Tempest

Wednesday, 14 March 2007

To be able to
Yet be unable to…

Locked all alone in the old house, she sat huddled in a corner on the cold stone floor. Thin wisps of clothing covered her young, healthy body. Yet despite the youth she shivered uncontrollably. In sudden movements she kept clutching at what was in her hand. There was no fear in her actions, nor in her misty eyes…just a deep wistfulness, an even deeper longing. She sat next to the window and watched her old friends. Friends she had shared everything with…friends who had been confidantes of her every thought, dream, fantasy, emotion, ambition and desire. Through the glass window, she stared at the sun, at its golden glow flooding the morning skies. She imagined feeling its warmth seep through every pore of her body. She played with it in her hands unknowingly. She imagined being embraced by warm gusts of wind, running through the green meadow with her skirts flying. She could almost feel the breeze lift her skirts playfully. She closed her eyes and so close to the warmth was she that she in her minds eye actually felt the light fluttery caresses of the butterflies, she actually heard the secrets of the chirping birds, she actually lay down on the sunflowers swaying lightly under the blue sky. She could just open the window and be enveloped into the comforting world she loved. She had walked into the house on her own accord. With each passing moment the cold had seeped further and further into her bones. She kept tossing it in the air and catching it. Yet her heart hadn’t forgotten the warmth. Everytime she sat by the window, she touched the cold panes…willing the great warm sun to melt it down so she would be freed. The cold and the warmth contradicted. She could never understand whether she shivered because she was cold or because she was not in the warmth. It was so close…the golden, the green, the blue. It beckoned her, it lured her, and it brought her down on her knees in temptation. She moved it from one hand to the other. So deep was her craving to be out there, to be held in the comfort of that embrace, to be ensconsed in its protective warmth that she almost gave in and forgot all vows, all the promises she had made when she entered the house. She stopped playing with it and almost hastily, desperately reached out to the window and began to insert the key into the lock. She had to get out. She had to breathe; she had to get away from the bone deep chill. She had to give in to something stronger, larger, something that would stand forever. She had to surrender. She fumbled with the lock and the key fell down from her hands and clanged on the floor. It was only a split second, it felt like she had stood staring at the key for eternity. She knew she couldn’t open the window. The keys weren’t hers, they belonged to the house and to the house she had given her word. This happened once in a while, when she would forget that she had no ownership. But then she would jar out of her reverie and smile at herself, the cold walls around her, the window and what lay yonder. Suddenly the cold would disappear; the warmth would remain in her heart. Smiling, slowly shakily she picked up the keys and placed them next to window sill. They couldn’t tempt her anymore. One last time she wistfully brushed her hand across the windowsill, fleetingly touching the keys and breathing in a memory of the meadow. She would be out there someday, but not today.

To be able to
Yet be unable to…

Posted by Pavitra :: 09:22 :: 2 comments