Beneath a heaven of dark, cumulonimbus, floating clouds -when the Sun never shown itself even for a hairbreadth’s time- while downpour it had been that drenched the earth in profusion, she awaited him.
“You appear just like a dream to me . . . ,”breathtakingly beautiful, her voice sang alone – while with each pronounced note- she sounded lucidly melodious than before, “Don’t you know you’re beautiful!”
He got down from his office. Grey clouds slowly shrouded the sky. With every passing second, sunlight faded further. Even in this situation. He felt good about himself. After all, he was going to meet her. He took short steps. He wanted to live in the moment. He wanted to let the joy sink in. He was the happiest man on earth. With every heartbeat, he recalled her. Her voice, her smile. It all made his heart melt. He could feel an orchestra playing in his mind. He was mad. Mad for her.
It was one evening “full of the linnet’s wings”, as poet Yeats had long ago put it. While the pouring sky shook thunderously, a lustrously youthful girl –striding across a sandy, pearl-white shore- had watched with dreamy eyes the fluttering of small, grey wings of linnets against the rain- as they were flying home. In grave melancholia, beyond her mind, she played with her curly hair locks- twirling and unwinding –with dripping raindrops. She was visibly soaked to the skin. What took him so long? His thought, her cheeks a suffused scarlet, rendered timid but acute heartbreaks in her. She wondered if her flawed mechanism would make it to his arrival. The ensuing blues caught her pounding heart unawares:
Be your path strewn in dew-soaked roses
As to the realm of Life, I say goodbye soon
Shrouded be in snow so far you see
And before I fade away into nothingness
Come to me once, my love, will you?
He crossed two streets, on his way to her. He knew this route like the back of his mind but it still felt like an adventure that day. It slowly started to rain. He knew she was where he belonged. Her fragrance always gave him a sense of fulfillment. Her eyes were deep pools of mahogany for him to drown in. She was what he had been born for. She was everything for him. She was his life. He felt rain drops pattering his head but he didn't care. All the rain in the world couldn’t stop him!
The eastern sky by then had ordained a grandiose shade of diffused blue! Two curiously deep, green eyes looked up in wordless speculation; the heavenly water forming tender beads among her ravishing eyelashes- suddenly she knew she felt something. The rainwater was falling rhythmically in drops, all of them seeming frenzied when hitting the soft sand, then erupted into uncountable, cascading raindrops! Thick, white foams imbued the relentless waves, and as the rapturously sonorous sound of the rain filled her ears, she could tell what it was: a RAIN DANCE! The heavenly euphoria of Nature tempted celebration, so she sang again:
Let downpour drench the ground
In torrents, or in raindrops. . . .
Let me bleed, as my love you wound
When in agony, the heart naively sobs
As everyone ran for shelter from the downpour, he continued on regardless. He tried to avoid the mud but it was the last thing on his mind. All he wanted was to be with her. To embrace her. He could jump if need be. He looked inside his pocket. He wanted to ensure it was safe. It was. Nicely boxed and ready to spring into someone's fingers. He had saved four months’ salary for it. As he walked on, he felt anxiety brewing in his mind. Would she say yes? He cleared the thoughts instantly. He knew she loved him. He knew she had already agreed, in her mind.
The rain danced sprightly, the waves breaking in an oceanic tempo, and no different was the swaying coastal breeze; yet she was the only lone human existence frozen in a standing posture. He hadn’t come yet, she could not decipher why, and as if cripplingly a feverish temperature set her delicately emaciated body on flames. The “nightly” fever had regained its scorching degree as if keeping up its routine work. With the rain bestowing a flaccid cool all over her silky skin, it created a soporific effect on the victim, but her “undying yet untold” love for him kept her awake. She was fragile, however she begged to God to spare her the night; SHE WAS DYING TO TELL HIM, HE WAS BEWILDERINGLY YET TO COME!
While the Reaper lulls me into a soporific quietus
With last remnants, I pray, when I crave. . .
Your quest be shaded by the caress of a wild deciduous
In deathless love you the clouds may drape
Before eons do elapse, come my love, will you?
The rain showed no signs of yielding. He didn't care. People passing by thought he had gone mad. He looked at them and smiled back. He brushed his hair back. She always liked it that way. He saw a shop with purple painted walls. She loved purple. He had always hated it before. But he suddenly started to take a liking in purple. He decided he would paint in his walls purple. But then he realized he had made a mistake. He would paint THEIR walls purple!
Lying spread-eagled among fine, comforting grains of sand, her fingers fondled the edges of an exquisite shell- the rain soothingly striking her face. Far away, she caught a glimpse of an ocean blue fabric and a bunch of red ‘something’. Could it be that he was coming?
“ Uh! I better not dream like a loser!,” she mocked at her own sub-conscious, dreamy state. She knew life could play cosmic jokes best on her, and being the ill-fated she was, he would never come.
On the verge of a never-ending oblivion
Death when I combat to love you evermore
Even if my dreams shatters into shards million
Beloved you’d forever be that you know
Come soon, sweetheart, before I enter doom’s door
Deathly fatigued, my arms await you, run to me- will you?
The rain was slowly subsiding. He could see small rays of sunlight amidst the clouds. All around, a strange aura of purity could be felt. A serene and calming breeze blew through his hair. An angelic rainbow filtered up in the horizon. Even among the brick walls of the metropolis, the rainbow could be seen. Suddenly, he felt a marauding sense of emptiness inside. He just laughed it off as pessimism was not his cup of tea. He saw a florist re-opening his shop after the rain. He stopped to buy some flowers.
She longed to lie forever, awaiting his presence in silent tears, yet on the brink of macabre, rain had put her to a Final Sleep for her fate –she thought- read:
In seclusion, empty-handed, you would die
Angels should look away, yet over your cadaver, cry!
He would not, nor could your death make him sigh
He arrived just at corner of the beach. He wanted to take a moment. He felt he had been ungrateful. He felt should thank the Almighty for giving her to him and bestowing his life with eternal happiness. He went down on his knees. He put the flowers he had bought for her down in front if him. He stretched his hand across and just let the twilight kiss his face. He sat down wistfully thinking what a lucky man he was to have found her. He remembered the first day they had met when he had first asked her name . . . when they first spoke on the phone and . . . . .when they had promised to never part. He could see her from far away but could not deduce what she was doing lying on the sand like that.................................
Even when the sun may set in the meadows
You make my life filled with rainbows,
With every moment you're here
You pull me ever near
You are the meaning of life
With you, I forgot all my strife
I feel new, I feel as if in bliss
Every time we touch, every time we kiss!
Co-authored by
Bushra Altaf Chowdhury & Rayaan Ibtesham Chowdhury
