Show me your Blues.

Its Time To Tape It!

It has happened again. Again I have lost my loved one.

(I can't understand, I almost remember him taking his daily medicines. he took them last night before helping me pack all those cookies for bake sale, didn't he ? may be he took the medicine some other time. I definitely remember him going to buy them with his prescription last Saturday, when he dragged me to mall to get a new outfit for town fare. he even came back with two bags. did I check those bags? and they were too huge to be having medicines in them. how could this have happened? No! No! No! Avery you are not trying to remember hard or perhaps the town doctor Mr. Hutchings doesn't know what's he talking about..Grandpa was taking his meds regularly. yes he was. but then why? how could this have happened?)

"You know that I can hear your thoughts from even here right? because they are so loud", said Noah from the other corner of the room. " I wish you would stop thinking them Av and just talk to me"

I turned around from my place on bed, pulling my face out of the blanket cocoon, that has become my home for the last two weeks and looked at him without meeting his eyes. my blood shot eyes and frazzled appearance must have surprised him, but true to his mission he did not look away.

And he was on a mission. Without taking his eyes off me, he got up from his favorite seat on my window still and came towards the bed.

Hesitantly, taking a seat on the edge of my bed he said " its been a week since Grandpa's gone Av, seven days of you being stuck on this bed, 168 hours of you not expressing even a single emotion, 10080 minutes of you not talking to me. You surely don't think he would have appreciated seeing you get all moppy and depressed like this, do you?"

He is not going to give up, I know him well. he is my best friend, he will not give up until he gets a reaction from me. for last seven days, he has been copped up in this room with me consoling, making jokes, getting angry, apologizing, frustrating, getting angry, apologizing again, all in that same order repeatedly just to get a reaction out of me.

He is right in saying that Grandpa definitely would not have liked me mourning him in this manner. but, he doesn't understand what I am going through. he hasn't lost anyone in his life so how could he understand. its just that today he has caught me in one of my weakest moments, when I am so utterly frustrated of all these questions in my head that I think only screaming would provide me solace.

I want to go to the window and shout with all my strength, shout for Grandpa to come back or at least for him to hug me once again. I would shout all my life if only to see him coming from the garden outside and scolding me for the last time for being impatient again. how could he leave me? how could he not take better care of himself, even well knowing that he was my last family on this earth? how could he.....

And then I suddenly feel myself being ripped away from my thoughts again as I find myself falling on the hardwood floor of my bedroom. I try to upright myself by holding on to the bedsheet but all in vain.

"aah.." I cry out in a mixture of surprise and pain.

" no no no no ! Absolutely not ! you are not going back to those melancholic thoughts again. no Av." says Noah throwing my comforter towards the other side of bed. he crouches down to my eye level and takes holds of my shoulders, trying to make me look into his eyes. Jerking my shoulders toward his body he says roughly " I know what you are trying to make yourself believe, that you are all alone in this world now, Grandpa was your last family, regardless of what I say I can never understand your pain because its your pain only.. right ? have you forgotten what we promised each other ? your pain my pain, you happiness my happiness or have you forgotten so quickly what Grandpa used to say- Avery and Noah don't just share a bond but they share a soul too. have you forgotten it so easily Av? if your soul is shredded and in pain then how can mine be at peace? huh?"

After hearing the promise we made each other echo in my head, I finally look up and after 7 days, 168 hours, 10080 minutes and 604800 seconds I find myself looking into those deep blue eyes again, blues which are my beginning and my ending and they instantly unwound me. before I know it, my eyes begin to water and I feel the wetness on my dry cheeks.

Noah releases a long sigh of relief "Finally" , and then he pulls my weak body towards himself kissing on my hairline softly, bringing my loud painful sobs to the forth finally. there, I sit on his lap for I don't know how long, sobbing in his chest tightly clutching on to his shirt with all my left strength, as if afraid that my best friend would be taken from me as well.

After a few hours, when I am done I sit listlessly on his lap looking out of the window with my head his shoulder, seeing the sun set down slowly and the gray darkness taking over outside, feeling somewhat calm after so long.

Noah shifts beneath my legs, trying to get in a somewhat comfortable position against my bed, without letting go of me. Once settled in that position, he says hesitantly " we have to get out of this room eventually and face the world, or else dad is going to run out of his patience and break your bedroom door anyways. he is really worried about you Av, not just him but everyone in the whole town as well. ya may be not some of your stupid school girls but we will still have to go out and show them that you actually managed to stay alive under all those blankets" he finishes off with a forced laugh.

He then quickly adds "Hey! you know what Av ? you might finally win one of those ginnies book records for this that you always wanted when we were young."

For all his efforts to lighten the situation somehow, I am still not convinced whether I want to ever step out of this room and face the house and town without Grandpa beside me. Pressing more closely into him I utter more to myself then Noah " I want to go away"

Blessed with a great hearing that he is, I know that he heard and understood me quite well but he still tries to reply in jest " if you are talking about going to bathroom than yes you really need to take a bath Ms. stnkybags, I can only hold onto my breath for so long"

I look up at him finally in all my frazzled, red-eyed glory and say again " I want to go away" my voice breaking at the end with a lone tear falling out of my eye. Noah catches that tear with his thumb and wipes it away. He looks me in the eye, and with a soft tired smile replies "Then we will surely go away"

After a few seconds, he continues with more resoluteness " But Baby, for that you need to get up and get yourself together. I will not allow you to either wallow in misery or go back to that awful bed any more because its time to tape it"

on hearing this, I look at him quizzically not understanding what he meant.

Putting his hands carefully on my cheeks he said " It's time to pack your bags and Tape all those happy sad memories locked in one compartment of your heart so that later on we can deal with them one by one together. ok?"

I give him a tired nod in answer, trying to get up and draw courage from him to deal with the outside world.