The Symphony of Saudade

Prelude

14.02.2034
Mangalkulam

The blood-red roses were too bright for the room in which she stood. The last time she had received a similar bouquet, she was smithereened into a million pieces. But the flowers did not distress her this time. Neither did the letter that arrived later in the day. A calm, so gut-wrenching, rolled and swayed inside every cell in her body. Yet the lump in her throat grew bigger and bigger as she thought about all the possibilities that would have liberated her from this agonising ache if she had acted at the right time. But when had she ever experienced the so-called right time in her life? It was always the wrong timing and miscalculations. 

But this time, she would not let another unspoken word wreck her life. 

She traced her fingers over the loopy handwriting of the man she vowed to love till eternity. Every word of the letter reverberated through her lungs with a force unknown to her. She had to act upon that force lest the Earth would split open, and her heart would plunge through her body into the abyss if she let any more longing linger in her blood.

She looked up at the sky - a vast azure with no clouds. She could take her feet off the ground and breeze through the wind. That’s how light she felt. Now that she was without any shackles, she could easily metamorphose into the woman she had been all those years ago. When she had loved him a little more with each passing day and yearned for him to carve a place for her in his heart. She had played her role imperfectly in a fairytale that could have catapulted her life to bliss. Now the universe was playing its role. She just had to follow its instructions.

Just hearing his voice would make her feel like she ruled all the galaxies that existed out there in space. Even after all these years, he’d invoke the same intense emotions with his saccharine words. All of a sudden, she changed into a silly teenager hopelessly in love, though her hair had already begun to grey.

All she had to do was pick up the phone and call the man she could never unlove - Faneel Basnet.

*

14.02.2034
Shimla

It was cooler than the day before. With his gloved hands deep in mud and head deep in introspection, he pulled the weeds out while pontificating about the events that happened a week ago. He had always been sceptical about the concept of destiny until he came face to face with her and shook her hand for the first time. And, if it weren’t for fate, he wouldn’t have bought the newspaper a few days ago. He had stopped reading the papers a couple of years ago, what with the N number of apps that were always notifying him about the happenings of the world minute by minute. But he felt an instant desire to switch to his old-school practice of reading the news from the paper.

And then he came across the article. Spasms of regret sprouted from every fibre in his body that didn’t stop until he acted upon the one thing that he dreaded all these years.

Sighing, he pulled out the last weed and threw it inside the box that he would later bin. He stretched his hands, every vein greening in the mild evening sunlight. Collecting the edible weeds that he’d add to his dinner salad, he opened the main door of his humble cottage and entered the quaint living room, which had a cosy fireplace made of granite. Atop the mantel sat a wooden statue of Jesus. Removing his gardening gloves, he placed his right palm on the idol’s head, muttered a prayer, and performed the cross.

That’s when he noticed the date on the calendar.

He gasped and thought, Oh my God! Why didn’t it strike me before?

An inexplicable heaviness grasped his entire being. Sweat beads broke out on top of his forehead as he realized the importance of the date. His heart almost stopped when his mobile phone rang out of the blue. Stumbling with his shaky limbs, he reached for the phone on the dining table.

The caller ID flashed the name in bold letters - Chandni Shree.