For the love of 'Pretence'

. . . . . As the shrill of cricket imbued the summer air, while a sudden breeze howled through the cedars in the backyard, and with her mahogany-tinted hair unworn, a beauteous girl reclined against a dew-soaked bed of grass in transfixed vision towards a starless heaven. The moon had already shone up, showering the world beneath in its celestial glamor, in the eastern sky. The dark descending of the nightfall added an aura of eeriness to the surrounding air, yet as if brushing aside all demoniac spirits, she lay merely human, recollecting. . . 
 

“Erm. . .love (then a long withdrawn pause) ,” on the verge of treacherous tears, he had wailed, “. . . .I can’t lie longer!” he sounded as if some convict confessing his own infidelity at the Shamble’s Gate.

“Lie? . . . What lie? What makes you cry, love!” she forced out grave words of concern.

“I never wanted . . . to . . . hurt you,” his voice playing defensive, “umm….you’re so innocent . . . but I lied all this time! Hell, I never loved you really!” his voice broke out an impenetrable guilt.

“W-H-A-T!” her voice estranged, and with the rest of the confession lingering on the other side of the phone, it struck her as if the ground beneath her slightly shifted. Like she was mercilessly thrown into a murky, bottomless abyss!

Only an hour ago, her life had been a “once-upon-a-time” tale, where she was lifted almost to the seventh heaven by the very thought of ‘him’. Like a maddening urge, it kept returning to her. . . the vibrancy of passion that radiated each time he called her. . .the sheer warmth with which he stroked her. . .he was but an irrevocably unforgettable memory. She could not take in the momentous truth . . . that he was a betrayer. Pretence it all was, he being a flawless actor, his tainted cravings had worn the façade of love to ‘bluff’ her. Meanwhile,as she remained utterly engrossed in contemplation, the surrounding Nature had ventured to weave her ‘occasional emotional outbursts’ into a heart-rending tale:

“And his voice in her head kept getting stronger

Led astray from Truth could she survive longer?

All on a sudden November appeared so bleak. . . .

When, before the scrutiny of Reason, her dreams fled.

What Fairy Tale was before corroded into a vicious facade!

Even the primeval Cedars hadn’t seen in a decade. . .

Such writhing of Soul in repentance of an unknown Blunder!

Her ordeals lingered through nights, unending and colder….”

Once upon a past, when he was not back-stabber, love was a blazing inferno with her emotions only fueling it further. If this was not love, startled at the vibrant feelings his presence had invoked, she questioned herself what it was. However, in vain. With the dagger of ‘betrayal’ searing through her credence, scattered flashbacks preoccupied her mind, and while the drops of anguish trickled down her cheeks, his words seemed to echo in the air:

“Love?” she used to summon in pretentious authority, at times.

“Your wish is my command, Princess!” he urged humbly.

“You love me a lot, don’t you?” she mocked, in discreet desperately longing for assurance.




 

“More than I could tell. . .”soberly, he answered back.

Rummaging through his sardonically camouflaged words for a hint of evidence that whatever happened a while back was a nightmare, her unfaltering endurance finally failed her. Writhing in acute agony, she sniffed initially . . . muffled sobs only to follow. Thus, the moment her ironical fate dawned on her rationale, her voice surpassed all bounds and whimpered relentlessly till slumber had taken over.