Strangers in the Night

It was some crazy special evening. At 5 she decided she should celebrate like normal people do. For a change she wouldn't wallow in sorrow any longer, for a few hours. She called up S. S and she were the best of friends. Though she did never believe in friendship, but she fathomed that if she ever began believing in frienship, it could be only for S.

She was kept waiting and waiting beside the highway, waiting to be picked up. At one point of time she wondered if she had been ditched, like always. She thought she would rather get back to wallowing in sorrow, just when S arrived. Later sipping cold and hot coffees alternately, besides other varieties, they watched headlights on the highways merge on the glass walls of the coffee shop. Watching people, chattering away, so lost, yet so much there. Some happy, some absolutely elated, some mischievous, most of them pretending. Travelling to and away from the coffee cup inside her mind, she rested there, calmly. Waited.

S got talking. S talked about her boy-friend. Though she and S were pretty close, they never expected anything of each other. That probably was what made them stick to each other. But she listened on. They shifted to another table on the verandah, in the lawn. Waiters smiled. New faces arrived. S, whose chair was towards the edge had a feeling that she could just fall off. She laughed at the idea of S tipping off her chair.

Later she got talking too. Then she paused. The pause lenghtened. And then became a lingering silence. She wondered if she would rather listen. She wondered if there would ever be another person, who would be solely hers. Who would listen to her, speak. Who would just watch her sleep. Sarcasm became a person inside her and began giggling and she discarded those thoughts..

While walking back home, she wanted to pick up a rose for herself. She asked the guy selling flowers to do away with the thorns. He didn't and said, 'Only when these thorns get into his fingers and make him bleed, and cause him enough pain, he would think of you and love you more.' She ran away from that place before Sarcasm could gather itself and giggle again.

Later that night, she met a stranger though. The stranger became that him for her. He made her laugh and laugh and laugh. And Oh my god, She found out that she had forgotten the sound of her laughter. That night her cheeks ached smiling all the time. She laughed till tears formed in her eyes. And he went on and on and on. She wanted to store some of those smiles for the next day. She wanted every night to be that way. Every day spent waiting for the Stranger she met that night.

Things went on this way for some days. The moment they began talking she forgot who she was. Only thing that was so conspicuosly present was not them but their ripples of joy.

With time, but, their meetings dwindled. Her waits lengthened. She travelled closer to becoming her previous self. She was aware of what was impending. But she waited for him, nevertheless. That wait lenghtened into an unanswered lull. She moved back into her shell. He didn't come back.

The rose withered. And they became strangers again.