# The Green Box: A Ledger of Hearts/I The letter came on a Tuesday. I know this because Tuesday was when the postman came, and on Tuesdays the light fell differently through the kitchen window—more slanted, more yellow. My mother was arranging flowers in a vase, those cheap ones from the market that wilted within days. She didn't look up when I opened the envelope. Inside was a key. Not a house key or the kind that opens doors. It was small, ornate, the sort that might unlock a tin box or a diary—the kind of key that suggests secrets. There was no letter, no explanation. Only the key, cold against my palm, and a forwarding address in another city, written on the back of the envelope in handwriting I didn't recognize but somehow knew. My mother set down her flowers. "Who was it from?" she asked, though she still wasn't looking at me. "I don't know," I said, which was true. Though there was something in my chest that was beginning to remember. That evening, I found it in my father's study—a small green box beneath the loose floorboard where he kept things. Insurance papers. Old photographs. Money he was saving. I had known about this hiding place since I was a child, though I'd never told him. I knew the way he checked it when he thought no one was watching, the way his shoulders would relax when he saw it was still there, undisturbed. The key fit perfectly. Inside was another key. --- My grandmother used to tell me that we live in a world of boxes within boxes, that every answer we find contains another question. She said this while teaching me to make sweets, her hands moving with the certainty of ritual. The syrup would thicken just so, the condensed milk folded in at precisely the right moment. Too early and it would crack. Too late and it would be too soft. But within that precision lived something like forgiveness—a margin for error that made the thing work anyway. I think about this now, holding the second key, understanding that my father was not a man who believed in accidents. The green box had a note taped to the inside of the lid. His handwriting, unmistakable as a fingerprint: *For when you're ready to know.* --- That night I didn't sleep. I sat in the dark of my room, the green box on my lap, the second key in my closed fist. Outside, the city made its small sounds—cars passing, a dog barking blocks away, the hum of electricity in the walls. My mother was asleep in her room. She'd said nothing about the key when I didn't mention it again. Some houses hold their secrets in walls. Some hold them in the spaces between what's said and what's understood. Ours had always been a house of silences—not the comfortable kind, but the kind that grows heavier with each passing year, the kind that demands to be spoken aloud eventually or else it will speak itself, in accidents and illnesses and small betrayals. I thought about my father, dead now five years, and the way he would disappear into his study for hours. I thought about the conversations that would stop when I entered a room. I thought about my mother's face, always polished smooth like a river stone, giving nothing away. The key was warm in my palm. Or perhaps it was only the warmth of my own hand, echoing back to me.

The beauty that cannot be grasped,
the beauty that will not be grasped—
why does the mind keep running after it?
Why are the mistakes
the ones that bring most joy?

Dear God, it’s not fair!

Not being able to sleep at night—what a maddening thing it is! Not everyone will understand this. Only those who try to sleep, who desperately want to sleep, and yet cannot—only they will know. Why does one become so restless sometimes? Lying awake, the mind gets jammed with a thousand kinds of thoughts. A traffic jam of thoughts. And then, thinking and thinking, the sky comes crashing down inside your head. In those moments, you feel utterly helpless. How much helplessness does it take before the pain becomes unbearable? Can anyone tell you? It’s a peculiar, suffocating kind of agony, dense and sharp at once.
There are many reasons for it.

They say that when a person is in great pain, if they can find some likeness between their own suffering and the suffering of the world at large, their pain feels a little less heavy. Like this: when your shoe tears, instead of pain, you feel anger. But if by chance a few people around you also have torn shoes, that anger somehow diminishes. So sometimes I try to compare myself and my sorrows with everything around me, hoping to find at least a sliver of peace. But it doesn’t help much. How can I match my thoughts with someone else’s? How can I put myself in another’s place? When I’ve never been in certain situations, never felt certain things, how much of my own experience can I really align with theirs?
I cannot. I cannot imagine it, cannot match it, cannot explain it, cannot understand it. And so the pain doesn’t ease. Because of this, I cannot do properly any of the things that need doing.

