Reva was staring listlessly out of her window into the wilderness outside. The continuous ringing of the telephone broke into her reverie.
She put the receiver to her ears and said, "Hello... ".It was him. Rishi had come back. Not to her. He was in town on some personal work, and had just thought of catching up. It was decided that they will meet outside her home and then take a walk along the beach. She rested the receiver in its cradle. But she retired, not entirely peaceful.
It had been six months since they had split up. It had been Reva's decision. He accepted it. No turmoil in his eyes, no angry words slung her way... Just quiet acceptance. She wondered now if it had been her decision at all. She felt manipulated. Used. When she thought of the sequence of events, she felt like he had been waiting for her to do it because he had not the courage to. He wanted to free himself of the guilt of having made promises that he could not keep. He did not want to be the one breaking the commitment. She felt a fool.
She tried to get some sleep. But her mind had turned vagrant, stopping at places that brought back sunny memories of togetherness. She wondered if it was only an accident that he had called her. Maybe he wanted to get back... What did she want? She did not know... the decision to separate had been painful to make, but the pain of knowing that they were not together when they were supposed to be had been far worse.
The next morning, she rose at six. She did not need an alarm to wake her. She had never needed to be reminded when she was due to meet Rishi. But she slowed herself, hoping that she did not seem too eager to meet him. Deliberately slowing down each activity, praying that he turned up first. She reached the gate in time to watch him walk a few yards down to her house.
They walked together to the beach. She feigned normalcy. He appeared unaltered. He seemed non-chalant, with no worry in the world. They reached the shore and sat themselves a little distance from the waves. They only had the fishermen to give them company. She watched them fiddling with their fishing nets, going about their daily actvities. Her eyes wandered to the horizon... where the sun seemed to have set the skies afire.There were birds setting off from their safe nests... the fishermen setting off on their colourful boats from the safety of the shores. Everywhere, people seemed to be breaching the comfort zone. The dawn brought home truths she had not been conscious of. She turned to look at him as he spoke of inconsequential nothings.
Her mind raced back to that evening... The split had only been verbal - she had been unable to detach her emotions. She had found immense pleasure in being bound so strongly with this tender thread of love. And now, to break free seemed impossible. She had felt like a poor insect caught in a cob-web... struggling for freedom, only to get more tightly trapped in its hold. She had resigned herself to its clutch. No need to seek new threads in life to bind her - because the threads eventually brought pain. She will not be bound again unless she manages to break this bond. So, she had decided to remain in the same place.
The meeting had translated the turmoil of last night into peace. The white noise that had been thoughts of Rishi had started to fade away. Somewhere during these few minutes something had made her breach the comfort zone. She did not know whether she was ready to be bound again - but she knew that she had broken away from the web.
She smiled at him. "Rishi, it is probably time to turn around."
They stood up and dusted off the beach sand and walked homewards. She reached home and bade him farewell - and to the place she had been six months ago.
