Returning to Oneself

Sitting in the café, waiting.

All of us are waiting for something, really. Some for success, some for the fulfillment of desires, and others for love!

People actually wait to find love!? Strange, isn't it?!

Of course, people do wait for love—what would I know about all that?! I'm a robot! Even hearing the word love makes me laugh now!

Tell me, am I even worthy of love? Perhaps I was once, when I was human... yes, when I was human! I knew how to love deeply then. I knew how to love while tucking the edge of a turmeric-stained sari into my waist. I knew how to weave stories of love with my head resting on a tear-soaked, hairy chest.

Until the end of office hours, before heading home, I used to love waiting for him. I loved all his writing—his poetry, his verses, his foolish philosophies. I loved the way he said "hello," I loved his entire existence.

But perhaps I don't love anymore today; try as I might, I can't love. I feel like a corpse to myself. Dragging this body along, barely keeping it alive—that can't be called living, can it?

Why does this happen? Why does it happen like this?! Why can't we love for our entire lives? When all our capacity for love is exhausted, why do people become walking corpses?

I don't know the answers to these questions. Today I only know how to wait. I'm waiting at the café for Sayem. It was here, almost seven months ago, that we last met.

Sayem is now sitting across from me. First, he silently places his hand over mine.

Once, I could have turned day into night and night into day just to touch this hand once. But today, his touch gives me no feeling at all. It seems my entire body is numb; I can't feel anything.

From the beginning, Sayem has been trying to look into my eyes, but it's been useless. I can't look into his eyes for very long; and what's the point even if I did! Can't Sayem understand that I'm no longer the same butterfly I used to be?! Can't he see clearly in my eyes that I'm someone else now? Why should I have to scream and explain even this much to make him understand? Or is he deliberately pretending not to understand? Forcing himself not to believe it?!

Sayem and I lived together in secret for four and a half years. We had a life together, and no one even noticed! We didn't let anyone know, didn't let anyone understand that throughout university, we lived like a married couple. And in that time, we even had a child. Yes, only in the womb; the poor thing never made it to this world! I often wonder... that life of love and intimacy we shared in secret—wasn't that a marriage? Really, wasn't it?! Is love then just the cruel orchestration of killing the unborn?!

Anyway, from then on, Sayem's whims, his busyness, office deadlines, promotions, coming home late almost every night, his emotional numbness—all of this accumulated bit by bit in my mind's diary. And as it accumulated, somehow wounds formed one after another in my entire heart... until today, everything ended somehow!

No, no, that's a bit wrong! Not today—actually, the end came long ago; I just didn't realize it. Once you master the habit of staying alive, a person doesn't even notice when they're dying inside; I didn't notice either.

Sayem has come to take me back, though he hasn't spoken a single word yet. But I know, I can understand—I can understand all his unspoken words. It's because I understand that it hurts so much!

My heart is no longer in domesticity; I'm a divorced person now. I'm no longer anyone's anyone, nor do I want to be.

Strangely, Sayem's ice-cold eyes are getting misty! Has he understood that I won't return? The home I built with love—Sayem destroyed and shattered that home with his busyness.

Once I've managed to leave that life, I won't return to that hell under any circumstances. Perhaps it would have been better if I could have been greedy, if I could have forgotten all sorrows in the glitter of saris and jewelry!

The waiter brought coffee and set it on the table. "Let it cool, I'll be back from the washroom in a moment"... saying just this, I walked straight out of the café from behind Sayem without him seeing. As soon as I got out, I called a CNG and jumped in.

I told the driver to go very fast. I closed my eyes for a while and took a long breath. I took out my phone and texted Sayem: "To whoever comes into your new life, don't give them the gift of so much busyness; that's just poison. Once you get used to living by consuming poison, one day even if you desperately want to, you can't die anymore. Be well."