Land Of Lines

7

The cigarette smoke curled upwards, reaching out like a wisp of a ghostly arm towards the night sky. The hoot of an owl floating from afar mixed itself with numbing strain of silence.

I walked back into the room and closed the door behind me. I went up to the window and pulled the curtains too, blocking off the thin strand of moonlight which alighted on the bed. I wanted darkness.

I laid back on the bed, staring into nothingness. No sound, no light, nobody except me. My left hand reached for my right wrist again, with the dumbfounded hope of touching the bracelet only to withdraw in a sudden spark of realization. I laid like that for sometime- still, quiet, unmoving and wide awake.

Time passed by, nothing changed. It was as if mixed with the emptiness of the room, I could still hear me and Shraddha laughing, talking, enjoying. As if the memories entrapped within the bricks bled out upon me just to torment my soul even more. The silence screamed in my ears, isolation pierced my skin like spikes. I picked up the pillow and buried my face in it, shouting as loud I could. I just wanted someone to speak, another soul to be by my side, this silence to end. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Rage soon replaced the blithering pain. Did Shraddha know how I felt right now? Did she even care? She was probably sound asleep right now in her parent’s home while I tremored in all the pain she had inflicted upon me. I hated her. I wanted her to just die. That selfish bitch.

I shook my head. There was no use thinking of all this. I took out the cigarette packet and took out another cigarette, still staring into nothingness.

Our life had pretty much returned to mundane after our second trip to Taki. All the hope we had of reinventing our romance had expectedly collapsed. The worst part was that even though in our heart of hearts both of us knew that the trip was just a momentary spark of adventure, both of us still had to go on pretending that it had made us fall in love again. I don’t know if it was for the sake of others or just for ourselves. It was a pretension that seemingly originated arbitrarily but seemed to drag on forever. Hence we smiled more often at each other, kissed more often, more passionately and put in more effort to dissimulate the lost pleasure during sex. It was if we were determined to convince ourselves that the trip had not been a waste.
My theatre group had been disbanded. Lack of funds, lack of audience and conflicting interests had torn my baby apart leaving a hollow in my heart. The phase of depression that I went through after that coupled with the strenuous effort to bring the group back together interfered with my job leading to increased absenteeism . I paid less attention at meetings, was late in completing my assignments and messed up important errands. For many such incidents I finally lost my job too.

Things on the other hand had started going well for Shraddha. The chancellor’s wife daunted by the excess crowd at the ‘Ashiyana’ had made a gamble and gave my wife’s boutique a chance to stitch a dress. She had been left so awestruck by the work done that she went about recommending the boutique to a whole lot of ladies at the kitty parties, commending the low price and the excellent professional work done. Soon enough business was booming and Shraddha collected enough funds to buy another small store near Gariahat. She started advertising in the newspapers and the radio. Hoardings were put up in various parts of Kolkata. Handloom fashion stores became a renowned brand. What had started as a small struggling business had expanded into a thriving business with numerous outlets around Kolkata.

While things went downhill with me, Shraddha was always beside me. She was genuinely concerned for my health when I refused to eat and had the patience to sit beside me and talk to me the entire night to help me get over my gloom.

However my wife’s fast growing success and my own apparent worthlessness was not hidden to the world. To any party or wedding ceremony we went to, it was not difficult to listen to the gossips that went on behind my back. Whispers shaming my state, chats of astonishment of how the husband of such a fascinating entrepreneur could be so utterly useless. This thought kept bugging me day and night  till finally
Shraddha’s consolation also turned shameful for me. Her words of support seemed like mockery to me. As a result I shut myself from even the one who wanted to help.