Displaced

Chapter 29

"Where'd I go wrong, Arun?" Rudra Kapadia slurred to the bartender as he slumped forward on the barstool. He downed his third shot of the night. He wasn't drunk enough for the occasion, but he'd fix that soon enough.

"What's the problem now, Rudra?" Arun the bartender replied, refilling Rudra's shot glass. "Your coworkers disrespecting you at work again?"

"Oh, shut it," Rudra huffed, before returning to his solemn mood. He ran his fingers through his bushy mustache and sighed. "I turn forty tomorrow. Forty years of living and what do I have to show for it? A mediocre construction job, a single-room apartment, and an empty existence. Sometimes I wonder why I keep going on, when all I get from living is the right to keep living."

"Oh come now, forty isn't that old these days. If your life is that empty, do something about it. Maybe try one of those new online matchmaking sites."

"I tried. I can't," Rudra responded, downing the fourth shot with a cough. "It's just not the same anymore. Not since Jaya left."

The bartender sighed. "Rudra. Listen to me. You've been drinking here for what, almost two decades now, yes? I'm no stranger to your hardships. I remember how inconsolable you were when she first left you. I told you that you needed to move past her then, but you didn't listen. Then when she hadn't returned in two years and you finally petitioned for divorce I thought you were finally going to let her go, but no. You're still like this. She left you eight years ago, Rudra, and you haven't stopped pining for her ever since. It's way past time to move on."

"I can't just forget her," Rudra lamented. "She saved me, gave me a path when I had none. If I hadn't met her I'd... I'd probably be dead by now."

"Love can do incredible things. But it isn't infinite."

"It wasn't love, though. The love came later. That's what made her so special. She cared about me like she cared about everybody. Everything she did for me she would have done for anybody else in the same situation. She was... the best person I ever knew. And she was everything to me..."

Rudra stared into his reflection in the counter as Arun poured another shot.

"What do you think it was, Arun? What did I do to lose her?"

"I think it's a mistake to assume that you did anything wrong. People change. Yours was a love marriage, yes? Sometimes love just runs dry, and there's nothing you can do about it. What you can do, however, is finally admit to yourself that she isn't walking back through that door ever again. It's time to take the next step with your life. If not a partner, then something else. Something to keep you going, so life doesn't feel so empty anymore."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. That's on you."

Rudra sat on the barstool and drunkenly argued with the bartender deep into the night before getting kicked out at closing time. Stumbling dejectedly home, he had just enough presence of mind to change into his pajamas before missing the bed entirely and falling unconscious on the floor beside it.

*     *     *

Rudra awoke to the worst hangover of his life as he vomited onto the cold stone floor. His sleep had been plagued with nightmares, more terrible and painful than anything he could remember, not that he usually remembered his dreams. This one on the other hand, a kaleidoscopic fever dream of agony and horror, would likely stay with him until his dying day. Which might just be today, given how his head ached at the moment. Wonderful. The perfect start to his fifth decade on Earth.

Speaking of which... where on Earth was he? He seemed to have ended up in some kind of basement, with what looked to be melted lumps of metal thrown against the walls. This wouldn't be the first time he'd wandered off somewhere in the middle of the night after drinking too much, but he'd never ended up more than a block from his apartment before. This was a new low.