A Requiem

I could see the end so clearly, before the beginning. Lonely again with my heavy olive rucksack and a broken spirit, staring at the airport doors. Just like it was beginning. I stared blankly at the permuting arrival lounge information board. The green lights next to every flight lit up, except one. People in ties, suits, shorts stormed out of the glass doors. All looking for a familiar face.

In a time when anyone would have a thumping heart and moist palms, I was morose. And as if the overwhelming sense of precognition that showed me the end wasn't enough, my iPod began a song I otherwise loved.

Wednesday morning at five o'clock
as the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen

I could see everything. How we'd walk in through the same gate, through the same half built bridge, and dump our bags in front of the cafe. Sit together, have a sip. And before I could blink it would be time to go.

Through the glass doors again, past the burly guards. And I peered through the glass, slowly the sorrow dawning. The misty glass blurring my last glimpses. A lump in my throat, no crying of course, grown men don't cry. What if she turned back to see me?

She
is leaving
home
She's leaving home after living alone for

so many years

The music did not matter anymore. The absence of joy was obvious, but what remained was nameless. Two years of separation punctuated by two days of bliss seemed fatal.

Two blinking green lights pierced my sorrowful menagerie. And in the exodus I spotted straight hair and a kurta. My sweaty palms groped for the flowers and the piece of card, surely my heart would explode of excitement. Springing with my seemingly weightless rucksack I ran after her.