Asad's Birthday Short Story Chapter 4

Never Letting Go


Asad's Birthday

Chapter 4: Unhinged

It was another rainy day nearing the last portion of the monsoon. The rain furiously poured down on the streets of Bhopal, the angry clouds barring the sky denying the course of the sun hitting and encompassing the earth with its warm rays of hope. The atmosphere reflected the tempest that brew inside Asad’s heart and the uproar generated by the merciless thunder and the blazing nature of the lightning mirrored the storm that phased his mind, soul, body and heart for the past eleven months.

Asad reluctantly made his way through the turbulence of a crowd of dreary umbrellas, dragging his feet in a wearisome manner; the rain was comforting as it complemented his dejected outlook on life. He embraced the elements and ventured out on his walk home from his office without an umbrella, this was his routine for the past eleven months. He no longer felt the need for shelter and his life became mechanical once more.
Eleven months ago, everything was perfect, the birthday of a lifetime he will never forget, the memory of which still echoes in his entire being and the recollection of which acts as an elixir that poured a drop of soul, a trickle of life and a bead of bittersweet musings of past events, one drop at a time into his heart sustaining his life just that little more longer. A life which was supposed to be the new beginning came to an abrupt end and befell the fate of a life he no longer pined for. He was alive but not living, walking but with no real destination.

It was eleven months ago that the accident occurred, an accident that took her away forever and claimed all parts of his life to a life of solitude, without her. His worst fear materialised and she was no more.

He continued on his dismal path, the rain beating down on his defeated form, the drops of rain concealing his anguish, soaked his entirety cloaking him as though he were an old friend to the showers of misery, inattentive to the abrasive movement of the crowd, a homogenous flock of grey umbrellas who were all in a frantic rush to get to their respective homes and destinations.

The noise of the crowd was muffled to Asad’s usual acute sense of hearing; all seemed incomprehensible to him because he was beyond and out of touch with reality; but amidst a thunderous crowd of sullen and dreary umbrellas one voice stood out and caught his attention and that one face stood apart behind a glass window of the number 42 bus stand.

He thoughtfully walked towards the bus stand a few steps at a time in a state of shock and uncertainty, for he could not bear another sighting of her to be simply an illusion of his forlorn and insatiable mind. He craved for her. He saw her everywhere yet she was no-where to be found. Nevertheless here she was in all her glory in plain sight, guarded behind the barrier of the glass window of the bus stand. He neared the glass barrier of the bus stand inspecting the apparition he so perceived as her with vigilant eyes.

There she was, a heavenly sight in a pink and red saree preoccupied in composing herself using the glass window of the bus stand as a mirror, fixing the stray strands of her wet hair away from her eyes completely oblivious to his presence and his intense and elated gaze. She didn’t care to look at the figure on the other side of the misty glass as she was already late for the day.

He raised his right hand and pressed it gently against the cold and wet glass where raindrops trickled their way down relentlessly, his gesture made in an attempt to touch what seemed to him as the most beautiful apparition on the other side, - cautious in his action so as to not break this fragile spectacle before him, as though she were made of glass and his one touch would break her and in the process any hope on his part too. He sincerely needed this to be real. She was definitely there and he was sure of it in his heart. He didn’t know how or why but she was there. He let out his painful longing as he sighed heavily, his breathing erratic and in that one moment of seeing her, his heart kick started, he felt a thud in his lifeless and reticent chest. His eleven-month-long silent heartbeat was now audible and alive. A sound and a sensation he had not heard or felt in eleven months manifested anew in his chest, each heartbeat pouring life into every artery and capillary in his body, bringing all his cells to life, it was painful, burning him and comforting him all the same.

“Zoya -” Asad whispered in desperation for her one look and in the process steaming up the glass window with his words, not leaving his hands from the place where he firmly kept them on the window.

She stirred on his whispering which echoed in the winds that blustered pass her. The wind tenderly enveloped and embraced her with his pining whisper – “Zoya.” 

She froze on the spot, unnerved and anxious as her heartbeat responded to the strange words carried by the wind. Apprehension grew in her core, she felt unhinged as the wind muffled all the noise of the thunderous crowd and the only sounds she heard was the whisper in the wind that howled and shrouded her devotedly with warmth and a sense of belonging in this strange city; she heard the sound of two heartbeats, one being her own and the other heartbeat she perceived was on the other side of the glass window of the bus stand. A figure she did not recognise and a heartbeat familiar yet a total stranger to her. She could not make out the figure on the other side; it yielded a number of feelings inside of her which she could not comprehend. She felt anxious, alarmed and scared yet she felt there was something familiar about the figure, something distinguishable about the sound of the stranger’s thudding heartbeat, something familiar about the stranger’s whisper.

