His Wait

The biting cold chilled his fingers and the cold spread painfully throughout his feet. It was as if he was walking the snow laden path barefoot. The cold wind was coming inside through that broken window pane he had thought of fixing last week. The barren trees outside stood mocking at him, just like all those cold winters. The winters went and came back, but that cold, numb sensation inside him just kept on growing. He tried to get up but it was as if his blood was frozen. He could barely move.

It had been a good number of years since she was gone. Eight years, four months and twenty one days, he had kept a count. Every passing day turned out to be a horrible reminder of her absence. Her voice still lingered and often danced around, in his head. The cottage he had been living in was meant to be a surprise for her birthday that year. How excited he was for that! But everything went in vain. Each part of him ached, the winter was making it worse. But he waited for it to end, to reach his solace. The only thing that gave him warmth were memories which later became the reason of his cold shivers. He used to spend hours looking at those old photographs from those occasions when people often wished him with long life and happiness. The former was what he wanted to get rid of and the latter hardly visited him.

He was now in the seventh decade of his life but in his mind he was still in the sixth, the time he still had her with him. The terrible ache of his degrading body parts gave him a weird pleasure, he wished for death every day since the ever increasing ache inside his heart was suffocating him.

When he closed his eyes, while the rest of memories were slowly fading, he could clearly recall the first time he was told about her. He was told that she was the girl he would be marrying. In those days, that’s how marriages were fixed. And a thought struck him when he first saw her, she was beautiful. With passing time, he used to think of new ways just to bring a smile on that face which was too shy to talk to him in the initial days. Over the years he became a big man with a sole reason, just to keep her happy and give her everything. Theirs was a relationship bonded over deep emotions. His ever increasing love, hers was silent yet so affectionate and tender. They gave the best to their kids and had no complaint from life and God. But there was something he wanted to do, something that was meant for her, something that would make her fall for him all over again. Over those years they shared an inseparable bond and now to mark it, he had planned something. He was building a cottage for her at the countryside. How she loved the nature and its bounties and the countryside had always been her favourite. It was meant to be a surprise for her 62^nd birthday.

But fate had something else in its bag for him. He clearly remembered the vows they took, “until death do we part”. It was a hollow lie. Death was just the physical separation he had to suffer while she had gone to another world, she just disappeared. With every passing day, the void inside him ached. Even the sun couldn’t warm him, all he needed was that face he saw every morning when he woke up. He cried, he smiled, not sure how to express himself, he clinged onto those moments they had spent over the years.

He had always heard that Time is a wonderful healer, it would heal all the pain. But the truth was just the opposite. Her scent vanished into the thin air after a while. Her memories were slowly getting erased from his mind. And that was what he feared the most. He didn't want the old age to take a toll on the only hope he had been living on, her memories. There were days when he used to laugh with a glass of wine in his hand, remembering how she used to say that she didn't want to live a single day without him. And her wish was fulfilled, she left him, not by choice though. And now he wished for his end every single day and wondered why God had been so partial towards her. What sins had he done to receive such a punishment!

 But today it had been a bit different. He tried to get up but it felt as if his legs weren't working anymore. With the support of the bed, he did. And he felt a deep pain in his chest and he couldn't breathe. In seconds, he collapsed and his body fell on the icy cold floor. And the last thing he knew was, he smiled in that pain because he was going away, going away from the world he didn't want to live in. He was going to the world where she existed, the world that existed on the other side. He got rid of the pain he had been living with all those years, the deadly pain of separation.