Me and Cinderella

“C’mon drive a little, nothing is forever…” – She loved The Wallflowers. She smelled of roses and drank white wine every Easter. She spoke like the early morning breeze and had hair that felt like the loving caress of a passing meadow on your face. She loved poetry and adored Shelley. She is now dead. And I cannot get over it.

It’s been five years and one month and nine days – and eleven hours and fourteen minutes and twenty-one seconds… twenty-two… twenty-three…

I always thought TS Elliot was more romantic. She blamed it on my ignorance and lack of ‘technical education’ in English literature. I accused her of being a cultural snob saying that one didn’t need a degree in English language to appreciate poetry. She smiled. She always did, and tossed her hair back with a flourish that was neither too exaggerated nor underplayed, with a soft pout on her lips and subtle tease in her eyes – she said she loved me. I swear she did. She always took my breath away when she did that.

I lost my breath a total of four thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five times.

I have her loving memory by my side, like a burning reality that stokes my words. And my words are all I have left, when everything else that I once knew to be real and tangible and material, just slipped out of my grasp. Now, I cannot touch anything, feel feelings, smell rhymes and drink the songs that once were the world on my walls and looked back at me from my frozen mirror, excitedly welcoming a new day. Now I stand frozen as my mirror, like my mirror… I have become my own mirror. I don’t hold images, I just watch them pass me by; their stories now irrelevant to me… their meaning beyond my definition or concern.

I just have my words now. But my words are limited. No one reads them, no one hears them… so I just limit my words to her.

I once believed that my words had passion. I once believed that words were strong, powerful creatures that no one could or should mess with. Words could bring down Gods and raise civilizations. Words could reside in infinity and from infinity to nothingness, they could cover everything. They could see everything and destroy or create as they willed. They were potent and benign giants with a crazy sense of humor.

I tried to tame words. She said I could. She said I was the craziest writer she had ever read or met. She said I didn’t write words, I didn’t speak them – I saw them. It was a ludicrous idea, I told her. It was exactly one of those exotic permutations of the language that made something sound like an exquisitely profound assertion when in reality, it meant nothing. She smiled, every time I said that. She smiled, and took my breath away.

A total of four thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five times.

Now, only photographs remain, buried in the bosom of some yellowed book on the shelves with the dust of ignored chores and scared memories. I wake up. I sleep. I eat and I make tea. I submit myself to my husband so he can ravage my body in search of that little moment of peace for his insatiable hunger. Then, I smile. His son tugs at my saree when we pass a bakery. He likes pastries. He likes sweets. He likes Easter-eggs. I cringe.

I secretly pass her house sometimes after I drop him off at school. I keep tabs. There have been lovers. Many. Father had said consider her dead. Threats. Beatings. Locked-in. Tears. Many tears. The gnawing emptiness. Therapy. Marriage. Pregnancy. Simple words… It’s been, five years and one month and nine days – and eleven hours and seventeen minutes and thirty-four seconds… thirty-five… thirty-six…