A Conversation.......

(The following is my first published prose. Its fiction but has a lesson for life!)

I was sitting at the corner table beside a window, the only place which has known me relentlessly for the last ten years. This small, quite restaurant has been my place of hiding; a rendezvous that has kept me from breaking away by listening to the voices inside me which very few has ever had access to.

That day I was lost to the whims of time, to the unprecedented outcomes of my struggle to find inner-peace in my life. Lonely as I have always been despite the presence of all the people in my life, I like to silently sit at this place for hours undisturbed.

But that day was quite unusual, its quietness embalmed my thoughts but its gloominess made my instincts uneasy.  Never accustomed to any interference, I was seized out of my thoughts by the sudden coming of a stranger. I raised my head in bewilderment and slight anger, but without giving me time to protest she broke out a conversation.

She started narrating her ordeals one after the other, without actually giving me time to interrupt and suggest or even remark. It was a barrage of questions, exclamations, lamentations, complains; each more perplexing than the latter. She sobbed and laughed as if her mind couldn’t make up with her real emotions while her face explained the rest. She was as fragile as an anemic. Her speech had no hiccups but it had anxiety, impatience as if she would wither any moment. I tried to find my voice, but her vociferous one-ended conversation couldn’t make me any more helpless. Nevertheless this silence at my end gave me time to observe that she was literally panting and at times she would often fight for her breath. She also coughed to clear her voice several times. And that she wasn’t off age, might be in her late-twenties.

Absolute silence engulfed after sometime. I then for the first time opened my mouth to speak. I wasn’t sure what to say; to console or to be angry, to be a friend or a stranger, I was completely at bay to decide my approach.

At last I started to speak. I had many questions in my mind, but I just forgot them altogether and tried to be as nice as possible. I consoled her that nothing in this world is everlasting and that time is a magician which itself heals every wound by its virtue of passing by. I told her that life was never meant to be simple and it was a mosaic which had so many colors in it that a person can never imagine and expect of. Lastly, that anticipation leads to nothing but distrust and sadness. Given my own state of affairs, even I was confused how these words came from inside me.

She listened to me attentively just like an eager student. Her expressions were now a little bit relaxed, but suddenly uneasiness overpowered her. Her breathing turned faster, I could see her struggling for her breath. Moreover her color turned further paler, her eyes emptier. Before I could make any effort to help her, she looked straight in my eyes, her look was of a satisfied and relieved person, she brought her head down on her hands on the table and turned motionless. I was utterly shocked. She was dead.

Subsequently I discovered that she died but of her own hands. She committed suicide by slow-poisoning herself. I also came to know that she had no one in this world after losing her parents in accident two-years earlier. Also that she had neither friends nor enemies but solitude to live with. She had suffocated herself with all her emotions, feelings and desires. Absorbing all her complains inside her; became subdued to find to find a way out. She didn’t have anyone to listen to the voices deep inside her, thus found suicide a better option. She made her own decision.

Weeks after I now sit at this bench, separated by a road in front of the same restaurant. The night is cold and dark but I feel light from inside and find it calmer. I no more want to hide in the restaurant which is just feet’s away from me. I am much more interested in the outside than the sullen inside. I am waiting for my friend that a car stops near my bench. I know this is my old fellow, my colleague of several years. After years of time I have finally said yes to the football game which once had been our favorite past time.

As we move along the street in the car I think of what changed me. I now realized how important relationships are and no matter what, whether I am right or wrong, I will never sever from a bond of friendship or love so much scarce in this world. I realized that keeping all things inside me had spoiled my life, that to find inner peace I must first be at peace with all the people I have around. For this solitude was not the option.

At last I understood the meaning of life and that I never wished to be suffocated to death by keeping all things inside me. She was a stranger who somehow made me change the inside without even giving me time to say thanks.

                                                                                                         

   Authored by Usama