“Would you still write about me if nothing existed? Would you still care?”; She asked. It wasn’t the first time that She had posed this question, but the gravity of the situation was enormous now, She was leaving and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. While, most of our coffee table conversations would be fun and revolve around the latest happenings in town and at times football too, but this was no time to indulge in anything as such. She looked serious, and She was looking beautiful. There was this thing about her, any shade of anger would add to her beauty, perhaps it complemented her spark. I would be left besotted and go numb and speechless; and it would often add fuel to her raging fire, What chaos! What a thing of beauty!
I looked at her, and smiled; “I will write and I will care, Jenny”; I replied, but She was always driven by her assumptions, She felt I wouldn’t, and She has my benefit of doubt, I would change; She felt. Distance is a great deterrent, isn’t it? No, certainly not, I never thought so, perhaps it would bring her back to me, indulge and involve my mind in thinking of her, I had learnt to count my blessings, they added up to her, the summation of all things good my life had seen; still sees.
Life is uncertain and fate often treacherous; but the feelings aren’t a function of any of these, to have seen and to have felt; and then, to have realised: She mattered, my care did too. I couldn’t and I wouldn’t shrug off anything just so easily. The chaos would perpetuate, the absence would haunt and the distance wouldn’t cease; but the foundation She had laid wasn’t that weak; it could sustain the blows of whatever fate and time had in store.
I could sense her taking those long breathes, pausing in between and then speaking up; those were signs of the storm calming down, how well had I gotten to know her!! She knew, I would write for there existed nothing else apart from her who could drive me into writing, She knew I would still care; for I hadn’t cared as such for anyone else before, and She knew: distance would just be a number, the farther the better, it would make me write and care better.
From being perfect strangers, to now something beyond what any definition couldn’t define; we had grown into something better, something similar and something irreplaceable in each other’s lives. There was this space that no one, just no one could occupy, regardless of whatever they brought to our lives, whatever value they added. And, this would stay. Distance wouldn’t dictate anything, the separation wouldn’t.
There’s this beauty in being far away from her, it makes me long for her all the more, and keeps my heart in good stead. No matter how frightening and gory the time ahead and life would be, I know; She would still be the same for me; will remain the same. My home, away from home. The refuge my soul would seek no matter where it might wander, my Northern Star.
This would be the least I could do, to keep going: to keep writing; to keep caring. Nothing extraordinary, not an ordinary promise too.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
P.S: I wouldn’t sleep, would shape a dream of her rather. Ending lines from the poem, ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’, by Robert Frost
abhishek purkayastha 