Walking with your Memories

It’s a clear and sunny day to them, but I see silver clouds hanging around me. I keep walking, and it feels like I’m walking in the desert, barefoot. Every tick goes by…aches… like the pulse behind a bruise. I miss those mornings, when vibrations with a sweet text used to wake me up and those times when fortitude of texting back took over my laziness every afternoon. And I miss those long, sleepless, arousing nights too.

My head is filled up with his memories. And in a way, I’m glad…because these memories are my only reminder that he was real…that those times were.
When I look around, flowers don’t fascinate me… I feel like their beauty is lost…like me. And when I look back down, I see the road and I see us there, amused, looking each other in the eyes, as if there is a projector up somewhere.

Seems like I been walking from years, though it’s been a while I stepped out from my home. It’s funny how the distance from home to the park suddenly increased and it never did when we wanted to. Everyday, I stop myself, but I feel like its involuntary, I don’t go there something draws me towards it. And the other reason could be that that’s the only place where I’m me. That’s the only place where I don’t have to wear a fake smile to show the world that I’m fine. And may be because that is the place where my hopes of seeing him… again… come to life.

Those heavy, decayed iron gates are now standing in front of me, shut. Like they were, three years back, when we came here for the first time in search of a lonely place. Who on earth would go to an old carbide factory in search of peace? He would. I open the gate, and get in. I see the boulevard where once we used to walk, linking arms. “Riddhi, every time I come here with you, it feels like heaven” he’d said once.

I’m standing still, starring far down the street. The unceasing drone of the city muffles here. The dusk is sucking all the light around me, literally. There is just a single lamp, illuminated, glaring at me. I ghost past the factory and the workshop. Till now, I tried my best, but whenever I see this park, all my feelings and emotions start flooding this place.

I push the gates open. Darkness of the dead park dissolves all the light coming from the lamp, still glaring at me, from a distance. I move towards the end…the end of my journey. I sit down near the bench, drawing my legs up to my chest. I try … I try a lot, but my tears just don’t stop. Whenever I come here, my brain stops functioning, I go blank.

But it’s for the last time, that I’m coming here. And I’m not alone, I brought something with me. I don’t know how this entire idea would look like to the world. But I’m still doing it. Yes, leaving you a letter where no one comes, not even you, IS stupid. What else can I do?

-

She takes out a letter from her pocket and puts it on the bench and walks back, somewhere.

-

The Letter


Dear love,

When you left…you took everything with you, but your absence is everywhere I look. It’s like a huge hole that’s been punched through my chest. I shout my lungs out, I call you back, but you never come. I have this aching need to hear your voice, in my ears again.

Sometimes I think, is there a possibility, that all I had was just what I longed? Were you real? Were we? You were like the beautiful melody that played in my long nights. And now, when my world is falling apart, I need you, to hug me like the stars hold the moon in the sky, right there where they belong. My life, with you was like a kaleidoscope, filled with colours and light. And now you broke it.

Just give me back those days because I’m mad…mad about you. I want to hold your hands and walk in the park again. I want you to chase me in the woods again I…I want you to kiss me again …like you did, before you left. I cannot not want all this.

And if it was a dream, make me sleep again, forever or comeback. Please.

Nothing’s left unspoken. And there is nothing I can rely upon, except your memories which sometimes bring my smile back…which are always with me when I’m alone…which keep you…alive…in my heart.
Waiting for you to reply.

I miss you. And more than that, I miss being loved

Yours forever
-Riddhi

Riddhi never came back to that park ever again. But still every morning she thinks of him, every sunset she imagines him with her. And foolish though it may seem, she still waits for him to call her back ... to the park.