When I met my Ex

1- Ziana

Memories are something which can't be forgotten. The ones you forget, they were just incidents in your life. Memories don't depend on time, much you give may ever to someone. It is the intensity of connection between, and when I say intensity, it really is intense. That which is faint, cannot be called a memory. That is just what you remember, and remembrance is not for lifetime. It's funny we forget things which are termed to be remembered. We all remember things, no? But that's general, that's common, anything but you don't have it uniquely.
Memories are only with you, and belong to you only. Years may pass but things would not change for you. That's how memories remain. Remembered things start fading away. Not today, tommorow, but soon.
I also remember someone. . . . . .still.

I step out into the rain as the doors slide apart, oblivious that my black umbrella is tucked to my suitcase and the splattering rains might bring my cold back. I am somewhat perturbed, not knowing what just happened. A few minutes ago, that something changed my life. I am a changed person right now. Something within me has suddenly, drastically changed. Actually that would be really an unaffective word. It feels like, my soul has been replaced.
But it is this woman who puts my umbrella out, yes humanity asks for no permission I guess, and hovers it over my head.

"It's raining", she says, perhaps wondering I don't even know that too. I smile at her but not caring to reply to it, she turns away from me. I thought the next we would exchange numbers. Always remember to ignore first impressions.
I look up at the ash-turned sky, feeling something terribly shattered inside me. I want to call that woman back, ask her to hold it tight, and don't let it fall. It's like death. The actual pain in death is not in dying, but the soul leaving the body forever. A bond breaks between the two, who had been friends for life time. The body perishes, and imagine the pain the soul has born infinite times leaving every body it ever shared a deep connection with, taught so many things to it, smiled, cried, laughed and loved through it. That's why life is full of sorrows, it is because of the soul in us. It knows it will leave us one day, that's why it gives us every happiness ever. It tries to at least. We are all broken inside, knowing the reality of reality. It's the difference that some consider the broken part of themselves, while others the nicely painted part. Paint, the happiness, does not stay forever. It keeps feeling different, that is, it has to be put on every time it wears out. But have you ever felt pain differently?
No, because that is the real you. Just like the body over the soul, though we consider the skeleton and not the soul.

I am at Delhi Metro Station, and from here I need to wait for the next metro which would take me to my lovely boyfriend waiting for me alone in our 2 BHK flat in Narela. He has not called me yet, even if he knows I would be stepping in Delhi at 10 A.M. Or may be my Indian number has not been activated yet. Sad, I can't even dial him to tell him about this news which would excite him that I am finally home after a year-like month. Home. . .to my everything.

I am sitting right in front of, a metre away from the rails, and staring at the rusted iron tracks makes me shiver. As if they would just rise and swallow me. I remind myself every second not to be oblivious. I have to take care of the time, be the first to get into the metro even though I know I'd be the last one because swiping the card sucks, and of course that no one takes away the ratchet clothes in my suitcase. In addition to that, various gifts for my boyfriend. Or he would mock me saying that 'You forgot to bring my present of Heartache by Jen Duran, giving away your suitcase to a thief as an excuse'. You don't believe it? Yes, every boyfriend is a creep.

I don't realize how having an imaginary coffee with my own self, I succeed an hour finally. The day has gotten bright, almost getting 11 A.M. and I hear several announcements regarding the arrival of the Narela Express. I clutch my suitcase and pull on my heels to be ready for rushing into the metro. I smile when there is an announcement in Hindi. I have missed speaking Hindi in a month, when I had to stay with Malay people everywhere.
The passengers' crowd lines the platform edge, while I still stick to the coklat bench.

The metro screeches in front of us, and people start rushing altogether. The surroundings just disappear with the herd. It seems like they will cover the sunlight too in the sky. I also think of rushing and grabbing the nicest seats, but something. . . . .something very strange, stops me from getting up. Far near the snacks corner is a man standing, with no belongings with him. And he is staring at me. Straight, at me. The same I do, as if he is the one I was so oblivious and in search of. From such a distance, I can figure his nicely set hair and his familiar eyes, and that too that they were searching for me only. My heart flutters with pain, cries with joy, and beats with silence, until the realization hits me whom I actually am looking at. . . . . .

The last announcement is made, and I run quickly inside the metro. Surprisingly, the card gets swiped easily at once. I gasp as I get inside, the air conditioner inside working nothing on me. I knew so luck did not want me to sit relaxfully inside a metro. You already have stamped the paint off the bench on your ass since an hour, and I deserve to suffer on my weak legs now.

Things have not settled yet that suddenly I see someone sitting at the far end, eyes fixed at me. My breathing gets stuck in my throat. Life starts to rewind when our eyes meet. And it never took any time to recognize him. A memory I always carried along with me.

He is my ex, Sameer Anand, and probably my first ever love. Fifteen years have passed, like I always count, and yet we have not forgotten each other. I even don't remember why we broke up. Perhaps, things did not go well between us. It was me, or him, or. . . . . .oh shut the bygones!
But Sameer was the person who smudged my soul with my dreams, dispersing me into numerous stars that suddenly became pieces of a hardly-striken glass which were just carrying a beautiful bud of love to grow. Things died then only. Sameer never came back. I was like, for five years, wandering everywhere in search of him. The most painful were those nights without him. I heard tragic howls of life when I got lost in my darkness. All the stars fell down, their lights faded away, and they got crushed by several unbearable dreams, days and pains.
But then someone else picked them up, and threw them into his own galaxy, where I started to shine again, forgetting all pains.

I steal glances from Sameer as I don't want everyone to notice that I am staring at a young man. But Sameer has incredible guts to go on gazing at me, like the world really matters nothing to him. This was one of the reasons I loved him for; he was always focussed on things he dreamed of.
We keep staring into each other's eyes, recalling days that felt the best out of life.
The Narela Express brings us to the town of Narela in less than two hours, and everyone starts getting up. I still stare at Sameer, and he, at me. Like he has got his dream and I have, my reality. But is it still that you love me Sameer?

Or. . .do I still love him, pushing my life into something really unexpected I have no idea about?