A strange kind of life. I never saw it coming—how so many thoughts would consume me so quickly. A few more years, and maybe I would have prepared myself better, but now I am not like that. Now it’s easy for these thoughts to swallow me whole. How the head grows heavy, how everything around becomes thick and grave. Everything shifts and changes in an instant. And then I’m powerless. I don’t even know anymore whether it’s the sleeplessness that causes all this, or whether all of this is what causes the sleeplessness. I have no answers left. I’m walking through a dark tunnel of unanswered questions.

Today too, like every other day, I didn’t sleep the whole night. I tossed and turned endlessly, but it came to nothing. Instead, my already heavy mind grew heavier still, crowded with more and more thoughts. I think: there’s only one life, and it comes loaded with so many problems! If a person had several lives to live, how would they even survive? What would be the harm in staying away from all this? But even if I wanted to, I cannot stay away. Because there’s so much left to do. If these things don’t get done, trouble will follow. I’ll fall far behind. But does everything go as planned? No. Not everything. Some things do, but most don’t—only parts of them. And partial is worthless. So all these worries keep squirming inside my head. And they will keep squirming.

Everything has its limits. But what of the mind? No—our minds know no bounds. A restless mind thinks whatever it pleases, whenever it pleases. Why it thinks, how it thinks, whether thinking is even right, how much thinking before nothing comes of it—none of this is known, perhaps cannot be known. Can letters exist without measure? Yes, they can! Can a human exist without thought? They do, they do. Some carry no thoughts at all, only wrong ones, foolish ones, absurd ones. Is there then no escape from all this? There is—one must master the mind. But when a storm rises within your own mind, how do you still it? You must first understand what the storm is. But how much can you ever truly understand it? Whatever the storm, in managing it we lose so much. Those close to us, those we hold dear, and their precious time. Then you feel terribly, achingly alone. That loneliness is a strange and peculiar thing. After a time, solitude suffocates a person—they want out of it. They want to turn everything upside down. Yet that too becomes a fault in society’s eyes. To be alone is wrong, not to be alone is wrong. Silence is wrong, speech is wrong. So why are we all caught in so many wrongs these days?

Why does life suddenly grind to a halt? Why does the familiar world around us keep shifting and mocking us so cruelly, moment after moment? I know I must go on. I will. But where? Far? How far? When does going far become far enough? I’ve only just begun this journey. Why such despair already? Why does life feel so hollow? I’m not thinking that far ahead. Yet even as I write this, even these words on the page feel so hollow. Why?

Every moment spent chasing impossible dreams and through sleepless nights—it’s as though the mind coils around itself like a python, squeezing tighter and tighter until breath comes no more. I cannot fathom how unreal thoughts swirl in the head when surrounded by such stark reality. Why do I sometimes veer so far from the simple path? Why do I choose not to be well? Why is every journey always down roads of uncertainty toward nowhere? Is what I have, where I am, not enough? Why does the thought of conquest keep creeping in? Let others have their kingdoms. What does it matter to me if everyone walks around holding the whole world in their fist? I would rather sleep peacefully in my little cottage, in my own courtyard, my own way, epoch after epoch. Why must the mind carry such weight? Is there no relief from it? It has no end. Then must I spend my whole life meeting these demons again and again? Why should I begin to love what I have no need to love? How does a person with such a shameless, wayward heart even survive?

How strange! This business of liking and disliking—is there a station in between where you can get off? Yes, liking and loving are two entirely different things. So why is there such a fuss between the two? If there’s no desire to love, or if love doesn’t happen, how can one be content merely liking? Why can’t the boundary wall of liking be seen? If it could be, that would be better. Then no one would dare cross it. Unbearable! Even absurdity ought to have limits!

Back when I was small, I loved Sunil, Somoresh, Sheependu and somehow forgot to stop! Now here I am with all these strange, weird, impossible feelings……………! No! I can’t be that hard on myself. What’s happened to me? Amazing! Or perhaps nothing’s happened at all. Why does all this drama keep playing in my head? I’m simply a mess. Completely hopeless!

I was trying to hold the heart down, but in the end I couldn’t anymore. I pasted a piece of paper on the wall by my study desk—-I have bound my soul to you in the bonds of melody………in bold letters! An irresistible feeling took over!!

