Midpoint

The most undying of love stories, always end in the middle. 

Even after invigorating beginnings and debilitating climaxes, the story per se, doesn't end.

You, reader, are taken to a point, somewhere vaguely in the middle of the story. An approximate midpoint. 

When the love was ripe enough, not sour yet. 

Some rendezvous. Very distinct, disconnected from the consequential chain of events. 

Something fragile, mostly inconsequential.

Like they*, for instance. They met, drawn together due to the heat in their young blood, had numerous conversations on their ideologies, on movements they thought would change the world, how they would all break free et al. They got married, she got pregnant. And he was killed. The rest of the story continued sans him. The humdrum around them went on. Countries, rivers, seas, snow and sand. 

In the end, you, reader are told, what he saw when he was killed. Before his eyes flashed a scene from the forgotten midpoint. Each had fallen for the other, entirely. But there was this stalemate. He had asked her to come for a movie. Matinee show. He would hold her hands, in the dark. For the first time, touch her, in that way. She hadn't made it till the interval. He had waited for her in the sun alone. And when she did come, they must have smiled. He angled down his head, his hand forming a canopy between them to shield her from the sun. 

They stood there pretty much frozen in time, as the story ended. Slowly, simultaneously as he died. 

Sometimes all you remember after having shut the book, despite all its drama, the meandering of the story line, is this singular moment stolen from the middle, and craftily placed in the end. 

* Gauri & Udayan: picked up from The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri (words in italics are verbatim)