Silly Question

He is in bed. Her naked body just inches away from him. Her white, creamy shoulder is barley a touch away. He looks at the stains of the lipstick she wore last night and thinks to himself, ‘that will be difficult to clean.’ He continues to stare at her sleeping, weightless body. He is thinking how best to answer the question she, his wife, had asked last night.  Fortunately, he thinks that the she from his past has already prepared him for this day.

‘What will you tell her when I come up in your conversations?’, she had often asked. He had brushed her questions aside calling them, ‘silly’. If she would insist, he would take a deep breath, hold her by her shoulders and then with one hand would push back the hair, which covered her entire forehead and seemed dangerously close to shading her eyes. He still believes that he wanted to answer her. Tell her, there will be no other her. The only one for him is she—the one with short hair, the lopsided grin, mischief in her sad, sad eyes. Yet, one look at those pink, soft, naked lips and all he could do was, kiss her so hard that she would forget her own doubts and questions.

She wakes up and as she does daily, looks at him, opening only her left eye. His eyes are closed, the calm rhythm of his breath betrays no signs of the wild night they were recovering from. She had tossed her long, luscious, black hair over her white, creamy shoulders in one swift move. She had lowered her eyes, just a little bit longer than necessary and then had raised her head slowly to meet his gaze. 

Earlier in the evening, she did have a headache. She was cranky and had wanted some answers. She had asked him about his past and regretted the question as soon as it had been asked. She had seen the same question for her in his eyes. Thankfully, she had recovered fast. She knew the only way to escape this exchange of information was passion. She had used that to ensure that questions were never asked.

Hands and Smiles

His palms were huge. Broad at the base, they had tapered long fingers with neatly trimmed nails. The lines on his palm were few, dark, and deep. The strong forearms spoke of a man who had spent a lifetime engaging in physical labour. They exuded strength but at the same time it was easy to tell that the man could hold a baby without harming it. The hands could soothe a crying teenager after her first heart break. The fingers, just by a mere touch, could make a woman blush and want the moment to never end. They could give comfort to an old friend and lend support to a complete stranger. The hands had a character of their own. They spoke of the man and where he had been and who he had become.

Right now his hands were merely holding a book. The long fingers were taking their time flipping through each page. Anyone who saw the man would say that he took the job of flipping each page seriously and also enjoyed the sensation of the paper touching his fingertips. He grazed his hand from left to right at the top of the page he had finished reading. He then carefully picked the top right corner of the page with his thumb and the index finger. In a fluid movement, his hold travelled to the bottom of the page and he turned the page.

The gaps between his fingers were deep just like the deep valleys of the Greater Himalayas, where the young rivers flow at great speed. I had been looking at him for a long time now. Oblivious to the fact that the other travellers could see me staring at him, I took the liberty of staring at him for a few more seconds.

Then suddenly embarrassed by what I was doing and in an attempt to seem a bit less weird I blurted out loud, “Are you reading about the great mountains of the Himalayas?”

He made a quick attempt to hide a scowl, which had emerged on its own account as if he was rudely woken from a dream filled sleep. Trying to figure out where he was, and as if waking up after a night long sleep, he mumbled. Just as he finished saying, “Yes. Reading,” a puzzled look on his face revealed that he realised just at that moment that the pretty lady’s question had more to it than he had answered.

It was his turn to be embarrassed. He looked down at his book just to break the gaze that had held him longer than what was the custom in these situations. He lifted his gaze again to find that the lady was no longer interested in him and was intently looking outside the window as the lush green hills passed by. He looked at her hands. She had thin, shapely arms, delicate, soft palms and beautiful fingers. Her nails were coloured in a light shade of pink, which he imagined matched the colour of her cheeks, when she blushed. She wore only a thin gold band on the index finger of her right hand. There was no engagement ring or a wedding band to be seen. This detail made him smile. The smile lingered for a bit longer than necessary.

She held a light blue coloured handkerchief between her fingers. She was tapping a tune with her fingers. He noticed that her grip on the piece of cloth tightened every time the bus hit a rough patch. He wanted to know how her hands would feel in his, when they went to a park to photograph flowers together in the spring. He wondered if they would go red under the strong summer sun, or would the tips turn blue in the extreme winter. At that exact moment, their gaze met once again. Without losing a moment, he said, “I am reading about the Valley of Flowers in the Himalayas.”

She smiled. A beautiful smile and he knew just then that he had found what he was looking for.

P.S: To overcome a writer's block, I attempted this writing exercise. Please see and try it. It is fun. Click here.