She poured out her regular cup of strong tea and lightly sniffed at it. But it was more out of habit as her ability to smell had weakened with the appearance of greys. She sat heavily with the cup by the window that overlooked the street. While she sat calmly sipping on the tea, everyone on the street passed her by in a blur of movement. There was urgency in every step, a fear in every eye. They were all blind to her withered old structure in the dilapidated construction; their only concern was moving ahead, their eyes only looked upward in the search of a heaven.

She was growing restless by now. Then the doorbell rang. She smiled and gently dragged her tired feet to the door. The young postman smiled, “Sorry grandma, there were a lot of letters to be delivered today.” She smiled affectionately and led him to the old dining table. As the young boy set down his bag and retrieved the letter addressed to her, she neatly started cutting the apples kept on the table.

The postman squinted at the letter, “Your son’s writing is becoming more illegible by the day.” The woman let out a hearty laughter, “Of course, he has become a doctor now.” “It is just the usual. He is fine. So is his wife. Their child misses your stories. He will come to meet you soon.” The woman gave a weary smile as she placed the chopped apples on a platter and passed them to the boy. “Don’t mind grandma but I have been reading out these letters to you every single day from almost a year. It is always the same. But never have I seen your son or his wife visiting you.” The woman stared out of the window for a long while as though wishing an answer to fly past. After what seemed like ages, she looked back at the boy and said, “But you will come, won’t you? You will come whenever a letter has my address on it. You will come when you get married. Your children will listen to my stories if not my own grandchildren.” She looked at him with such intense expectation that he just smiled, unable to speak.

As he picked up his bag, ready to leave, the woman glanced at the full plate. “Take those apples home, son. They are for you.” The boy looked at the plate and forced another smile. He gingerly picked up a couple of pieces leaving the rest on the plate and walked out. The woman took her place at the window as the young postman rushed out of the date in a hurry, pausing only to shove the apple pieces into the dustbin.

The woman’s thoughts zoomed back 8 years in time when her son and daughter-in-law walked out of the same house with her grandchild in their arms, vowing never to return back to her stifling presence. She felt a sudden pang of loneliness as she wrote yet another letter to herself. She had to take immense effort to ensure that the tears didn’t roll down on the letter, so that the young boy wouldn’t have any problems understanding the address.

The evening was spent in cooking her son’s favourite food and watching fatigued people return home to their families from that window. Before she retired to a night of fitful sleep, there was one last chore to complete. She wiped a stray tear as she laid fresh and ripe apples on the table.

They had been in love with each other since the time they didn’t even know what being in love means. Theirs was a relationship everyone envied. This was the very fact that made him struggle to keep holding her hand even when it stopped meaning anything to either of them.

She was attractive, elegant, reticent, intelligent and easily dominated. He was smart, well-mannered and a downright charmer. He loved being envied and she believed that the love was for her. Whatever be the reasons, their bond had survived for the better part of 14 years. He charmed her into submission and she drifted along. But he always credited himself with being an ideal partner. He was considerate, undemanding, unquestioning and responsive to all her needs and wants. Just one thing pricked him now. He needed to talk about it; not because she deserved to know the truth but because he needed to get it off his conscience. 
He was jolted back to reality when he realized that the waiter was offering him another drink. He gratefully accepted. He never drank too much, but the reason he avoided drinking was the very reason he gulped down another drink tonight – alcohol helped him blur out the truth. 
They went back to their palatial apartment after the party. Now was the time. He went and hugged her. She just looked at him, surprised. There had been no show of affection in this house for almost two years now. “I am sorry,” he burst out weeping. A faint glint crossed her eyes. He was taken aback for a moment but then thought he had just imagined it. He had to continue before he lost the nerve. 
“I have always been unfair to you. I promised to love you all my life but midway down the line, the warmth was lost. I could see you taking tremendous efforts to reach out to me but I didn’t respond. I apologize for all of it…”
His wife stroked a finger against her wedding ring. “I have always loved you, honey. What’s got into you suddenly? You even drank too much tonight. I guess you should just go to bed. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
“No Susan, I need to finish what I want to say. I might not be able to bring myself to talk about this ever again. I always tried being a good husband, not realizing that it wasn’t enough. Then three years back, I met Alana. I was just too stressed by everything in life at that point of time. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel guilty about what I was doing. I tried quite a few times to end everything and come back home to you but something kept pulling me back to her.”
Susan looked on unblinkingly. He expected her to cry, be angry, break down, but she just looked at him. Her face refused to give away any emotion. After what seemed like an eternity, she took a deep breath. “Three years? Why? You kept me in darkness for three years! You left me struggling alone to keep our marriage going for three years! Why tonight…?”
“She met with an accident last week. The doctors tried their best to save her but she passed away two days back. I couldn’t even go to see her one last time. What would I go as? What relationship did I have with her? She upheld her repute while she lived, and I didn’t want to abuse it after her death. But I couldn’t live with the guilt. I had to confess to you…”
Susan smiled warmly. “I wish you would have told me sometime back darling. Alana might have lived. You might have lived! The police will arrive here any minute. They have received an anonymous package of photographs of you and Alana together. It will be better for you if you run off right now. I will tell the police that I know nothing of your whereabouts. That’s the least I can do. For old times sake…”