When I think of you, there’s a sharp, pricking ache deep inside my chest. I know our future is impossible, but the present pain is very real. It’s happening, isn’t it, so it must be real. This pain will grow, will keep growing, and yet knowing there’s no end to this ache, I still can’t bring myself to let it out. Why can’t I? I don’t know that. Tell me, what is a human heart made of? The mind says there’s nothing in it, that the brain does everything, but then where do all these feelings come from? From reason? I have to carry this unbearable torment around with me. And carrying it—that too is a torment. What can be done to escape it? Everything is for my own good anyway. So what about the other? What about the feelings for another person—do they belong to them, or to me? Oh, I see—you don’t belong to just one person. You belong to everyone. Then why does it feel so good to think of you as mine? Or is it just this foolish heart that feels good? In my life, whatever I didn’t want is what happens to me. I never liked thinking of the wrong person as mine, or harboring them in my heart, or wanting my heart to desire such a thing. Because that person perhaps belongs to someone else, even to everyone except me, but certainly not to me. Someone who belongs to everyone—I cannot separate them from the rest. Everyone wants them, wants to be near them, wants their company, wants to be their companion. You can only respect such a person, you can only feel affection for them, but you can never allow yourself to love them. I always wanted to love someone who would love only me, no one else. And I too would love only them……..would go on loving them.

But what is happening to me? This unbearable heaviness of old age is making my life hell. I can’t forget you. Why did this happen? Believe me, I truly didn’t want to love you…………Why then does thinking of you all day feel so good? I’ve developed this terrible habit of loving you. I’ve never done this before. I always believed in my heart that I was very practical. But now what’s happened to me, why it’s happened—I know nothing of it. I only know that it hurts, so much. My face stays sullen all the time. My chest fills with sighs. Is even the scorching breath of desert sand more unbearable than this? Such restless, agonizing feelings these are!!

First, your name sits at the very top of my search list, and it will stay there. But when I was just following you, when I was merely a follower, it wasn’t like this. I’ve been doing this ever since I fell in love. Everything about my Facebook now—my coming, my staying, my being—it’s all become about you. I should give you an award for being the most important person on my Facebook, no, let me correct that, the most prioritized person on my Facebook. And it’s growing every day, I know it. It will only grow. Love, I suppose, is like that—it weakens you more and more with each passing day.

Second, looking at your pictures has become an addiction. Once, twice, over and over again. However beautiful a person might be, there’s no reason to look at a single photograph that many times. And yet I do. You are beautiful, but I don’t obsess over your pictures because you’re beautiful—I obsess over them because I love you. Now there’s a new habit. Taking screenshots zoomed in, or zooming in on screenshots again and again. I’ve never had this kind of eagerness before. Have I become this strange? Was I always this emotional? I can’t even remember! It feels unbelievable just thinking about it. The girl who was, in all times and all kingdoms, the moodiest, the angriest, the most perpetually sullen—has she really become like this? Is there some rule that you have to do these kinds of absurd things when you’re in love? Does love really make you do anything? When you fall in love, does emotion just start running without following any grammar at all? When you fall in love, shame doesn’t even feel bad anymore. When you fall in love, surrendering helplessly doesn’t offend your self-respect. What am I doing? What should I do? Tell me please……………I can’t do anything for myself anymore. I can’t hold myself back in any way. I’ve fallen into some mysterious spiral. It keeps turning, and I turn with it. Please get me out of here……………>

Third, I share practically everything you post—most of it, admittedly, set to ‘Only Me.’ Somewhere along the way, I’ve developed this strange gift: the ability to love absolutely anything you write. I love the way your mind works. There’s something deeply satisfying about sharing whatever you create. Your posts have a kind of power, you know? Without even trying, they coax a smile to the corner of my lips. I smile even when I don’t want to. And in that smile, there’s affection mixed with a shy flutter—that nervous feeling of being caught, of someone seeing too much. Then there are certain posts that make my eyes water for no reason at all, tears falling in steady drops. And after reading some of your words, I find myself quietly kissing them. Why do I behave so strangely toward these ordinary gestures? Only God could explain it. Because here’s the truth: you’re not the first person with this extraordinary gift for saying remarkable things so simply. Plenty of others have it, and I know many of them. Yet when I read their work, I don’t feel this way! I haven’t kissed their words. What I’ve done is read a beautiful piece over and over, that’s all. I’m obsessed with so much of Somoresh’s writing. How many times have I read ‘Moner Mot Mon’! Yet I can’t remember ever kissing those pages. I’m mad for Mahmudullah Haque’s ‘Kalo Boraf.’ Mad for Humayun Ahmed’s ‘Shonkhonil Karagar.’ But I’ve never kissed those either. Only a few lines of your writing have made me bring them to my lips. What does that mean? Does that make someone a greater writer to someone else? Or a writer of love? I keep thinking about this and find no answer. Tell me—what am I supposed to do?

