You are my life. My Only.

Please go through the prequel of the below story here – The Last Sunset (In case you have not read it before)

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“Terrible poverty of loneliness and the feeling  of being unloved.”

Looking out of her window at the grey skies of a winter morning, she reminisced her few years she spent away from her parents. For five years Roohi had been facing the wrath of her elderly husband in a small town close by. For years she was yearning for the affection of someone familiar, someone that she could belong to. When she was blessed with a little angel, she thought her life would, somehow, be complete. But her quest for joy was short lived. Having a girl child, first, in the family was deplorable and therefore, the signs of any ill omen on the proud pathan family was to be eliminated. The baby girl was merely three days old when, in a fit of fury, she was thrown into the village well. Roohi was devastated, more so, because she was physically and emotionally too weak to confront her burly husband and her horrid in laws. She found herself vulnerable at the hands of destiny.

How could she ever forget the day she was married into this family? As she entered the broad gate of the family home, she discovered a new life far from her humble abode she had left. The verandah was wide and open, with halls as vast as the streets in her village. Here she was to make a new beginning and shape her dreams. However, time tested her and soon she began dreading everyone around her including her husband. After the cruel fate of her child, she felt comatose, the household felt like a morgue. Often she would hear her child’s cries mingled with her screams and would wake up at night perturbed. Soon, she was coerced to leave since a lovely 16 year old as the ‘new bride’ had now, taken her place.

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Roohi woke up from her daydream, now, to realize that it was time for her to course into the reality she had been facing ever since she came back from her husband’s house. For days, weeks, months and years now, she had been recalling each day of her dreadful past without as much as a sob. Her mother saw her quietly walk out of the door. Roohi took the steps to the way she was most familiar with. She knew that her sunsets were still waiting for her. Up the hill she went, once again, like everyday.

It was the day the annual village fair was to commence. She could see a giant wheel been set up from the hill. She had heard how this year a new ride was to be introduced. She imagined how Saabir’s eyes would have lit up every time the annual fairs gave away anything new. Her heart twisted inside her body, she ached. She wished if Saabir could, somehow, magically turn up, now. But then, she had been wishing this for years altogether. Roohi soaked in the sunset, closed her eyes to breathe the breeze when she heard a faint voice calling out her name. ‘Roohi, is that you?’

“If only for a day the two of us could be as one, then forever I would still carry that tune.”

She opened her eyes to look around for a familiar face. There he was. Standing tall and handsome in a bright new beige colored kaftan. His eyes shone the familiar blue. Roohi could feel herself go down on her knees. ‘How could my prayers have been answered?’ she thought. As she took a step ahead to fall into his embrace, he held her in his arms, as if, never to let go. He whispered, ‘you are my life- my only.’ Spring in their feet, they went back to their village walking down the cobbled road with the starlit night sky above, leaving ‘their’ sunset behind.

This post is in response to the Wednesday weekly prompt at Write Tribe a place to find support and motivation for writing and blogging. 

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction and resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

Image courtesy : Google Images