True lies

A Story by SUGATA M

It was a brief but meaningful meeting.

We actually met following a span of thirty years.

Fortunately we didn’t fail this time to recognize and appreciate each other’s presence. We often used to do that just after we had parted away out of emotional outbursts of two young, estranged hearts.

Thirty years is a real long time. The world has changed a lot in these years.

We also changed, astonishingly, quite a bit, both physique and psyche wise.

‘How are you doing?’

‘Fine!’ She replied with a smile that remained unchanged but the cute dimple of the past didn’t appear in the relatively chubby face. ‘What about you?’

‘I am also fine.’ But that was not true. I had a troubled marriage, highly stressful job, had a recent heart surgery and been going through a property related legal hassle with my own brother.

‘You put on tons of weight. Where the curly, thick, neck-long hair has gone?’

‘Where that breath-taking, svelte figure disappeared?’ The bald, pot-bellied man reciprocated to the middle-aged, rotund woman in the similar humorous tone.

‘Ok, ok…..’ she raised the defending hand. ‘Let’s not run after each other’s physical appearances. All of us have to succumb to time one day. We had already passed our youth and moving fast towards the senile age. Let’s accept that.’

‘But my mind is still young.’ I responded the way I generally respond whenever get entangled in the conversation related to age.

‘Really!’ She pouted her lips to bring back glimpses of some sweet old memories. ‘Everyone says that but hardly practices in the real life.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Never mind.’ She flapped her hand. ‘How is your beloved Mom?’

‘Beloved’ sounded a bit ironic from her mouth. Is she still carrying the grudges against my mother? Our relationship never met her approval. ‘She will never make you happy in life. Mark my words.’ Mom used to caution me almost every day during the entire course of our relationship. ‘Get her out of your life.’

‘She is fine,’ I replied, ‘but definitely not without the usual old age problems.’

‘And your father? Still alive?’

‘Yes,’ I replied meekly as if living for the last thirty years is not a right thing to do. ‘And what about your parents?’

‘They were no more.’ She said casually. ‘Baba passed away ten years back, Ma only last year.’

‘So sorry to know that.’

‘You are lucky that your parents are still with you.’

I couldn’t tell her that I cut off all relations with my parents. They took the side of my brother with whom I have already been engaged in a nasty legal battle over a piece of paternal property that my father handed over to my brother against my wishes.

I tried to divert the topic of the parents. ‘How is the family? What’s your husband doing? How many children you have? They must be grown up now.’

‘Why not start from yours?’ Her eyes twinkled for the moment.

Once again I kept the account of my turbulent family life aside and put together things in a more constructive way. I didn’t tell her that my wife and I don’t stay together any more. I hid the fact that my elder daughter fled away from home to get married to a Muslim guy. I didn’t disclose that I still carry an illicit physical relationship with my secretary.

‘Things look to be very rosy in your life till now.’ She said vehemently. ‘I feel like envying you. Wish I had a life like you.’

‘Why are you saying that?’

‘I strongly feel that you did the right thing by following your mother’s words of dumping me.’ She said in a thoroughly dejected voice.

‘What makes you say this? Are your options really limited to stay well in life?’

She smiled exactly like before once more. ‘You know what? I never had those options in life.’

I raised my brows in complete surprise.

‘I didn’t get married. I told you that I will be waiting for you throughout my life. I couldn’t break that promise. What a stupid I am!’

I couldn’t utter a word. My voice got suddenly chocked.

‘My parents were against my decision of staying single, but couldn’t mold me. Probably I was one of the major reasons of their untimely demises. But tell me, what could I have done? There were nobody whom I would have fallen in love with. It remained so difficult for me………after you.’

Our sudden, short rendezvous didn’t last after this string of conversation. She didn’t share her mobile number and whereabouts with me. Neither had I asked for.

After all I still happened to be a happily married and blessed man who shouldn’t have any business with his ex for obvious reason.

Who says that truth is stranger than fiction when this fiction lied only on true lies?

© 2017 SUGATA M

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Coyote Poetry

I agree my friend.
"After all I still happened to be a happily married and blessed man who shouldn’t have any business with his ex for obvious reason."
The grass may looking more green but the lines above. True wisdom. A blessed life. We were very lucky. Thank you my friend for sharing the amazing poetry.
Coyote