One Step From Love. (an excerpt).

She insisted on walking the whole way back to the beach but I was worried for her. If I was tired by now, she had to be exhausted as well. I decided to hire a taxi since we had had enough of foot walks by now. Soon enough we reached our destination. The place was throbbing alive with people. Everyone seemed to have come out of their houses to enjoy the sunset over the sea. Children played on the beach as their parents watched them contended to find them happy. Some people even took dips in the sea water and played over the waves mad in the moment.

Evening had approached. Sun had begun its descent in the sky. We sat there on the sand huddled close to each other. Watching people do their thing. Everyone around us seemed so happy. And happy was I to be sitting beside the person I had come to love. But every coin has two sides to it. Though as much as I wanted this day to be endless, I knew we had nothing more than a few more hours left to us. Whatever would happen after that was inevitable. It was all probably written down somewhere in the book of the gods. A story of mine and hers’ lost among sheets and sheets of time. I wish I could know what was to happen to us. But that didn’t matter anyway… it was pretty obvious. We would head back to Bandra by nightfall. Take a stroll down the Juhu beach. Reach the station. Say goodbye. Finish. What more was to be expected? What more could have happened? Nothing.

“I wish I were some superhero kind of guy…  I wish I could stop this moment just as it is…” I said looking at her as a gust of wind ruffled through her hair.

She remained silent for a moment and then suddenly pointing in the distance said,

“Do you see that sand castle?”

I spotted a wrecked sandcastle a few meters away. “Yes…” I said, “But it’s broken… or incomplete… whatever… but it’s not a sandcastle exactly.”

“Come, we will rebuild it…!” she said getting up and running towards it. I followed her as she sat on the sand and started work. First I was uninterested but her zeal and enthusiasm drove me deep into it. We built the castle, but every time, either one of its walls would fall down or something else would happen. It was a lot of hard work to bring sea water and put it in a small depression. We had dug it out especially for water storage. But still it was a lot of fun working alongside her. Our dirty hands would brush against each other. Our glances would reach up to meet from time to time.

At one juncture she got so engrossed that I just left everything and looked deeply unto her face. Feeling her interest, acknowledging her movements. After a while she noticed I wasn’t working and looked up at me. I shifted my gaze instantly and started working again. But then i felt it too. The sensation. The prick you feel when someone is staring at you. Maybe she was looking at me… I looked up and found she was! Just as I looked up she removed her eyes as if guilty of some theft, caught in a shameful act. A faint smile lit my face which clearly shone on her as well. I, once again, playfully this time, picked up my eyes and a moment later she picked up hers as well. This time she spoke up,

“What are you doing?”

“Whatever you are doing…” I said reflecting the question back at her.

“I caught you first!” she said pretending to get annoyed.

“Oh yeah?” I said, “You are such a liar!”

“I’m not a liar! You are!” she hollered and threw a handful of sand on me!

I was shocked for the moment. “Watch now...” I said and bombarded her with fistfuls of sand. She hit me and I hit her. Soon enough we were practically rolling in the sand. but the moments caught on to us. We became aware of strange looks we were getting from people on the beach. I even heard one of them say, ‘it seems this guy never saw a beach before! Look at his antics!’ but it didn’t bother us anyway. We didn’t care what people said. All that mattered to me for the moment was the girl. And I cared for nothing more than keeping her happy. That’s what love is, isn’t it? Keeping your counterpart happy… 

After a lot of fighting in the sand, and even more of cleaning up, we again got back to the castle and completed it finally. We placed a boy and a girl made out of sand in the courtyard. Each one of them representing us. After we had finished, we took a few steps back to marvel at our creation. She turned to me and softly said,

“Look, mr. superhero guy, we stopped time…”

I looked at the sand castle. Definitely we had stopped time. There stood a replica of hers and mine looking out to the infinity of sea. What lay beyond, none of us knew. But for the moment we had left a portion of ourselves in those figurines of sand. We had ‘made’ a memory. But that wasn’t permanent as well. A big wave had to come sometime and wash it all away. It wasn’t only with the sand. Had we placed ourselves on a stone even, the same would have happened. Only it would have taken a little longer and would have been much more painful. This sand represented us beautifully, because it couldn’t hold on for long… neither could we. The tide of time had to wash away both of us. Leaving only fragments behind. The fragments called memory.

I smiled at her and held her close to me. It was the first time I had touched her and it already felt as if she was a part me. She snuggled her face on my chest and said,

“I wondered why girls were generally shorter in height than boys… I guess I know now. I can hear your heartbeat…”

“Then you probably might know what it says…” I said almost whispering.

“It speaks of unexplained things. Impossible things. It wants us to break all rules of this world.” she looked up and said, “It wants us to live again…”

I gave her a gentle squeeze and held on. We stayed like this for a very long time, watching the sun go down in the sky. Gentle waves of the sea washed up on our bare feet leaving a tingling cold sensation behind. I looked up and found whiffs of clouds colored in various tints of the sunset. All of them moved towards the far reaching horizon. They seemed to be laughing at me. Laughing at my helplessness. They had found their eternal companions in rain and wind and sky and lightening. I had found one too; only eternity had shrunk itself into hours in my case. Yet it was eternity for me. Though by the end of this day I was going to lose her, but a part of her soul was always mine. She couldn’t be separated from me now. We were one.

I looked up at the passing clouds and told them with defiance in my eyes, ‘I had found my rain, wind, fire sky, earth, matter, thoughts, soul, god, everything.’

‘I had found myself.’

*end of chapter 10. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                          -- kafir.