troubled, making Nikhil sit up straight, his eyes already clearing of drowsiness. The last time he had talked to his uncle was months ago. He had immersed himself in work for the past two years and all his relationships seemed to have dropped to the last place in priorities. Ever since his dad moved back to India, Nikhil found himself rarely going back home. He spent the day trying to come up with new ideas and holding creative meetings.

Relationships are like plants. If you stop watering them, they will dry out and disappear with the wind.

It wasn't that he had something against everybody. It was his thoughts. They scratched at his conscience, at his heart and at everything that ever brought him pleasure. He thought he had lost that Nikhil, that Neil, forever. He had accepted it as a change that comes with growing up.

But about a year later every feeling rushed back as he answered.

"Rahul uncle? Is everything alright?"

"She ran away."

As the flight took off, he closed his eyes and lay his head back on the seat to avoid looking at the sun that shone like an orange outside. Nikhil couldn't look at the stars anymore. He can't seem to recall when exactly. He used to stare into the distance from his suite's window for hours but somewhere along the way his eyes had started to turn away every time they connected with the clouds, or stars or even the sky itself.

He didn't want to forget her.

He had smiled that night and with a sigh accepted his defeat. He told himself the time they spent together will become a beautiful memory and he will preserve it for the rest of his life as a good dream coming true. He had promised himself he will never let it turn into pain.

He used to smile every time he walked through a bookstore but soon the orange cover of the novel she ran away with started to crumble his will. He used to sigh with a beautiful feeling every time he felt rain drops on his face but soon his peace was shaken by a sudden need to hold her close. He used to stare out at the sunsets and feel a little closer to the memories he cherished with her but one time he sat against his bed staring outside the window on the 26th floor of his hotel and only felt the ache in his heart when the sun started to rise again.

He couldn't have fallen in love with her. They hadn't spent enough days together to feel like his world was crashing. Maybe this is what Raj was talking about when he described his feeling of jumping out of the helicopter. It scares the shit out of you when you're falling but once you make it to the ground, all you want to do is fly back up there and jump again and again.