The midnight heat took out every bit of my energy; the broken air conditioner wasn't helping either. I was in the middle of journaling when she called, her voice deeper than usual, and she told me that she was going away and that we would never meet again. She asked me to never contact her, to forget her as if nothing existed.
I could feel pain, grief, and a wound slowly forming inside me as the hours passed. Her words kept repeating in my ears. I passed out into deep sleep. Maybe it was the tiredness of the day, or maybe it was my body trying to save me.
As I woke up the next day, a numbness had taken over. I went to the office, spent time reading manuscripts and talking to the writer with whom I was working. The book was finished, and the final edits I suggested were also done, and we ended up discussing the cover design. As he went out of my office to see the marketing team, I realised that I had nothing to work on from now on. I'm an editor with no projects. It was somewhat of a blessing in disguise. I had to find something to work on, which meant that I had to sit through the endless manuscripts in my inbox. It was something I usually hated, but this time it was helpful.
The work became an escape. Something I eventually came to learn was that everything we do is, in a sense, an escape—an escape from pain or boredom, an escape from the nothingness of life. Every act was futile, be it love or art; everything succumbs to nothingness.
Weeks passed. Reading manuscripts, visiting coffee shops, and going to movie theatres without fail. All those manuscripts failed to make any impression. Some were pretentious, some were heartless, and some were just simply ordinary.
It was three weeks later that I opened my journal again. I noticed that there were only a few pages left. As I skimmed through the pages, I realised that everything I wrote in those pages was just about her, and it was only fitting that I left it unfinished. But I tried—unsuccessfully so—to write a poem.
It was as if I was trying to write with an inkless pen. Neither words nor memories came to me. Yes, there was a rupture in my heart, but I was cut off from any sense of pain from it. I felt nothing. I was cut off from my own feelings. It was a sneaky act of self-protection, I figured. I knew the pain would be unbearable if I came into contact with it. It had happened to me before, but it was more intense this time. It was only then that I thought about what her reason might be for leaving me, but it soon dawned on me that it was a pointless question to ask. Nothing but a slow decay of my inner world would be the product of that enquiry.
My apartment became chaotic, more disorderly day by day. Books and loose papers gathered dust on the table. My body weight started going down. I kept searching for a new project. I became ignorant of time; days, weeks, and months just mixed into one continuous blur.
One day, as I was staring out of a train window, it started raining heavily. The smell of wet metal and damp air drifted inside the carriage. It was only when the first droplets of rain fell on my face that I realised how much time had passed. And it had been months since that hot midnight in March. After I got out of the train, drenched in the pouring rain, the overcoat became heavy against my shoulders. Water got into the soles of my shoes, and it felt like I was walking through a puddle. Strangers looked at me with weird, judgemental curiosity, but I kept walking. The printed manuscripts in my bag were also soaked by the rain.
And that night I had no work to escape to; I tried cleaning my apartment instead. Memories resurfaced, histories got unearthed. Soaking in that rain had somehow eroded the wall of numbness. Images came to my mind, slowly reconstructing her face; they had a persistent quality to them. To forget it was beyond my capacity for indifference or oblivion.
I switched on the music player and kept it at a low hum, and went on cleaning. It was a playlist of Beatles songs I created years ago, the same songs I had listened to countless times. And now they meant nothing more than background noise.
Everything that was once precious will slowly decay until it loses its beauty—and with it, its meaning, I thought.
It was while I was cleaning my bookshelf that Yesterday played. I was holding a stack of books, and as the song ended, I burst into tears, and the books slipped from my hands and fell to the floor, as if they too had been abandoned.
Why she had to go
I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday
I sat there between the scattered books; the book covers blurred and seemed to dissolve into each other, as if there were no boundaries between them. There was nothing inside my mind; it had gone completely quiet. And my sobs were quieter, almost like weak, powerless sighs. I became untethered from the passing of time. It felt like I was in a slumber, submerged in my tears. The lights went off. The rain became heavier—louder and restless in the wind. My sobs became louder. In the middle of that rain it felt safe to cry—like a newborn searching for its mother.
My sobs died down as the pouring rain became a soft chatter. And as the rain noises grew quieter, a louder cry overpowered and defeated it. It came from the child in the apartment next to me. It felt like I had found a kindred spirit.
I picked up a book from the floor and started looking through the pages. I was searching for something—but I didn't know what it was. I flicked through every page of that book; it made no impression on me, and when I closed it I didn't even recall what it was about. Between that brief moment of this realisation, I somehow found enough energy to get up from the floor.
I dragged myself to bed and stayed there for two days, barely getting up unless necessary. It was like a storm had been going on around me, and that bed was the only place I could feel safe. It was as if I was cut off from any sense of enthusiasm and the desire to move forward. All I could do was stay there and hope, against reason, that this would pass.
I ended up reading my own journals from years ago, barely legible and filled with vicious self-criticism and an angst so pure yet shallow it could only be the product of one's adolescence. At that moment I realised how much I've forgotten about myself and how much more I will end up forgetting. I had changed—not by conquering demons but by simply forgetting what was once dear to me.
There was a page that looked stained by coffee. I tried remembering how it happened, but it was an unsuccessful attempt. Yet in that effort to recall it, like a magician’s sleight of hand, I found myself suddenly engrossed in memories of her.
There was nothing concrete that I remembered, as if waves were forming on water from an invisible source. Strange, persistent impressions formed within me, but their origin remained impossible to trace.
Like an old photograph that disintegrates; something remains—decayed colours, a blurred memory of a smile, but nothing substantial, nothing real. The history of something that once existed. Memories had faded, lost in the abyss of the subconscious— inaccessible, untraceable. But The history remains.
Time seemed to slow down, Moments stretched to it's breaking point. It seemed like a balancing act ; making up for those months which fleeted by without an imprint.
I often found myself in between a whirlwind of memories and daydreams, Tempted to find the reason of her disappearance, Practising what i would say if i met her once more. Futile attempts -- to calm the internal storm, To win that battle i was abandoned to.