Arbit

A smile cannot veil what eyes can tell…

A leaf lets go a parched tree so that they can meet again in the soil…

At the center of an open barren land stood a tall tower. All around were tall grasses. At a distance you could see trees. I could not be sure of what they bore. For as far as I could see it was all trees! A small path led through this grassland to the tower. I have no idea of how I had reached there. This place was beautiful with greens that I had never seen before. But this tower looked odd. I thought it was from nowhere and for no one!
Something pulled me towards the tower. There was nothing else as strikingly different in the green background. A tower at the center of a green patch.
It was getting dark and cold. There was nothing around. That thought came to my mind again! How did I reach here? Who brought me here? I knew it would get dark soon. Not even the moon light seemed very bright! I rushed to the tower. I had no idea of what lay inside!
I stood at the bottom of the tower. It seemed so huge. Around 10 meters in height I guessed. I entered the small passage from behind the tower. There was nothing but a flight of stairs. The walls were hardly visible. I went straight towards the top, albeit cautiously, but in a strange world like this what right could have happened in any case. I entered a room at the top. Nothing else below it. Just the flight of stairs. I was very surprised.

It was small cozy room. There was a beautiful lady. I looked at her. She smiled. She asked me to sit. I had no choice. I was wondering what she was doing there alone in this forest! I felt safe seeing some human. I was surprised that she was so patient with a stranger. I wanted to thank her but somehow I could say nothing. I simply obliged. She had cooked some soup there. She passed a saucer full of it. I was hungry and I obliged immediately. She smiled again. Her smile had something hidden in it. I did not know what but something was hidden.

She asked me to take the bed and said that she would return in an hour. I dont know what scared me but something did, the moment she left the room! I lay there for a bit. I don’t know for how long. I started feeling anxious. I stood up to the window and looked outside. My heart shook. Beyond the trees was nothing but water. Water on all sides. It looked beautiful. I kept seeing the view for a few moments. I had forgotten the girl it seemed. I kept looking at the green island in the crystal clear blue background. By the time I could realize much, the forest was gone! It was the sea and the grassland at the center of it! I guess I did not realize it then, probably later. I was too lost in the beauty of the whole scene. I realized that water had come into the grassland. I could see the water covering parts of the grassland! I was shocked. I thought of the girl! Where had she gone! I had no idea. Did she live here daily? As time passed, water kept covering the sand! In moments the grassland was fully immersed! I knew why this tower stood! Water kept rising. I could feel it rise. I guess a couple of hours would have passed. I was looking at the sea with the half lit moon.

Water kept rising! I did not know how much it would rise further. It looked beautiful. I was there at the center of the ocean and nothing else! Water kept rising. It came to the height of around 1 meter below the window. I got scared for the first time! I thought of the girl. I had no idea where she was! Water kept rising. It started seeping in from the gate! I was shaking a bit by then. I sat on the bed. Water kept rising. It rose to the bed height. It touched my feet on the bed. The room was not very high! It was the ceiling of the tower. Water kept flowing. I had to stand up on the bed. I could barely stand fully. The roof was too low! Water kept rising till it touched my knees. My pants totally soaked wet! I was shivering in fear. There was no outlet.

The window was too small to exit! I had no ideas. I was shivering and hoping. Water rose to my chest height. It never stopped. My sentences may have a punctuation here, but it seemed that water did not! Water rose till my neck. I could hardly keep still in water. I was being pushed up to the wall. Water kept rising up. I had nowhere to move. I was squeezed to nothing! I was breathing! I almost toppled inside. My head dived downwards. I closed my eyes and stopped my breath. I could feel the water for around three seconds. I turned back pushing the bed. I stayed afloat! But water kept rising. After that i remember is the struggle. Don’t remember anything at all!

I woke up the next day. I dont know if i woke up ever. All i remember is the face of the girl i saw there. Did she enchant me? How can i still sense if the water had drowned me? I am alive. Am I?