Her eyes closed the door to her soul-
A door that opened only for him.
Her beautiful blue eyes were lined with kohl,
But he could only see them filled to the brim

He never understood the longing of hers,
The want of having him close,
The nights of love in cold Decembers,
The passionate patch-ups after loud rows.

He thought he understood what she said
Even as she silently gazed at evening birds.
Their silent conversations misled;
The feelings needed words

They vowed to wipe off the fantasized memories
And said an unspoken goodbye.
He never believed in fairies;
But future, for her, was to merely on fate rely.

The vow was broken, thoughts kept flooding
As they gazed at shiny dewdrops.
Miles apart they were living
Joint only by her swiftly fading hopes.

As she awoke one morning,
Fate answered her teary calls;
Emotions in her dying self went soaring.
Years without him were just full of falls.

He never thought he would see her again
Much less while dressed in his white coat.
The strength in his feet seemed to drain
He could now see his life gloat.

They time they had wasted was not to come
But he would keep holding her hand now
Through the rest of life, their song he promised to hum
As before death she took her last bow…

Forgetting is the greatest boon granted to man. But like a lot of things in life, we don’t realize the importance of something we have. But she did realize the importance; and this realization lasted every moment of her waking hours. Her past haunted her, quite literally so.
She didn’t remember when it all started; but whoever she could remember entering her life in any way was there, right before her eyes. They appeared from thin air at their own will and then disappeared into nothingness. A horde of grey silhouettes followed and surrounded her everywhere. Her first boyfriend, the man who left her on their wedding day, her illegitimate daughter, her dead best friend, the little girl whose father she had wrongly fired from his job, they were all there. They stared at her through the fog that they were engulfed in, said things to her, mouthed foul words. They also sometimes gently advised her; advices that she never took. She never let too many people come close to her, she never let too many people enter her life because once they entered, they never left.
As a child, she often told her mother about the strange scary people surrounding her, waking her up in the middle of the night. She never understood why her mother couldn’t see them; they were all right in front of her! It hurt her tremendously that her own mother didn’t believe her, she was sweetly told to stop asking for so much attention. When she still wouldn’t give up on insisting that she didn’t lie, she was beaten into silence. She then stopped mentioning it to anyone and lived her entire life in the presence of those silhouettes. They watched her smile, tears, laughter, anguish, disappointment. She never had any emotion for herself, never a moment alone.
Foul language, curses and abuses didn’t really affect her. She had heard a lot of them to reach where she was right now and she didn’t regret that. But having abuses hurled at you during every waking moment is not quite an amusing feeling. She was now a tired woman and so she decided to talk things out with her constant companions. Her past came back to life, not that it had ever completely left her anyway. She realized how many mistakes she had made in life, how many things she had lost just because she didn’t talk things out. She didn’t regret anything; she wouldn’t change anything in her life even if she had the chance now. But speaking things out with her past helped her greatly. She saw her life from numerous eyes.
She lay on the hospital bed all day leaving only to use the bathroom. Bland, tasteless, love deprived food was brought to her thrice a day. No one came to visit her but she didn’t even need anyone else now. She was at peace with her past.
Someone knocked at the door and a pretty young nurse entered with her lunch. “Good morning Mrs. Johnson”, she said nervously. “I am Samantha. I have joined just today. I’ll be your new caretaker now. Hope you’ll be comfortable with me”, she recited the previously rehearsed line and left the room. Mrs. Johnson smiled as Samantha joined her at her bedside, now engulfed in grey mist.

