December sunrise

The frosted window pane was the only physical partition between the winter out on the turf and the cold lull inside. She gently poured the last of the volatile liquid into the thirsty fiber. Her glance seemed to offer neither solace nor company to the empty glass placed opposite to her own yearning for some moisture. The illuminated wax lay around the room exhausted of drawing warmth from without. She poured the contents down her throat with ease, just as she had done it so many times in the past few days.

The music that filled the air was just another of the silent victim of inattention. She was lost in the familiar tune her heart had got used to. “Coo coo, coo coo”, the call of the bird in the clock was met with a stony stare as though its diligence were at peril. Something caught her glance; the winter wind was blowing through the barren oaks out on the garden. She stood ridiculing the swinging oaks that were synchronizing their motion unaware of why they swayed to the tunes of the fierce wind- disgusting! A smile played on her lips as she thought that… “Ben, it’s so...beautiful...these oaks…Wow! Just look how beautifully they sway to the breeze in unison!”

Winter was not her season. It was Ben who had taught her what it was to walk into the winter without those thick covers and she loved it! She loved it because she learnt that he was everything she wanted. She had no assumptions and no criterion. After all, he was no doll to be fair, tall, handsome, and popular; and, she was no supreme creation to exercise her whims and bend to none of his. It certainly was no love at first sight but his frankness about the way he was made her feel very comfortable and love just happened! Ben and Catherine married after four years. She now saw it through the pages of the fluttering calendar- December 4. The alcohol was not living up to its reputation or perhaps, her memory was getting better by the day. Those four years were not the most conventionally romantic time of their life, he was out there in Delhi and she in Mumbai. They seldom met and more rarely did greetings and gifts exchange but, each moment of those years were etched forever in their lives because they missed the absence of each other’s presence.

******
Multitude of faces walked through the subway every hour, every day. Ben ambled along vacantly gazing at the faces for some solace that gods may have had in reserve. He stepped out of the subway to be greeted by the wind that sliced through his skin, he felt relieved at the recognition of the life left within him. She had dashed past him the very first day that he had stepped into the subway and stared back as though rebuking his snail pace. “Some hurry!” ,he had thought. Perhaps it was the reluctance in her speech or maybe it was just the expression of unspoken words as she tried to balance her handbag with a bite of the sandwich dancing in her mouth….she was a mystery and he was curious to reveal the mystery! He saw the familiar face, the face of mystery having its cruel laugh at yet another crusader.

******
Her friends had told her to not be in a hurry but then, she had thought, it was not they who would decide how Ben was! It was as though her prudence got the better of her. Together life seemed to only get better. Ben seemed the same reticent guy with a smile always playing on his lips; he was the sponge who would absorb every thing while Cathy tried her best to pull his leg. Life indeed seemed to be a bed of roses! The only thing that eluded was the little book Ben filled everyday. “We’ll read it someday together, when we have time for things other than ourselves”. She now wondered if the time had come.

******
Ten years had passed since that cold winter of December 4th and here she was- the answer to queries, anticipations and a long wait of nine months. Her little feet and her curious glance- “another mystery to solve”, he had thought. He had held her close to him and felt the exhilaration of the first and finest achievement. For once Ben felt absolute, for being the first one to kiss her- to embrace purity- his Karen. He now desperately wanted to forget what it was like to feel overwhelmed.

******
Karen was not amongst the best at whatever she did, she did things because she liked them, not to excel but to experience. To her every closed door created new spaces. Karen was always the first to notice things, whether it was a missing pen or missing warmth- she was guided by intuition. She had the gift of gab; it was hence not by chance that she always got away with what she wanted!

Another December 4 had come seven years later, one with lot of promises-promises to be made and fulfilled. So, out in the night the December moon welcomed the birthday cake with lot of warmth. The plan was to reach home before twelve but it was Ben’s idea to celebrate it in the drive…..a symbolic birthday- moving forward. The clock had no sooner struck twelve that Ben’s phone began making familiar sounds “Hello...yeah sure hold on dear…. Ohk so here you go…..you’re birthday’s first caller…” What followed was a clear shriek and then a silence that took many weeks to break….A single mistake, a single call had put an abrupt ending to a lovely beginning.

He had shattered his beautiful dome with his own hands….if only he hadn’t received that call…but then who would have ever imagined that Ben who had an exceptional control over the wheels could lose it all just by a call? His justifications failed his conscience. Cathy neither recognized logic nor herself. Every time they looked into each other’s eyes they had a goal to be accomplish-a goal to seem happy for the other. Silence was the only companion to their tears. Ben stood beside Cathy, resilent and strong. It was an attempt to disguise his guilt- to prove that nothing could change him for, if she loved him for what he was, he did not want to lose Cathy because of what he had become. Away from pretence in the warmth of his book he had scribbled Auden’s lines…

“We would rather be ruined than change;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.”

Days did not now seem enough for healing the wound. Just a few true words would have made all the difference but either of them were so detached in their little compartments that the only thought that preceded each word was that the reality was to be denied and the past recovered. He reiterated every morning the same words that had once made sense to him but now, they were hollow- mere products of pretence. Yet like the well manipulated puppet he spoke them- he was still not ready to accept the wind that he had forced upon himself.

While Ben engrossed himself in work Cathy took to much simpler ways of feeling happy. Both recognized the need for each other’s warmth but what they failed to realise was the need to express their wrath at each other. Cathy had seen Ben write in the little book with affection each night as though the slightest mistake would break the heart of the paper but now, he scribbled in his book frantically as though space for thought meant little anymore! When Nadia had called up the other day she had asked if Karen would have been happy to see Ben loose himself. Non-chalently she said, “No. But if she was the mother, she would have!”. When she saw him as Ben, she wanted to comfort him but, when she saw him as the reason for the absence of Karen, she restrained herself.

It was almost a month and the silence just kept growing. Ben tried to go on as many tours as possible and Cathy almost forgot to amend things- even physically. Ben had returned from one such tour- exhausted and tired, yet he looked happy for some strange reason. Cathy had never seen Ben stare at her like that before. Instinctively, in months, she gently held his glance and enquired if he was fine. Ben was lost in thought, deaf to her words, all he managed to say was, “I killed her….” Cathy looked at Ben, petrified. He was shivering, he was tearing apart. Cathy hugged him as though this was all that she wanted to do. It was a quite night; its silence, the only spectator to this promising December sunrise.