I looked from the window of my flat on the 13th floor of the Infinity Towers. There were so many people. Everyone looked the same. I could hardly see the faces. A random wave of hand. It could be a good bye, it could be a nice hello and it could be a show of emotions! But it hardly mattered from that height. I thought the world was so big. There could hardly be any emotions. There was too much happening for anyone to notice. Who had the time anyways. I thought how this world was beautiful because of this. You hardly care about what is going around you. Then I thought how ants went in a group through the small crevice in the garage of our building! Did they have emotions! They were there going on mechanically collecting food, like we humans collect money. Ants for the bad days, we humans for our old age! Ants had no old age to worry about!

In the next building in my campus lived this girl. I used to see her from my balcony and we passed that smile after the first few times we did see each other. I thought she would be a nice girl. Each day she would also come out of her balcony and look at the ground and the people. Invariably we would come at the same time. Probably there was secret agreement that we had made. She would sit there, look around, then look towards me and smile. I did the same. We hardly let anyone notice!

One day, I thought that we had to meet. I pointed towards the garden and she knew immediately what I meant. I hurried to the room, looked into the mirror, did some dressing of the hairs. Damn they looked so bad! Damn I looked so bad! I changed into my latest shirt and jeans and rushed towards the lift and there I was near the garden. I looked at her. She looked real pretty. May be cute. I waved my hand at her. She waved back. I was hardly smiling! It was the first time we would talk. I could see the uncle in the floor below mine looking at us. I loved him look at me with her. I said me Ishant in the most weird way one could! She replied “Diya”. We spent sometime together before we decided we had to run back home. It was a nice first meet! We said good bye and we waved back to each other.

The next few days were the same. We would come out in the balcony and point to the garden and we would be there! We talked about everything. About our parents, siblings, about the world, about philosophy, about money, about studies, about sillythings like the colour of the sky and the dead too! I enjoyed those 2 hours thoroughly. For the first few days I waited for this hour to come. It had become a passion. She started looking prettier each day. From a girl next door to the most beautiful one I had ever known! Each day would end with a good bye wave from each of us. We would wait for the next day.

One day she asked me about girls I fell in love with and I asked her about her guys! This very thing was a confirmation that we loved each other already. We had to confess. We needed some excuse. I asked her if she liked some guy and she said yes. I knew who he was. I did not have the courage to ask. We still ended that day with the parting wave of our hands. There was a different spring in me. I moved around like I had a new fresh air of joy in me. It was refreshing. I came back and hardly looked anywhere but the mirror. I looked so good suddenly.

Days passed like that. We would meet. We used to sit together. The the jokes, the stupid jokes, pulling of hairs, poking fun at each other, bitching about friends, making fun of common acquaintances, doing nothing and dreaming of everything. We walked around the building complex came back to our garden. Then one day she said that her parents had to move out to a new city! Was it the last time we were meeting! I had no words! Probably I had fallen in love or may be a very strong bond of friendship. I did not know the reason. Or may be I was only trying to think of something else as an excuse for not accepting that i quitely loved her! I couldn’t look into her eyes. I did not know what to say. I wanted to blame her for everything! But then what was there to blame her for? I thought this could be our last meeting. I was sure it was. We hardly talked that day. We sat close to each other for one last time. We had so little to talk. It hardly mattered what I did today! It hardly mattered what I was going to do tomorrow or what her friends were planning for her next birthday! We were suddenly strangers! Or were we so close to each other that we hardly had anything to say about the future? The night dawned quietly that day. We looked into each other’s eyes. There were too many emotions but our eyes displayed only a few. We waved our hands one last time.

A week later I was there on the balcony sitting the way I used to. So many ants down there. What was to the emotions of an Individual. I shook my head suddenly! What was to the emotions? Was it me who thought that this was the beauty of this world that individual emotions hardly mattered in this world? I looked down again, this time more closely. Down there in the gardens, there was this girl and this guy sitting together quietly. Were they just a few of the ants? Was I an ant?