It was a quiet evening; the enormous French windows enabled William to get a better view. His eyes first scanned the skies as they always did. The seamless sky was completely clear apart from the few stranded wisps of milky clouds. Butterflies fluttered in and out of his perfectly maintained garden. In the distance was a dense forest, serene and apparently concealing a million secrets. Snow clad mountains capped with fog stretched over the horizon. He shooed a tiny brown bird sitting on his window to see it open its wings and soar through the space.

He closed his eyes and saw a brilliant flash of red light. He could suddenly feel immense heat all around him; he longed for the snow-clad mountains. Something stung at his legs but he couldn’t get rid of it.

Elisa entered the room just then. She fretted over him not noticing the beads of perspiration on his forehead. She had initially agreed to come to this remote place just so that she could make some fast and easy money to go to college; and anyway how difficult could it be to look after a crippled 28 year old! But there was something about this boy that drew her to him.

He was a tall, fair, dark haired, strongly built boy. He never spoke much unless it was absolutely essential; however, he wrote – page after page, book after book. But she noticed that he had been unusually silent since last night. Elisa didn’t find anything wrong in what had happened; it all felt just perfect, like it was just destiny waiting to take its course. But clearly, William thought otherwise. She didn’t want to be the first one to bring up the topic so she waited for him to speak. He did, eventually.

Now, William wasn’t the one to beat around the bush or indulge in niceties, so he got straight to the point. “Elisa, what happened last night is not going to get you anywhere. I am saying you because I can anyway not get anywhere from here in this wheelchair. I have lived my life and I shall die here. But this life will just stagnate you and it is not something that I would be proud of. I am very thankful that you looked after me for so long. With all your dues, you have my lifelong gratitude too. I think it is now time that you leave this house and create your own place in the world out there.” Before she could reply, he wheeled himself out.

After a few hours, William returned to an empty house. He went straight to his room where he picked up a pen and closed his eyes. This time, however, he didn’t see the war, the fire, the crash; he now just flitted through the calm clouds with Elisa by his side. He opened his eyes and smiled slightly as he put his pen on a paper and began writing…

She struggled to untie the ropes cutting into her wrists. Her legs were bleeding by now. She looked around trying to squint through the darkness but it looked as if she was locked up in a void. There was an eerie silence all around her. She was suddenly blinded for a moment as a spotlight flashed on her. She instinctively smiled for a moment. Just then, the ground beneath her gave way and she shrieked as she fell deep into the darkness but no one heard her; she didn’t hear herself. There was just a creepy silence.
She woke up with a start, drenched in sweat. Looking around her empty house, a quick tear escaped her eyes and, not wanting o leave her alone again, clung on to her curled lashes. Scared that it might smudge her mascara, she rushed to the mirror grabbing a tissue on way. She quickly dabbed her eyes dry and gazed at the wrinkled face staring back at her. Through all the makeup, you could still make out the beauty that she must have been. Colours, glitz, glamour, camera flashes, she had it all. People of the opposite sex, irrespective of their age, swooned over her. One look at her was all they ever wanted. When she smiled, she left people wondering if anything in the world was more enchanting than her. Her eyes looked like they held a million secrets; and millions would give their lives to know even one of them. Her long lashes fluttered lightly in the breeze.
She never had anyone in her life; she didn’t need anyone, she had the entire world at her beck and call. Her life revolved around her fans and admirers, and theirs around her. Many came to her professing undying love, but it was something she believed she deserved as a right from everyone. All her joy was centered on the applause and appreciation that she received after every movie. Her relationships failed but the fact didn’t bother her because she knew she would never be alone. She knew it all…
She slowly lost everyone and everything as her beauty faded. Her weak smile made people look at her sympathetically with reminiscence of how she enchanted everyone when she was a diva. Her eyes had wrinkles around them that brought loneliness along. She did not need surgeries, she did not need enhancements; she was an eternal beauty as everyone proclaimed and she prided herself for that. But tonight, realization dawned on her as she finally comprehended the truth – it was all over. She had lived her life for people, for crowds; now the empty house troubled her. She had to do it tonight.
She lay, undressed in fragrant water filled with rose petals in her spacious bathtub. Aroma candles flickered as they cast a dim light over her lifeless face complete with makeup. She could suddenly see a burst of light as the spotlight focused on her again. She waited for the rainbow that would take her back again to the life of applause. She didn’t kill herself; she just moved to another world where she could entertain…