For when there are other beginnings

Her nicely done up lashes looked on and off at the fuel indicator. Full. Anybody else watching her that evening would have called it a piece of poetry, poetry in seeming randomness. Her lavender lacquered nails rested on the steering wheel, as she waited for the lights to change.

It was this grey evening, one that seemed minutes away from a drizzle. The guy selling flowers round the corner was there. The yellow and red carnations and the lavender of the Iris danced in front of her eyes. Like how when you’re cooking with your soul, you sometimes reach out for things, like a dash of cinnamon, that your heart just says it belongs here, in the warmth of your cooking pot.

She wanted to step out in her chiffon summer dress and silhouettes, the blanched almondness of her skin dancing with joy as the first few drops of rain came down. But she drove on instead, drove on home. Watching signal after signal. A left here, a right there. And then just take the road ahead.

Before you know it, night creeps in on all of us. The prodigy playing symphonies on the piano is turned off, and the bed side lamp has a book lying next to it. Each speaking to the other of an evening of contentment, with the rain outside singing out odes and lasciviously conjuring up images of what can be togetherness and what is loneliness, in exactly that order.

From one chamber of dreams to another, she quietly tiptoes. Careful not to wake anyone up, not to disturb other dreams. And she floats amidst scents and colours and minds and wishes and horses and shades and blushes. In one of those chambers, one that was a colour between gentle autumn happiness thrown in with a light blue summer sky, he came. They had this chat. Something about waiting till July. And then he would tell her. She didn’t know what to do. Whether this is good or bad or ugly or undefined. Whether it would make her ache. Or if he was going to just gather her up and drive away to some place where there are no traffic signals, just rain on windshields.

And then the orchestra of dreams did a grand rendition of vague tunes, and her finger tips reached for the edge of the sheets. The erstwhile nicely done up lashes fluttered open. The bed lamp glowing a dreamlike yellow, the bookmark sticking out of a paperback. She remembered the dream. She remembered the face. She knew who it was.

In the expanse of that night, she lay awake.