The Green Fields

Chapter 3

Thunder rumbled throughout the dark sky. Occasional lightning flashes illuminated the city in front of him, making day out of the night, as the rain washed it clean. Armaan stood at the balcony, an empty cup in his hand looking out at this little game of darkness and light. Gusts of watery wind often sprayed across his face but he didn’t mind it. His gaze was fixed outwards, watching the nature as it wailed and wept out its heavy heart.

The door bell rang, making Armaan look back inside the house. He came in, closing the door to the balcony behind him. As he walked past the sofa, he leaned over it to keep the cup on the table at front. He knew who it was the moment the bell rang. It often felt strange to him, how he always knew when she arrived but he never bothered to spend a minute thinking about it. He went ahead and opened the door to a rain drenched Ankita, who stood dripping water all over the place.

“Where’s your umbrella?” he mocked, standing aside as she entered.

“Where’s the towel?” she replied, rushing past him and into the bedroom, leaving a wet trail of footprints behind her. Smiling, he closed the door.

He picked up her wet sandals that lay messed out on the floor where she had removed them in a hurry and stacked them at the corner. In the drawing room, he picked up his cup from the table and walked towards the bedroom door. Her purse and another bag, both wet, lay resting against the wall. He looked in through the open door at her bare back as she removed the wet dress over her head. The white straps of her bra disappeared behind clunks of wet hair that stuck to her skin just beneath her shoulders. She rolled the suit into a bundle before dropping it to the floor. The bedroom light glistened across her wet skin as her fingers worked at the knot at her waistband. She struggled with it for a while before succeeding and it too dropped to the floor into a pile around her bare legs.

“Do you want some tea?” Armaan asked, still standing at the door.

She looked up at him as she freed her legs from the messy entanglements and picked up the clothes along with the towel that lay on the bed. “Yes please. Make me one of your specials,” she said and went into the washroom. Armaan nodded and started towards the kitchen.

As we waited for the water to boil over the oven, he wondered about what had just occurred. He was surprised at the lack of desire that he felt within him. The feeling wasn’t alien to him, but its realization sure made him startle. If it had been those early years, when he was just a massive pile of raging hormones and raw untamed emotions, he was sure a sight like that was enough to get him going. If it was a moment in the past, he could have sworn, the outcome would have been totally different. There would have been another pile, of heaving bodies, right beside the one of wet clothes. What had changed then? Between the present and the past? That is what he wondered. It was the same for her as well, he knew. They sure had their moments in the past, moments that he remembered vividly and the one thing that stood contrastingly out, was the lack of shyness in her eyes. The more he thought about it, the more definite he got. Finally he concluded at a very simple truth that had been staring at him from the very start. They had outgrown their individual feelings, thus developing it into such a mutual understanding where their inner self wasn’t veiled out to each other. The comfort that they shared, their intimate compatibility, has led to such unspoken clarity that can never undermine any hidden feelings. Thinking about it, made him smile. He felt lucky, to have found someone like her and to have build such a beautiful relationship together. Then, he added the tea leaves to the boiling water.

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Yet another sleepless night, Armaan thought, as he tossed and turned restlessly beside his sleeping wife.