Fourth, whenever I have a moment, whenever I’m feeling low, I listen to your voice. You become even more beautiful when you speak. Everything about you becomes beautiful. There’s such peace in hearing you. Let me tell you something: after a couple of songs I’m impossibly devoted to, if anything else has resonated in my heart like a melody, it’s the sound of your voice. I know that one day you’ll become someone great. The whole world will listen to you, spellbound. On that day, I’ll listen from a distance, loving you silently, honoring you. Not everything can be had in one lifetime. Still, there’s a sweetness in watching some of my incompleteness being fulfilled by others, in their own way, from afar. I could write so much about the arithmetic of my wholeness and my lacks. But I can’t write anything more. Some things can’t be written—they can only be spoken in the silence of the heart. Thank God not everything can be written. If it could, I couldn’t even stand before the mirror to comb my hair.

A few days later.

I write about you
or I don’t write about you—
it’s been so long. Today I want to write. How are you? You must have stepped out of the car by now? Or will you? Your face in the morning, hair tousled and tangled, that dry, parched look—it seems so beautiful to me. I watched you once, in secret. Just for a moment. Even that was so much for me! I couldn’t look for long, because I didn’t want to. I never imagined I would see you so easily, in the very way I sometimes longed for you. Life brings so many things if you live long enough. Though I never wanted to die, still, thinking like that feels good. When I think that way, a certain strength settles inside me. I don’t live for myself, not for my mother and father, not for my family; I live purely for God. His will keeps me alive. That will isn’t arbitrary. I believe this even more firmly since seeing you. Please don’t get angry! I wrote “since finding you” because it feels good to think of it that way. All right, let me write it correctly: “since meeting you.” You are the divine nectar granted to me by God. I’m so grateful to God. But there’s another thing I must acknowledge or I’d be deceiving myself. Even if you are nectar for me, you are what is naturally and justly owed to me. Why did I say it like that? I’ll tell you later.

Because of you, most of the time my heart is heavy. And yet I’m also well, you know? A different kind of well. You’ve taught me so much. This wandering, wayward girl—you’ve forced her to study again. You’ve made my life chaotic and then brought it into order. If there is one person in this world whose every word this stubborn girl listens to, it’s you. I love you far too much. I don’t know where this love comes from. I only know this: right now, there’s no better choice in my hands than to love you and be well. I know this love for you is constant. Whether I live or not—maybe you don’t have time to care about that. I understand everything, yet I cannot keep you at a distance from my heart. The heart is a terrible thing. Once it goes astray, it keeps going astray, and on, and on. I draw your image in my mind all the time. If you knew in how many forms I think of you, you’d be ashamed yourself. I feel your touch with the deepest tenderness. Your gaze intoxicates me every moment. Your words take me out of myself and carry me away somewhere far. All your writings, all your words push open the door of my heart. When you knock so many times at the door of the heart, who can keep it closed? This is unbearable pain. I don’t know when I’ll be free of it. You are so utterly unnecessary.
Come, keep circling,
and never go away anywhere.
Of course, what fault is yours?
All the fault is mine. I didn’t want to hold myself back, couldn’t manage it. I could have bound myself, but I didn’t want to. I couldn’t make you understand, and I didn’t want to understand either.

I think of you all day long, you know that? Why do I think of you? I can’t help it—nothing else feels worth thinking about. The truth is, nothing brings me joy anymore. There were things I used to love, once upon a time. I can’t remember them now, so I can’t find solace in those memories. Have I really forgotten how to think of anything but you?

