Previously known as Querencia.
Poets, as often as they say, they said the truth. Love cannot be controlled or planned. It comes like rain on a sunny day; an unseasoned downpour. Like a gust of harsh wind on a heated day. It comes with a painful epi...
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چلو تم راز ہو اپنا تہے افشا نہیں کرتے
***
Flashback
The house was decorated with all yellow/orange fairy lights, flowers adorned each cavity. The happiness that surrounded the place knew no bounds. Songs were being sung, dance we're being danced, people were talking and eating vermicelli, loud happy yells resonated the house, laughter echoed in every hallway. Hearts were thinking loudly and smiles were limitless-this was the house where a wedding will take place- all we're happy. Except for him. He was shallow and smiled just to hide his pain. He was all happy from the exterior but the insides were rotting and burning in pain. His heart was bleeding. Agony surrounded his being. He was helping everyone with the works that needed to be done before they come, he did all of it, every single task he had been assigned to, he completed it all. Ignoring the silent pleas of his heart, he stayed and endured. His heart dying a thousand deaths each second, he still stayed. Nothing could surpass his grief. People mourn the death of another soul, he mourned for his own. Oh, how he wished this all would be for him. How many times he prayed for her to be his. Alas! Destiny had plans, different for both of them, it had plans. And he knew not to come in-between her happiness. Never between her and happiness. For him, she was the brightest flower that blossoms even in winters. A flower that never wilts.
"Shahmeer beta, can you bring sweets from the market?" His mother asked him, he without a word nodded and moved out to buy sweets. But before going how can he not take the pain, so while moving forward the door he collided into Syra, his heart halted seeing her red-tinted and smiling face. 'How much more beautiful can one look?' Was the thought that resided in his mind. His eyes sparkled and his lips stretched into a sheepish grin, grin that only cam when she was in his sight. With a mellow sorry she moved out and instead of her face, her giggles took place. Oh, how he loved when he's the reason she smiles, laughs, or giggles. Smiling he resumed his work only to have pain constricting his heart. He smiled at the irony. In her wedding with his bleeding heart, she still managed to make him forget what day today is. She still managed to make him giddy and painless. She managed all that while walking on a trail of being someone else's. 'How beautifully love can play a fool out of a mere human'. Shaking his head he went out to buy what was needed.
☆
Night falls, with night came sadness and endless tears that were forced to stay put. He cried and mourned the loss of his soul, his love for another man's women. The sky outside grieved for his loss and the stars smiled in sadness whereas, the moon smiled knowing the loneliness of his. Howling of the owls ceased as they heard a man cry for his love. All the birds that were awake ached to know the misery a soul was going through. He wept all the pain he could not tell to another person. He wept the loss of his love that too to another man. 'Oh, how cruelly life can destroy you and still, be innocent'. He inside the confines of his room mourned and chuckled at his audacity. 'How can I cry for someone I do not deserve'. His pain was evident in his eyes and it may as well live a thousand lives more all in his eyes. He was no beast, nor would he let himself be one. He was not one of those men who would ruin everything just for having what was not theirs. He knew Allah had better plans for him and he would not come in between those plans. If she was not meant for him then maybe it was because he was not capable of taking care of something so fragile and so innocent. 'Nevertheless, how can you stop a heart from mourning?' A question that stayed in his mind. He mourned the whole night long, with sleep not knowing when to enter him. The whole night was gone in agony and he knew a lot more of such nights are to come. He would welcome them wholeheartedly.
☆
Mornings were never so tiring previously, even in his childhood he had never been this tired and anguished formerly. He got up and went to freshen up only to see an image of himself -in the mirror- he didn't recognize. His eyes were puffy and red, his face as if he had grown a hundred years, the little stubble making him look more intimidating. He had changed overnight and not in a good way. Ignoring his looks, he freshened up and despite all the tiredness adjusted his face to look at least normal. Descending the stairs, his heart plummet, his steps faltered and yet his face remained passive. He knew what destruction is about to befall him. 'I wish I could escape this death'. Not all wishes are heard, and his wish was ignored as well. He with everyone else went to enjoy the death of his love and soul.
He was unaware that a mother knows the condition of her children's heart. She sent a prayer heavenward. She was herself in pain seeing her son suffer the way he is suffering. A mother knows how battered her child is from the inside.
"Allah ease his suffering and bless him with what is meant to be his, ease my child's pain and bless him with your unending gifts".
Reaching the mansion he took his time coming out of the car, his eyes held punishing tears and his heart had cracks, cracks he could very much hear. Rubbing his face he came out if the car and maneuvered his way in the house. The happiness was making him want to vomit and the smiles making him envious of everything.
Jealousy was never his thing, but since his heart had fallen for her, he had known this emotions like the back of his hand. The scream that wanted to erupt from his throat was left unheard and the tears whose one drop dared to shed was wiped before being seen. He masked his pain with such delicacy no one would be proficient to verify he was the same man who cried the night before. The daylight hurt his gaze and yet he masked that aching hurt.
He was a skilled pretender; pretense was the second-best thing he knew how to do. Masking his hurt, he moved forward to help, he was the first lover who would be the killer of his own love. The first to give his love to another man, willingly. But he was also the first to feel heartbreak with such ferocious intensity. The kind of intensity that even death chose to stay away from. Or else he had been lifeless the day she said yes. His pain did not even have the permission to turn into anger or hatred, because you never hate someone you once loved, loved does not hate. Attraction or infatuation does. Want hate, need does not. And she was his need, a necessity he had been unaware of.
☆
The wait had been way too long, he knew over that side she had been announced his but still the wait for them to come over here had been way too long. The long-anticipated faces were now turned into drained and scared faces. She was called to be brought down. His heart thumped louder, louder than ever before and he knew his demise is near. Descending down the stairs a sound of an anklet resonated the hallways and his ears, his eyes turned moist yet he stood in the same position. He saw her face and his heart mellowed down in defeat. Collapsing inside him, his heart bled and screamed and wept for the loss. She was looking ethereal, Elysian and every word there is to describe something is divine. She stole his heart once again and crushed it beneath her sole. His shoulders sagged and his eyes turned red. He felt as if he was drowning in an ocean of despair and did not know where to swim because there was no island or boat to his rescue and the water of despair was ice cold. The suffering spread everywhere in him. Each corner of his being ached for her. Ached for something that was not his. It all ached. He drowned.
