The shoe shine conundrum

This is something for and about someone who just left.

No, left is too lame a word. Is there a word for someone who scatter eggshells along your doorstep, waiting for you to step on them, and flail his mighty sword of angst when you crush them, and then use the very pieces to build bridge to get over with and burn them? Is there a word for that?

I wish there were. I would have said it. Although, I still need to string words to describe the images flashing every time. In some nights, they make me cry.

The girl, sitting so little behind the glass-walled table. So little based on how she'd been looked at and sneered upon. Threatened to be left behind right then. Blamed for starting something she was not even sure what. For twitching a brow, or stiffening jaw. Or for asking to turn a corner, or the unruly hair be bunned. For asking.

Try again and he will do it over again over the phone.

She does not know why. Or maybe she does.

That's seven years for you.

The white mobile phone tossed to her side of the table, followed by the blue plastic card flicked back at her. She kept both, tucked them inside the grey synthetic bag with the last bits of her dignity and self-respect. She tucked them as objects she owned, and as colored symbols of ending to something she had been fighting so hard, for so long, to keep.

It has been a battle she’s been fighting in for years. This time should not be any different. Only, this time is the worst of all times. The time, the words—and none of them—did not make it any less hard. She is badly hurt and sick at heart.   

This is not his fault. He warned her after all. “I'm a bad man,” he said. “I would not have found anything to be loved about me”. 

But she insisted. Felt strongly that if only she'd tell him otherwise, remind him that he has bigger heart than his self-misgivings, he would perhaps remember the man he once were— Lanky man of words in white shorts and stripe purple polo shirt. His sleeves rolled up to his arms; long, old umbrella and a rolling camera in each hand. He startles when she kisses him on the cheek on board a red reeking bus at 12 in the morning. He writes notes on tissue paper; paints a flower purple because he could not find one the color of her liking.

In the morning, he'll barge in after almost everyone has. Music blaring from the orange and silver headset the size half of his head. He would kiss her by the knee or shoulder, greet her good morning with a bag of marshmallow and a cup of chocolate fudge sundae.

Years passed. Things between them changed. The girl passed up eating sundae to other days. Grief swallowed her and turn her bile. All the while he, for his part, fills his pockets with inhibitions, things he thinks he can’t do, impossible to be done. He resorts to his anger, the deep seethed black hole he sinks into each time, sometimes with enough reason, but lately without much.

  

He's never one for expressed feelings. Neither for feigned affection. If he were to be believed when he uttered those words one night in the parking lot, she would have been flattered. She did, and she was. 

He’s seen quite a number of endings. Ours may not be any different, he said. “You deserve to be happy every day. I may not be the man who can do just that. I am fated to be alone”.

This is the battle she’s been fighting in for years. This time should not be any different. Only, this time is the worst of all times. The time, and the words—and none of them—did not make it any less hard. She is badly hurt and sick at heart.   

This is something for and about someone who just left. No, left is too lame a word. I wish there were enough words to describe the images flashing every time. In some nights, they make me cry.

***

Wind

01.06.2017

There was a shoe-shine. He knew for so long I’ve been raving to buy for both of our shoes. 

He bought one, for his alone. I saw the problem then.