Pritam's Blog
A Sleep To Remember
It was 8 in the morning. I was in my balcony with a sandwich in my hand, a sandwich from last evening, a sandwich I didn’t get a chance to eat until now… There was a certain kind of melancholy in the air. I tried to ignore it, even though it was hard to ignore for I had just returned from the cemetery.
I took the day’s newspaper. I tried to convince myself that it was just another day… Everything seemed to be normal. The kids were on their way to school. The doodhwala was returning after delivering milk. Men and women were on their way to the nearest bazaar…
But I knew it was not just another day. I turned back and saw my reflection on the glass door.
“The bald poet”, she used to call me…
I could never make fun of her baldness though…
I remembered the day she had come to my office for the first time… A bald woman… And I knew it then and there that I was going to lose her. It was too late. Even a man like me who had a precarious upbringing, who didn’t trust anyone, had fallen in love…
And that was it. I had never slept since that day - I could still hear her screams, shattering the dark nights as I sat beside her…for two long years…
I looked at the empty room. Her things were still scattered everywhere. I realized that somewhere in between every hello and goodbye, there is always a dream that only one of the two people concerned saw…
I went to the bed and fell asleep. It had been a long time since I had a sound sleep.
It was a sleep to remember… I felt happy. I felt good.
For she came in my dreams. And dreams were all that I had now…