At first he was skeptical. Often when she had called him urgently,
her talks were intimidating and that ended up making everything awkward. Not
that she was condescending but she was realistic, practical. And that was his
worst fears. And so today when she said she wanted to talk, he was scared, for
he knew not what new blast of reality he would have to brave.
He
reached the old fort and waited. She called on his phone to know where he was
and minutes later, he saw her.
He
hated these moments. No actually he dreaded them. How could he hate any moments
spent with her. When he saw her, she beamed a smile at him and he knew things
were different today. His fear was slowly evanescing. After a brief hug, they
sat at their regular bench, gazing out at the city lights starting to come up.
She eventually broke the silence around the birds returning home and the sun
going down.
She had come up with an idea, a thought. And she wanted to tell him about it
directly, tête-à-tête. Not on a phone call,
nor through texts. She said, "You know, I don't know what we are doing
with our lives." These words made the ghost of his fears start to
materialize again. But she continued, "When in my teens, I would chat with
my friends and all of us would believe in the happily ever after story. That
all things will be good. That true love was not just true and pure, but also
flawless, impeccable. Like Walter White's meth." Although that drew a
laugh between them, he was not sure where this was going.
She said, "I would think me and my love, we would be like
parallel lines. Always together."
He interrupted, "But parallel lines never meet?"
She replied, "Yes, but they are always heading the same way.
Okay, imagine that the lines are parallel but they are only a teeny tiny
distance apart."
He nodded his approval waiting for a glimpse of clear skies to
know where they were heading.
She continued, “But you see, as I grew up, as life started turning from rainbow
to shades of grey, I realized those parallel lines don’t exist. It’s an
irrational thought.
“But then, you would not want to be intersecting lines too. Along
all the paths that they tread on, they meet just once, only to move further
away from each other after that. I have had such an experience. Sometimes you
wish things were different, sometimes you feel it was necessary. Believe me the
few moments that you are closest are the best that one can have, then there is
the intersection and parting forever. Here, life does not ask you questions. It
is you ask those. Bombard life with questions like: why did this happen, when
will this happen, why is he not with me, why did our paths cross in the first
place? But are there any set of lines which you would want to be?
“I would always ponder over until this afternoon. This afternoon,
I found out what it is between us. You know, we are like the Sine and Cosine
waves of the same amplitude, and our wavelengths like totally match. At most
times, travelling parallel, then we intersect, and after some moments of
bending and mending our ways, we run parallel again. And this goes on and on…
Forever…”
He did not know what to say. His confused face made her repeat,
“We’re like Sine wave and Cosine wave, parallel at most times, yet intersecting
at times infinite!”
He still failed to understand why he was called there to meet with
this level of urgency. He did not understand her at times, at times she was a
riddle. But if she was the Riddler, he was no Batman, he was just her man!
