Fools
View(s):I sighed in relief when a Sunday evening just for me finally arrived. It had been a month since I returned to my home town, but had got a chance to merely glance at it.
I came out to the street filled with the hustle and bustle of those who return home. I wondered off, headed nowhere particular, my thumbs tucked in my pockets.
I passed strange faces, changed places, hard to recognize, out of memories more than decades old. I still do not know what subconscious yearn drove me to the city park.
The spring made it heartbreakingly beautiful. I walked on the paved ways, sad old memories gushing through my mind. I paced slowly, for my own spring had long gone.
My hair had lost its colour, but the park blossomed in vivid colours as merrily as ever. Only my face seemed to bear a resemblence to the old wrinkled tree trunks.
Happy young couples went by me, lost in their personal blissful spheres. I smiled, ‘Young Love’, I mused. What did Gandhi say? “Where there is love, there’s life.”
I froze at the sight of that old wooden bench. The weather had tormented it a bit. But it had survived enough to make me recognize one lost detail from my past. I had no company walking beside me.
She was not there, matching her heartbeat to mine. I was all alone. I sat on the bench. A wave of nostalgia flooded my mind. It amazingly felt the same to be sitting there, like I was eighteen anew, waiting eagerly for her to appear around the corner.
I closed my eyes and let my mind dance through old memories. They were faded and ragged but still adept to bring smiles to my face.
I sighed them all away, and opened my eyes to have my breath knocked out of me. After living half a century, one might assume that life had, after all, stopped making fun of one self.
Well, apparently not. There she was, right in front of me, like a shadow of a forgotten dream. I could manage nothing but to stare right back at her.
She had not changed a bit, I noticed, just like the park itself. She wore her hair in that same not-so-stylish style. Its colour had somewhat faded, just like mine. Her face bore that same sincere countenance.
In the next moment, she closed some of the distance between us and sat on the other side of the bench. I held my breath as her fragrance filled the air. I could have sat there for an eternity reminiscing the past. None of us dared speech.
The gloomy twilight closed around us. Something made me steal a glance at her left hand. It was surprsingly bare. No promises. She caught my glance and returned the gesture.
Finding mine bare as well she gave me an incomprehensibly melancholy look. “We’ve made fools of ourselves, Harper,” she said.
With that, she got up and walked away without looking back. I watched her disappear around the corner. I once again started towards the opposite side, out of the dream, into the twilight.
| Flash FictionDespite the fact that this story is not local and reads like a story that could have been written anywhere, there is sentiment and feeling in it that deserves publication. Why the lovers were parted is not mentioned but the power of memory and pain is depicted well here. Please send in your Flash Fiction contributions to Mirror Lit, Madhubashini Dissanayake-Ratnayake, C/o The Sunday Times, No. 8 Hunupitiya Crossroad, Colombo 2 |
Sandara Wayangi Madurapperuma