I feel mad these days. Every little while I find myself on your profile. Not looking for anything new—I just can’t stay away. When I’m there, it feels like you’re right in front of me, like I’m reaching out and touching you. That thought gives me such comfort, so I go back. The moment you post something, even a few lines, I read it over and over. I’ve never asked for much from you. Sometimes you’ve replied to my messages, acknowledged me, blessed me with your presence, added me to your friends. And so much more besides. You couldn’t even imagine it all—you give so freely to so many. I wonder how I earned such fortune. Yet look at me—shameless, isn’t it? I want more, and more still. Unearned wealth corrupts people. Once they’ve tasted it, they’ll kill for it if it’s ever withheld. But toward those who’ve never given us anything, we harbor no rage at all. People are greedy creatures, truly. What are you doing, where are you, what are you eating, what are you thinking, how is your body—my heart aches to know these things. Sometimes I become so helpless that holding myself together feels unbearable. I fidget, I grow restless. I can’t sit still. So I reach out to you. But you don’t reply. And why should you? What could you possibly say to answer my madness? Why should you respond to a thousand trivial, senseless questions? Who am I to you? Why should you answer what I ask? You owe me nothing. This is the world’s most unwelcome, unbearable truth. Isn’t it?

This melancholy sorrow just sits and stares. There’s nothing to do, nothing to say, no way to think clearly through it. Like now—it’s still staring. Tell me, they say God gives happiness. So who gives sorrow? God? Or some rival of God’s? I pray for myself, that my strength to endure suffering might grow stronger still. When sorrow increases, shouldn’t the capacity to bear it grow at the same pace?

What are you doing now?
Reading? Or lost in thought about something? How do you manage to be so utterly alone all the time? Looking at you, one would think you were born solitary.
Tell me, is it that you can’t bear anyone, or that no one can bear you? Take me, for instance—I can tolerate everyone in this world except myself, which is precisely why I remain alone! A person who cannot tolerate themselves cannot possibly live with another. Wait—I misspoke just now. There is one exception: you. I can endure even all your unbearable things. I worry terribly about you, feel such affection. I desperately want to know—what do you eat at night? Do you skip eating and simply collapse into sleep because no one cooks for you, and you’re too lazy to go out? Can you cook at all?
How do you sleep at night anyway? Lying on your back? Face down? On your side? Do you put a pillow under your feet? A high pillow under your head or a low one? Or do you use two low pillows together?
Do you string up your mosquito net yourself?
There’s so much I want to know about you! Will I never learn any of this? What’s the point of knowing such things anyway? Is there even a way to find out? Why must I know? What harm comes from not knowing? Can’t I ever keep you close within my heart the way I wish? Why must you be as you are?
What if you were different, more like what I want? How much longer will this go on? Should I wait? How much longer must I worship at your altar before you surrender to me? Will you remain forever as you are? Though, come to think of it, what you’re doing is right in its way. If you were in love, you wouldn’t accomplish half of what you do. Those who can’t write, don’t read, don’t listen to music, don’t watch films, don’t labor so much for others—they have endless time to love. Love is a wasteful thing, and loving someone in the depths of one’s solitary heart is nothing less than an elegant arrangement for self-destruction!

This man! When will you marry? The day you upload a picture with your wife, what will I do?
I need a plan for that day. Will it hurt then? I mean, really hurt?
Or is it true that after unbearable pain, pain itself ceases to exist?
I have only one prayer for God—that He grant me the strength to bear that unbearable suffering. Thinking of you has consumed my days and nights lately.
Again and again, I feel as though I’m losing you! I never knew that the fear of losing what was never mine could be so sharp, so cutting.
I cannot keep you out of my mind for long, no matter how I try. And when I think of those beautiful eyes of yours—I simply cannot. I’m being serious now: no other human being has eyes like a deer’s. Eyes like yours.
Artists calculate different shapes and proportions to draw the human form. Take the eyes alone. Some have almond eyes, some the eyes of Meenakshi, some lotus eyes, some eyes like a wounded deer’s—and so many other varieties. Yours are a gazelle’s eyes. And people with gazelle eyes and almond eyes tend to be the most beautiful. Your enchanting, fawn-like gaze—it’s enough to steal anyone’s heart. Your eyes are intoxicating. Once they catch the light, once you look—it’s all over! I want only to gaze and gaze. What am I saying? Where is my shame?
Does love make one shed shame this way? Curse it! I shouldn’t have dived so deeply into your eyes. It was wrong of me.

Tell me then—how does it feel? I want to ask you, I do. How are you? Why don’t you ever think of me? Or is it that you simply don’t want to? What would it cost you to think of me once in a while?