She raised her left hand and wiped the steam on the glass window in an attempt to view the figure on the other side. Her view was still unclear as she rested her left hand against the glass in same place where Asad placed his right hand on the opposite side. His breathing became rapid on sighting her hand against his through the glass. Two hands were united yet incomplete in that instance. Where he was ecstatic on one side of the glass barrier, the sensation on the other side was the opposite, she was apprehensive.

Thunder and lightning erupted across the already injured sky, jolting her back to the present moment and breaking the contact of her hand against the glass and in the course her contact too with the stranger on the other side. The thunderous crowd became audible once more. Her chain of thoughts too were fragmented as she turned to face the roaring sound of the approaching bus number 42, the bus that she had been waiting for patiently for the longest hour, the screeching tyres pushing her to her senses. 

She turned to give a final glance at the stranger in the crowd on the other side of the glass but her attempt was futile. In that instance a passer-by crashed and collided into the stranger, blocking her view as the stranger collapsed to the water logged ground. She didn’t comprehend as to why this occurrence pained her or why her heart throbbed incoherently in her chest but it did. She sighed deeply in an effort to calm and collect her thoughts; she needed to be somewhere and without further ado she made her way onto the bus. The bus took off with furore.

Asad brushed off the muddy water from his jacket on his way up from the ground. He used all his might, pushing his tensed hands against the wet earth beneath him vaulting to his feet using the glass window to steady his footing. He gasped and held his breath as he placed both of his soiled hands on the glass. His world stopped moving; everything seemed frozen in time except for the harsh and relentless cascade of rain showering over the city and the bus that drove off in the distance ruthlessly taking with it his most precious possession.  

Once more, she was gone. Asad’s thoughts were here, there and everywhere. Blood rushed to his brain, the sound of which drummed in his ears and his heart pounded mercilessly in his now alive chest, wounding his bruised and scarred heart on each beat. He held his head with both hands disconsolately, clutching his wet hair in the process, not able to collect his thoughts. He looked down at the reflection in puddle at his feet, he saw her face in the clear water smiling back at him and in the next instance the puddle rippled to the falling of rain drops bringing forth his own reflection in view. He stared back at his reflection morosely  as he felt he was drifting further away from what was up till now the most real and unfeigned encounter with her in these long and taxing eleven months.

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Asad ran home in the rain incoherently and frantically rushing to the confines of his austere and cold room closing the door behind him rushing to the drawer where he kept her mother’s earring and the envelope and note she covertly gave him on his birthday eleven months ago. He fell to the floor clutching onto the keepsakes to his chest he so carefully kept by him all this time. 

He had no energy left to question anything anymore. He sat there longing for her, wanting her, recalling all the memories of her. Her long black hair, her mischievous dancing eyes, her chirpy and ringing laughter, her dimpled smile, her naivetés – the memories that he locked away in his frozen subconscious, that he caged in his bruised heart flooded all at once into his mind and heart overpowering him as he stared down at the note with welled eyes. He read the words on the envelope: I'm sorry but it's pivotal that I tell you this ... 

He carefully took the note out of the envelope. A teardrop fell upon the note caressing the words as it soaked through the paper. He began to read the words which he knew by heart by now because he had re-read it a million times in her absence as a reminder of what was and what could have been. He recited the words as though he were offering a supplication:

It’s the perfect day for this. This is the right moment to tell you this or reaffirm this because I know that you already subconsciously know this. And I know that you have a penchant for panicking and assuming the worse so first things first, please take a seat and read this calmly.

I have a lot things that I need to confess to you and I know you are not one for words in general, you don’t feel the need to give words to everything but I do and so it’s pivotal that I tell you this and I’m sorry, sincerely - if you feel hurt with the words written here by my heart …………

He continued to read the note in silence as his eyes became heavy and sleep took over. 

“Zoya,” Asad let out a cry as his world faded into a flashback.

End of chapter 4

© Fatima B Lunat 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Fatima B Lunat.

Apologies, I have had a really bad week and I find solace by writing therefore I placed all my angst into this chapter hence I have gone a little wayward from the original plot. Nonetheless it still revolves around Asad’s birthday which will be celebrated not once but twice [i.e. it has been 11 months from his previous birthday and 4 weeks till his next birthday, not that I needed to point that out]. 

Please be patient as I am a little preoccupied but I will update in my free time.

P.s. I apologise if any one feels depressed or hurt after reading this chapter but all is well that ends well.