Traces left Behind

Womenfolk often tend to wander about the others who have shared their partners before them.

She reluctantly opens her eyes, stretching herself from a peaceful slumber. She can hear him singing off key and out loud, along with the soft drizzle of his shower in the background. Her stretched out hand rests on his pillow, dented where his head had lain last night, still warm and filled with his male aroma.

The sound of the shower converts in to a trickle as he emerges from the bathroom wrapped in a towel bringing in with him the heat of his hot shower.

“Good morning sunshine." He plants a kiss on her forehead and wanders off to the next room, humming the same tune which suffered in the shower a few minutes back. Thirty minutes later he re-emerges dressed for work.

He is a well reputed cardiologist who is loved by all, his staff, his patients, the neighbours, even the beggars on the side of the road. He loves saving the hearts of people and would sulk for days when he fails to save one. The heart he loves above all is hers and he thinks he is the luckiest man on earth to possess a career he loves and a woman he adores more than his life.

She does not have to get dressed to go to work. She hates working under someone else, being commanded by others to do this and that, to get her time and freedom trapped in a subway and a big building full of modern slaves. She is her own boss. She creates her babies, the lovely paintings, just when she feels like doing so. Rest of the time she curls herself up on the sofa, in her paint smudged night gown, a steaming cup of hot chocolate on her hand while Celine Dion sings softly in her earphones.

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He lies in bed with the paint smudged night gown bunched up on his chest. Its dark outside except the occasional bolt of lightning as rain thrashes the ground mercilessly. The room reeks from the stench of stale food, spilled beer and the bed linen unchanged for weeks. His bloodshot eyes and unshaven beard makes it difficult even for him to identify the pathetic looking fellow staring at him during his occasional brief visits to the bathroom. The monotonous ticking of the clock almost blends in with the dark gloomy silence entrapping his world.

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He sits down amidst various boxes scattered throughout his apartment. Her sister stops her packing for a moment, comes to sit beside him and offers a comforting hug. The various boxes have all her belongings safely packed inside them; her paintings, her books, her clothes; everything that physically holds him to her still. His psychiatrist thinks this is compulsory. The apartment looks so neat, prim and proper, once her messiness is extracted from it; so neat that it looks totally strange and alien to him. He stares at his lap, where lays the nightgown, the last remainder to be sent off. He thinks he might cry, but no tears come forward. Her sister stretches her hand, silently pleading him to let go. He does.

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He is in bed with one of his journals. He is worried about a heart he is trying to save with the next sun rise. Dawn is gathering outside. The clock ticks away, pushing him towards another day, another life to save.

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She reluctantly opens her eyes, stretching herself from a peaceful slumber. She can hear him singing off key and out loud, along with the soft drizzle of his shower in the background. Her stretched out hand rests on his pillow, dented where his head had lain last night, still warm and filled with his male aroma.

The sound of the shower converts in to a trickle as he emerges from the bathroom wrapped in a towel bringing in with him the heat of his hot shower.

“Good morning sunshine." He plants a kiss on her forehead and wanders off to the next room, humming the same tune which suffered in the shower a few minutes back. Thirty minutes later he re-emerges dressed for work.

She is the granddaughter of a heart he was able to save. She teaches in the Primary school next town. She sits up in bed and hugs her knees thinking how lucky it was that she got married during the school vacation.

She walks with him to the door and plants a kiss on his cheek.

"Try to come home, early tonight”, she murmurs in to his ears.

She adores him; he already became a hero when he saved her grand pa. Sometimes she finds him a bit drawn in and gloomy, but she knows he loves her in his own way. Even if he does not, she loves him enough for the both of them, she muses.

She idly wonders around the apartment, stopping occasionally to inspect something that belongs to him. There is nothing much. She does not think she is snooping; of course she can do this when he is home, but it is much more relaxing this way and she does not have to worry about his feelings. After all she has to do something when she is alone.

She wonders about the one before her. Of course she has seen a photo of her and he gruffly coughs a few words when asked about her. She knows it is not easy to get a gut to talk about his emotions.

But she keeps on wandering. What was she like? How much did they love each other? Where does she stand when compared with her? Does he still miss her?

She wants to catch a glimpse of their life before her; may be note written by one to another, or something that she used to wear, a book she loved to read, anything at all.

But there is nothing. It’s like she has vanished in to thin air. Nothing in the apartment gives her the slightest hint of the life before her.

She sighs, stretches herself on the sofa, listening to the dull ticking of the clock, until she drifts off to sleep.

Where she dreams, of hot chocolate, the enticing smell of fresh oil colours on a canvas and a night gown, smudged with paint and the soft voice of a female.........................................................................................................

"Touch me once again, and remember when, there was no one that you wanted more"