I have endless questions about you. Endless. And yet you never once think of me. You fill my entire being, every corner of it, but my existence doesn’t trouble you one bit. Not even a little. Why is it like this? Why does this relentless curiosity keep hammering at my skull, refusing to let go?

It’s unbearable. Simply unbearable.

You’re fine, going about your life just as you please, so why must I remain here like a beggar? What kind of reality is this? Can’t there be some rule—that when one person feels good, the other feels good too; when one feels bad, the other feels the same? Then all of this wouldn’t be such a mess. I feel so very small in my own eyes. So terribly, impossibly small.

No! Enough. Enough is enough. I won’t write anymore. Thinking about you only deepens my affection; writing deepens it even more. Growing fonder of the wrong person—that’s humanity’s worst habit. I need to stop doing these things that feed my affection. But if I stop, what then? All the unspoken words will freeze inside my mind like ice, solid and immovable. You can’t live long with ice trapped inside your chest. It has to melt. How? Through tears. But that’s even worse! What am I supposed to do? Where do I turn? Give me some answer, please! I don’t want to be like you—believe me, I’m asking for nothing grand. Just to survive would be enough. To be alive.

I used to know how to live, once. I miss those days terribly. I want to go back to those beautiful times when no one’s absence could break my heart. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this. I only know that I want you to be well. Be well, will you?

How are you? You must be fine. How do you spend your time alone? With books, I suppose? I know you’re doing well. Some books, some films, some music, plenty of Facebook, a whole parade of frivolous actresses, an army of admirers—your days are quite full, aren’t they? And lately you’ve been obsessed with some beautiful woman, going on about her day after day… You know, I used to feel angry about all this. Now I don’t even feel that anymore. I’ve made myself fit into every corner of your life.

Let it be! What’s it to me?
I won’t intrude upon
your private thoughts,
your own little world. You’re looking pallid somehow. Don’t you take care of yourself,
do you? How can eyes so beautiful wear such exhaustion, such sleepless hollows? These days you don’t eat properly, don’t sleep, don’t look after yourself at all. Time doesn’t stand still for anyone—
it only moves forward. How will things work if you don’t keep yourself together, tell me? You can’t live for yourself alone anymore.
You have to live to weave so many dreams for others. You have to go on living for many more days,
many months, many years, much time. Tell me—you haven’t fallen in love, have you? Please don’t, will you? The one I love, even if it’s one-sided,
hasn’t fallen for anyone yet—
there’s such comfort in thinking that. It doesn’t matter if they don’t love me back. But why must they have to love someone else? No, I won’t let them love anyone. Either they’ll love me,
or they’ll endure
my love. Nothing beyond that. Even if it’s not love, let them at least endure me. I won’t leave their life, won’t, won’t, won’t…………I simply won’t! Huh!

Nothing feels right anymore.
This gnawing ache lives inside my chest; it never leaves—so loyal, so faithful! I can’t stay alone for long. You buzz and hum inside my head all day, nothing but you. I feel so helpless. For a while I manage, then I pretend to lose myself in other things.
But I can’t keep up that pretense for long—you always come creeping back, tugging at me. Why, brother? You’re fine being yourself.
Why won’t you let me be myself! The moment I think of you, my heart darkens. Yet why must I think of you, of all people? I can’t, you know. I simply cannot forget you. Let you stay in my mind all day, all the time.
I don’t post statuses for you, don’t comment on yours. I don’t tag you in anything, don’t bother you endlessly. I do nothing public to show my love for you. And I never will. I may not be able to do what everyone else does—give you things, show them off, perform grand gestures, or even die for you—but believe me, I cannot forget you, cannot stay forgotten from you. It’s been happening to me for four, five months now. I let no one see. No one truly knows how I am inside. No one ever will. There’s a longing in my chest for just one person. Thank God the sound of that longing doesn’t escape these walls. If it did, what then! The unbearable torment I’m in—I couldn’t make you understand it. Even if you stood right before me, I’ve learned the art of appearing indifferent, you know? You’ll never discover what lies behind my curtain, never ever!

