Ishq Kinara[Love Ashore] Complete

34. Sinking Ships

How heartbreaking can a heartbreak be? Some may say it feels like a thousand needles pierce through your heart and you physically feel it squeezing the life out of you. Some might be of the opinion that the psychological implications are more than the physical ones and it's a mental phenomena though it is called a heartbreak and heart is surely a physical organ of the body. There are contradictions.

That's for the books and for the people who never had their heart broken. When it actually happens, it comes in the form of a crack, a crack on a picture you formed and loved, and then several other cracks follow, small, large and then they just stay where your heart is, making their presence known. On the front you seem fine but your eyes are reflecting the pain these cracks leave. The crevices that never fill up. No scotch tape can come in handy to even give you the slight semblance of what your heart was before it saw and endured the inevitable pain of a heartbreak.

The way back home from the hospital never felt this long, but it never felt this short either. It was an amalgamation of everything that was and everything couldn't be. The jam packed roads of Karachi were the same labyrinth of people and vehicles, so much that you never feel alone but loneliness isn't surely a physical phenomena. It's not about how many people you are surrounded with, it's more about how your heart can't find one person who is going through the same pain, confusion and emotions you are going through. And in that moment, Izaan felt the loneliest.

He had never been quite a dreamer. Very early on in his life, he had come to the realization that he would always have to rely on himself if he wanted to reach somewhere in life. Their household was based on love and support but in the world outside, these two things had just trivial importance. The world ran on power and money and those who didn't have either, hard work for them.

So, he worked hard. Every step of life, every turn of fate. He was never ashamed of his roots. He never had a reason to be. Hard work hadn't made him bitter. It had grown him into someone who cherished who he was and where he came from.

But never in his life, he had been handed the truth of his life details in such a harsh yet truthful way. Bisma's approach wasn't wrong. She was protective of her niece so she had to be painfully honest but in doing so, she had disclosed what Izaan knew all his life that it started looking like something he should be ashamed of. Something that wasn't acceptable, not in the world Bisma came from.

Not in the world Safwa was the princess of.

Safwa.

The smiling, caring and full of love constant of his life.

At one point he was sure she would be his everything. She was close there.

But just an hour back, he had this rude awakening that he could never be everything. For her he could, but in her world he never would.

Doubts, those he had pushed to the back of his mind. When he decided to just dive right in and see if he kept afloat or drowns, in both ways he was happy because it was love he would float on, or drown in. But he realized with a sinking feeling that the waters he were treading on weren't still, it was a whirlpool and the concept of staying afloat or drowning doesn't apply there. It just swallows you right in and you are helpless. You scream but it only echoes and comes back to you. You flail around but your limbs soon become so heavy they might be just bricks. You open your mouth and it just water inside you, outside you.

You become water when you were meant to be the ship.

But sinking ships never sail.

He was outside of his lane. His eyes darted towards the house at the end of the alleyway.

He was home.

But he was so far from home.

He was lost.