Felt like Love

He was staring at the face sitting opposite to him on the dinner table, a familiar and well-remembered face. For last twenty-one years he had seen this face, but of course today it looked different. There were these sharp markers of time on it and he wasn’t sure how many times this face must have changed from the one he thought he remembered from their first meet. Maybe it changed every day but he never noticed it till now; the distinct aspects of that change. For one thing, the colour of the eyes remained the same, but then the association had changed. He tried really hard to imagine how she looked when they met for the first time, she must have been young, with no grey hair or blemishes. He really wanted to see that face for one more time, but there was no remembrance of it anymore. He was desperately trying to dig into the grave of memories to give life to his imagination. Well, it was only imagination that could save him now, after a long time of strangeness, memories only breed in imagination. He was attempting to re-build that face, the face that reminded him of his confidence and spent youth.

It was sometime late in the night or early in the morning; and the fan was making its usual noise, along with occasional moving of curtain. Like always, he was reassuring that nothing had changed and it was only certain form of darkness that had attached a sense of unfamiliarity to things around. He felt rubber stripe of the slippers, an indication that he was very well in the present, and the one sitting in front of him was still his wife, and not one more figment of his imagination.

He was certain of her leaving and even more certain of being left behind with all the time in the world to build and re-build his old forgotten dream. It had been a while that he got used to the idea of staying in memories, taking few strolls in the dream lanes, and coming back home to memories. Apart from a set of pumping hearts, there was nothing much left in this room. Unknown strangeness had inhabited with these two in their room, and the voices now always carried a dense texture to it. He was sure that once he had loved that face, cared for that face, and had known that face. But he failed to remember when it all started, the time in their togetherness when the dirt of strangeness started accumulating on that face. There was nothing that could be held against the other, there were no mistakes and no faults. Nothing had happened, but still strangeness had crept inside their lives. Today for the last time they were sitting in front of each other, and still there were no words. He was taking comfort in the silence that was speaking on their behalf. And for one last time, something that felt like love left without making any sound.