The silence that follows….

It resembled a cluster of white petals on water, moving away with the rhythm of some random ripples. Scattered chunks of clouds on that dusky canvas and I was staring at it for some time now. Killing a long streak of silence, I asked “did you see that?” The question died unanswered. I didn’t bother to repeat it, but had another one in the barrel ready to be shot and I did. “We have changed a lot, right?” I felt her fist, which had its fingers closely knit between mine, growing tighter with its clench. Then came that soft shivering reply, “Yes, we have”.

The play that I see here, with those vapor lumps shuffling itself every minute forming some vague art works on a plain lifeless sky, reminds me the way it happened between us, the way we shuffled our colors over this long span of togetherness. The word “forever” sounds masculine and heroic when it’s used for the first time. But its crispness and luster wither away and tarnishes with handling. Then you get dashed to that hard real fact, that no word is vaccinated against “changes”.

It’s a world where not a drop is born to live inert. Every puff of air or every drop of sweat has its way to travel, and a story to make. And there was nothing epic in us to keep ourselves out from this flow of changes. Like a leaf, we and whatever existed between us, turned over its scent and color with days. Now we are left in this park bench, relishing the dusk, engrossed in that dead buried topic,

 “THE WAY WE WERE”.

I guess every relationship meanders to this juncture somewhere in their timeline, a point in which “the changes” gets inflated to a stature so big that it no longer evades your notice. You start stumbling on bits and pieces, which when viewed alone appears so small, but hundreds of them have gelled up here and there to change the entire tone of us. You suddenly notice that you have started kissing more on her forehead and that famous lip appeal just drowned off somewhere. Those sweet moments of togetherness started happening in beach sides or park benches, which were not case before. The whole incense of being for each other have changed (I’m trying hard to keeps that word “in love” off J ). It has started looking more simple and transparent. And silence is a more prominent theme than ever before.

But I love this phase.  There is some unrivaled tranquility about these days of silence. Togetherness sans that periodic verbal alchemy and an affinity sans those hormonal roots, at last we are here. A leaf that stayed from days of green to pale yellow, but refused to fall, I smiled with this realization         

 “Some leaves just don’t fall; they just switch colors”.

I recall a line that I read somewhere.. “The question is …are we ready for the silence that is to follow?”

And my answer “we were and we are” !!!