She was a Rose
In the skies; day and night,
As the Sun goes down- they unite.
She rose up from her bed and approached the window: slow and pensive. Pulling the curtains apart she gazed at the setting sun as the sky started to fade from glorious orange to inky black. She looked down at the buzzing traffic down below- vibrant blurs on a granite canvas. She stepped back and ran her hand through her graying hair and then, closing her eyes, felt her way down to the creases on her brow. Making her way to the dining room she set herself to work.
For hours she slaved, sneaking occasional peeks at the clock perched on the wall. She laid out the plates carefully on the tablecloth and the centerpiece was her Filet Mignon. Candle-lights, her Jasmine room-freshener and Frank Sinatra set the mood.
Niranjan, I- BA (Eng.), Vivekananda College, Chennai
A quick glance at the clock told her that she had less than two hours before her lover arrived and she dashed into her bedroom to get changed. She garbed herself in a flowing red dress; a gift from past years. The only one in which she looked slim. Her phone rang and her answering machine dutifully picked it up. She couldn’t hear the message, her ears deafened by her preoccupied mind.
She daubed her face with the cosmetics she had acquired over the years, not once looking up at the mirror- for she did not have one. She knew she was beautiful. She believed it would be narcissistic to fall in love with herself, her own beauty. She pulled a brush from a drawer and attacked her hair cautiously not wanting to pull out a lot of it. She wore her best wristwatch and sprayed herself with her favorite perfume that she had used sparingly to make it last. She was a hospice nurse and most of her income was used to clear her mortgage and the remaining, her everyday needs.
Not quite day, But not yet night
Into the darkness fades the light.
She seated herself on the couch facing the door in the living room. The second clock atop the frame of the television informed her that she had a couple of minutes before it was time. She stared at the door, expectant. The sky outside was an echo of her mood.
She thought about her love and to her, love was a term used loosely.
He was a successful lawyer many years younger than herself, the son of her current patient. She hoped to be wedded to him almost immediately for they had been in a relationship for more than five years now. He was her security: financially and socially. For that, she submitted herself to him, his every whim and fancy. In the recent days she felt him growing more distant and cold towards her. Issues that were trivial turned into arguments and those in turn were blown out of proportion, into fights. She was counting on that dinner to have a chance to talk with him and try to mend their failing relationship.
The answering machine beeped again, breaking her line of thought but she ignored it.
Falling, falling- the sun is drowned
No light, just darkness all around.
She was on the verge of tears. Her clock now showed three hours past. She steeled herself and undressed. Setting the answering machine to play she started putting on her night gown.
“Melissa. It’s me. Listen- I can’t take this anymore. You and me… it is just not right. I mean, the age difference is one thing. But even if we put that aside I still see no way of making it work.
“There’s someone else for me. I’m sorry-”
Sinatra crooned away on her stereo, oblivious to her emotions.
An errant tear escaped her eye as she stopped the answering machine from playing the rest and erased all the messages. Turning off the stereo she walked back to the dining room and started putting the plates back into the shelves, feeding her untouched Filet Mignon to the trash can. She pulled out a large bowl and filled it with water and placed it on the table. After the ripples from the movement settled, she bent over and looked into it and saw her reflection looking back at her. There she was- her salt-and-pepper hair, her aging skin, her pallid face and her blue eyes of sorrow.
Silent tears rolled down her cheek and dropped into the bowl, breaking the silence with their soft pitter-patter.
She walked away with a bottle of medication in hand and lay down on her bed. Closing her moist and glistening eyes, she prayed for sleep.
All the lights in the city went out in unison, engulfing everything in an impenetrable blackness.
She had never really known what kind of a person she was. She had always thought of herself to be a kind & caring person, beautiful and romantic. Now, she knew.
She was a rose: fragile, withered and vain.
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Good writing, keep posting such wonderful article Niranjan
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