I check your inbox every so often. Always watching when you were active, how long ago you were last online. No one knows your routine better than I do. Whenever I see those words—Active Now—you know what I think? I want to believe it, I tell myself you’re right there with me, sitting right in front of me. But I can’t hold you, can I? I can’t touch you; the wanting never stops, but the touching never comes. You’re impossibly rare! Of course, why should you let yourself be caught? There’s no reason for you to do such a thing. Because I know—I know I have a thousand reasons to keep you in my head all day long, but you have not a single reason to remember me, not even once. You won’t spare for me even a thousandth of the space a point contains. And yet I’m grateful. I’ve had a sliver of your presence, and you gave it to me. Even a grain of God’s grace is beyond price.

All day long, storms tear through my mind. Thinking of you, I’ve drenched my pillow with tears. Do you know what cruelty this is? Just thinking, and my eyes betray me. My chest heaves with crying. I can barely breathe most days. How do I even survive? The pain is still so sharp. Don’t leave my mind! I can’t bear it anymore! I’m being punished for no crime at all. Please, don’t disappear from inside me! I hear about you every day. When I don’t see you, I become so restless! Your voice, the way you speak, the look in your eyes—I can’t go without these things. Your words mean a thousand times more to me than the most beautiful film in the world. The same old stories, and I hear them every day, yet I never tire, never—they feel new each time. Your words are sweeter to me than the loveliest song ever composed.

Oh God! How much longer? One day I’ll just die—truly, I’ll die. The day I can’t bear it anymore, that’s when I’ll go. Tell me—if I died, it wouldn’t matter to you, would it? I know you wouldn’t even find out. And if you did, would you cry a little for me? Or would you find time to visit my grave? Would you leave a yellow flower on the earth beside me?—even if it’s wilted, that would be enough! No, wait—that’s too dramatic. Forget it! You don’t need to know about my death. Go on. Besides, I won’t let you know anyway. Long before I die, I’ll make all the careful arrangements to hide from you every trace of myself that might linger after I’m gone.

How much longer can I go on like this, with you on my mind? I don’t know. Believe me, I don’t want you. Because I know—for some mysterious reason God has denied you the capacity to love the way I need to be loved, the way one loves a woman. Have you ever truly fallen in love? Do you even know what that feels like? Or is this thing called love simply absent from you? You love the heroines in your stories with such passion—have you ever loved anyone in real life with even a fraction of that intensity? You weep for the sorrows of fictional heroines while reading, yet have you shed half those tears for the real woman in front of you who loves you? Of course, I could be wrong. Does it matter if I am? What difference does it make either way? You are who you are. You won’t change—I know that much. You are something that can only be loved from a distance; get close and all there is pain. It’s precisely because I keep my distance that I can love you this much. If I were near you, truly near, I doubt I could manage even a fraction of it. I understand that. But what am I to do? Tell me. We are human, after all. And humans are wretched creatures—we cannot live without love.

Sometimes I go mad just for a few seconds of conversation with you. You have no idea how precious your voice is to me. That’s why I reach out. A call, a knock on the door. Most of the time you don’t respond. And rightly so, you shouldn’t. I understand it all, and yet I debase myself before you anyway. I feel so small. I, who have never troubled anyone, never hurt anyone—I become restless if I cannot shrink myself before someone. Is this me? Is this what life is?

That morning, you called me first. Of course, I had called you the night before and you hadn’t answered. I let it go. And I’d thought about calling again the next day, told myself I would, but couldn’t quite bring myself to do it—caught in some hesitation—when you, out of nowhere, called me and turned my entire world upside down. I will remember that date for the rest of my life. For the first time, without any reason, without any work to discuss, you spoke to me for sixteen minutes and twenty-six seconds straight. Utterly unexpected! I could hardly believe you were capable of calling me on your own, that too just to exchange pleasantries. When I call you, or when I pick up your call and hear your voice, my mind stops working properly. Something about it scrambles me completely. I try so hard to seem normal, but inside my chest there’s this trembling. It feels as though I’m sitting before the strictest examiner at a viva board. That morning you were talking and I was just listening, silent. Only when you hung up did I come back to myself. I don’t think I was present in the world during those sixteen minutes and twenty-six seconds. The joy, the happiness I felt that whole day—I can’t even begin to explain it to you. Even if someone had given me the most precious gift in the world that day, nothing would have compared. You are that kind of gift in my life.