Eternally in Love

Only the brave let love flow without restraint for it is neither a claim nor a construct

- Pragya Vats

WINTER of 2015. It was the first night in the house alone. Once a shared space of togetherness. We had agreed to part ways. I was numb. Sleep was elusive.

The silence of the winter night resounded the silent tears rolling down my cheeks, building up into an uncontrollable sob. I tried to unjumble all I was feeling in the red diary that lay by the bed. Words failed to pour out the weight of my heart in black and white. I cried myself to sleep. It was a long night—the first of many that would follow.

The morning sun was bright. I woke up, ambling around the house scanning for the remains and the traces of another and of what was. The house was half-abandoned. Drawers had been emptied. His books from the shelf, his clothes from the cupboard. Our memories from here on were divided. All packed to move.

I turned to the terrace. The yellow chairs were gone too. He had said, “This will be a reminder of the colour that you are. I am black and white.” The chairs held memories of mundane everyday mornings—our morning chai that he would make, of sipping in silence, of things we said.

Before long, I fell into a howling stupor. Plonked on the heap of brown cartons to pack what remained.

For the six months that followed, I slept on my red couch in the living room. I had abandoned my bedroom. It was an in-between place. The house became a space I escaped. I would aimlessly drive around. Blaring songs of love and loss, blurry eyed with bleeding tears, drowning in the sound of the music and the whirring engine. Even in the house of bleakness, the lingering fragrance of flowers remained. I continued to buy white fragrance for myself.