The Call

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Dedicated to that special friend who is going away

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'There is something deeper than love, something which seeks me, or rather calls me onto it. I'm powerless against it, I'm too weak to fight it away!'

Frost covered all around like cold wildflowers. It was like spring, without colors, without scent, without life. Thinking about it now, I do not know if such a spring exists, but something in her voice kept on re-affirming me that it did.

'What normal people call their destiny, and what I define as my call, that vision which troubles us in sleep, which makes us fight insurmountable obstacles. I should not be sacrificing it for love.' 

'But what are calls Ruya?' I protested 'What is this destiny other than what we experience, what attracts us amongst what we see? Ain't it all a large collection of ideologies which we gathered through our childhood, adolescence and teenage? Ain't it all things we allowed to settle inside, is it not our creation?'

Cold was stabbing my throat with every word I spoke. From grand distances and time light visited us as twinkling spots, somehow it never appealed to me that night. Nor did swaying boats in the horizon which was seeking its own destiny.

'You're right. We create it, we create that call with our thoughts, the words we read, the roads we traveled and the nights we spend sleepless.' Ruya took a deep breath and continued 'But does that make any difference?'

There was this familiar feeling of life slipping away through my fingers, my breathing grew untame and my mind grew restless. I should not let her leave, I thought, not with what we had until now. Not with those nights where she narrates stories of dying stars and evolving life, not with her gentle moans and reassuring smiles, not with her bewilderment, her confusions, her curiosities and her madness. I've grown to need it somberly, like how nocturnal beings need darkness.

'But I love you, and you know how desperate I am'

'You love yourself, Anand' Ruya laughed 'Like all beings, you love how I make you feel, you love that feeling of love inside you, you love yourself inside this space-time where we exist holding each other's hands!'

I grew silent. I felt the frost enveloping me, eating into my sustenance, punishing me everytime I spoke. I was beginning; to conform, to let it devour me in its eloquence, to be a part of the lifeless spring, to die cold and alone like all beings.

'We are strange creatures Anand, and rare ones too.' Ruya pulled me close 'Our journey is not only through space or time but through intelligence. We are in motion, we are forever becoming. Do you know how butterflies migrate? Those who begin the process of migration never reach its destination, they always die in between. We are also the same, but that doesn't mean we should stop moving'

I pulled away from her hands and touched the Earth. It was cold and dead, and yet it was in motion. It would continue to move for eternities more. Life may collpase, stars would die, everything may shoot inwards into a singularity but then everything will again be reborn. That is the cyclicity of the universe, that is the only truth. What is an Anand in that great cycle, what is a Ruya? What is it that we gain by holding hands? What is it that we gain by letting go?

'Ruya, will it make you happy?' I asked.

'I do not know, but it would make me satisfied' she said.

'Go!' I said. No tears rolled down my eyes, no great weight burdened my mind.

She pulled up her sleeves, gave me her longest kiss and asked me to stay sane. I laughed cause what all are we but an insane collection of random particles condemned to live a life of sanity. I looked at her walking away, stars shining inside the folds of her hair and a dark red moon igniting her body, I realized then that some people find their insanities while others forcefully forgets it.