The dance of the shadowsA Story by Samaira “Its exciting when you find parts of yourself in someone else” – Annaka Silvia THE DANCE OF THE SHADOWS
“Its exciting when you find parts of yourself in
someone else” " Annaka Silvia.
“Dre told me Mrs. Fritz is
looking for a new tenant. Why don’t you go see her apartment?” Max asked Ben.
“Wasn’t that already
occupied?”
“Was. The girl left.
Something about wanting to start afresh.”
Ben did not answer.
“What are you so lost in Ben?
Sympathising with her?” Max joked.
Ben shot Max a look of
disbelief.
Sympathy? He hated sympathy.
The problem with sympathy was that it was mostly fake. Very few of the people
who had come to offer their condolences at his parents’ funeral really meant
what they said.
Empathy, on the other hand,
was a whole new story.
It did seem ironic though. He
was going into that apartment in search of a new life and she was leaving it
for precisely that reason.
“I’ll go see it,” he told
Max.
………………….
“The room is well furnished.
It just needs to be cleaned. The last occupant just left two days back. Lovely
girl, slightly deranged though, if you ask me,” Mrs. Fritz sighed as she opened
the door for the tenth time that day.
The first thing he saw on
entering the room was a big poster of Wuthering Heights. A glaring Heathcliff
holding a large bosomed Catherine in a tight embrace. Was that how she had been
described in the book? He couldn’t recall.
He looked around. The wall
behind the bed was painted a deep red. Right above her bed she had hung a dream
catcher with silver stars painted around it. He suppressed a smile. He had
thought he was one of the few who still believed in the magic of dream catchers,
fairy lights and unicorns.
The other walls were off
white perfectly offsetting the deep red.
There on the windowsill lay a
small flowerpot with a tiny plant in it. A single withered flower with a few
leaves on its stem.
He went into the bathroom.
Solidified wax from burnt out coloured candles still lined the edges of the
bathtub. He ran his fingers over them. He could almost imagine the girl in the
bathtub covered in bubbles and foam with the candles burning around her.
Back in the room he took a
deep breath. He could smell multiple fragrances. Lemon grass? Probably from
some aroma jar lying somewhere. A Perfume?
“I’ll take it. I will be
moving in probably sometime in the evening. Please let the room remain as it
is. I would like to clear it up on my own,” he said without a second thought.
Mrs. Fritz nodded and handed
the keys over to him mumbling something about ‘the same look’.
With that, he walked out of
the house, still wondering which perfume it was. ......................
He was exhausted by the time
he came back to the apartment. It was raining heavily and the howling wind kept
rattling the windows.
He came in, kept his luggage
in a corner and tried to latch the windows. But the windows wouldn’t shut. As
if someone was pulling them from outside. He left them. All he took out was his
lamp, set it on the bed table, turned off the rest of the lights, lay down on
his bed and turned the lamp on.
The objects in the room cast
their shadows which seemed to be dancing around.
That was when he saw her.
Really saw her.
She sneaked in through the
window wearing heels and a sequined dress, looking around warily. She struggled
to pull her hair back. The wind had messed them up. She was not the prettiest woman,
but she was beautiful.
She stopped dead in her
tracks when she saw him.
Fro the longest time, she
just looked at him. As he kept looking at her.
After sometime, she began
walking towards the bathroom, leaving a trail of sequins and glitter on the
floor that shone in the light of the lamp. He got up and followed her like a
man enchanted by a spell. She already had the candles burning by the time he
reached her. He couldn’t figure out from where she had got the new candles. She
turned on the tap. But the water refused to flow. For some reason, the taps had
run dry. She muttered a few soft curses and stormed out of the bathroom.
His eyes had so many
questions in them. Why was she here? What had happened? What was she trying to
leave behind? He saw some scars on her
body. Self inflicted? Or had someone hit her? A guy? Was that why she had left?
He saw her see all those
questions and he knew she had heard him. He saw her walk upto the cupboard and
take out a typewriter, probably to type out out all the answers. Mid way, her
rage started taking control. She was literally banging the keys on the
typewriter, finally throwing it away. A key broke off.
In his mind, he saw all of
his half broken things at his old apartment.
He wanted to get up and
comfort her. He wanted to touch her, hold her close and kiss her. He wanted to
dance the night away and be consumed in their fire.
Wait. Had he just said these
things out loud?
She put one of his hands on
her waist and the other on her shoulder.
And they swayed, swirled and twirled. There was no music but they were
completely in rhythm. It was so
comforting. He felt safe. She seemed to understand everything that was going on
in his head. She did not have to tell him that. He just knew.
She ran one hand through his
hair. The perfume hit him again, stronger this time.
He froze and took a step back.
She looked at him questioningly. But he couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell her
he was scared. What if she ran away? What if he couldn’t keep her happy? What
if he ended up destroying her in the worst possible way? Wasn’t that the worst
kind of love- the one where you have everything and yet it is ruined? There was something there. An
untouchable connection. Like the world had bricked them alive. Like they were
meant to be trapped together with their demons that had already made peace with
each other. Trapped by union. Trapped by choice.
Wasn’t that what love was?
Accepting each other’s demons? Wasn’t that why love never worked out for most
people? Because everyone only saw the other’s demons, completely blind to their
own.
But they weren’t like that.
They were damaged. Seeking each other out. Despite all the damage.
They were fireworks.
They were meant to crackle,
sparkle, explode and die out together.
He took a step towards her.
But she was beginning to fade at the edges by now.
He turned the lights on.
“It was Chanel,” she
whispered.
The shadows slunk away and
hid behind the objects that had cast them.
And just like that, she was
gone.
He ran to the bathroom to see
the burning candles, but she had taken their flame away with her, reducing them
to their original melted state.
He looked at the withered
flower wistfully, wanting to restore it to its glory. But maybe that’s how she had
wanted it to be. Maybe it was left to die for a reason.
For the second time that day,
he looked around the apartment.
All he was left with was the
broken key, the sequins on the floor and the feeling that she had once existed.
© 2015 SamairaFeatured Review
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