Her red lips.. so red.. without any make up.. just inches away; close enough that with the slightest bend of his neck, he could touch them, with his. But no, he can’t do it, he is not drunk enough. Looking at them reminds him of all the instances they were “close”-moments which were opportunistic in themselves-like when they were stuck behind the door; when she brushed her hands over his cheek by mistake, like when they were forced to squeeze together in those small pub seats where their thighs touched and their lips… just inches away. I know I started with that, but then, you have to understand his temptations.

Those close moments together, she often looks straight into his eyes and gives him a smile, a very “foreign” smile. She reminds him of his past relationships. None of them understood him. But he never complained to any of them. How could he, when he was unsure himself? Though he’s sure about a few things: first, he is never going to understand this one, she’s too foreign. And second, that he was alone, eternally alone.

He is in general an affable person with no visible idiosyncrasies. People like him, for he is a good talker and a better listener. Only some kinds of conversation interest him, others he just listens. In reality, he’s quite bored; bored with the people around him, his work and his helplessness with his boredom.

Then, one of those days, he went to an otherwise very uninteresting party-people mistook his party-going as his socialness(?) and friendliness; which in truth, he went just to amuse himself, flirt with some pretty girls, sleep occasionally(I mentioned he was quite affable, didn’t I?).-but in this party he met a woman. A woman who knew how to talk, how to listen and yet intercept conversations with the most remarkable comments to let them flow the way she wanted. Atleast that is how she was with him. They just clicked! Small bantering emails turned to bigger personal ones. Matter of fact, she got a job in his building soon. It was as if the sun had peeped out of the clouds of his monotony. Each day he looked forward to see her at work. She looked kind off oldish, not very attractive and was married to a man in a touring job. No, no playing Freud reader, but interesting companionship has often turned into love, has it not? So, soon he found it difficult staying away from her and he was quite sure, that his longing was not unrequited. He told her what was in his mind, one of which was that he wanted her to leave her husband. The woman took no time to refuse him straightaway.

Yes, she also loved him but to her, marriage was a duty not a matter of choice. Our poor guy heartbroken and too embarrassed left and went home. The news of his engagement was heard in sometime. His fiancée was the daughter of a friend of his fathers, rich, spoilt and silly. He didn’t love her certainly, but then he was tired resisting the flow of what seemed to lead to certainty-for his parents atleast.

This older woman, I mentioned earlier, was not the luckiest of all. Her husband died in a car crash, and as if all her life came shattering to pieces. The hero of our story, as soon as he heard about her, he was right there beside her and he offered for marriage again. Though how tempting this offer was for the woman; she knew about his engagement; she couldn’t let him shirk away from his responsibility and destroy his life (what would people say) as she hadn’t let him destroy hers. Good advice is what she gave: it was his duty to be with the girl and to break off all contacts with her (that would be adultery, right?).

He did what she said, he kept his promises. He married, but was too bored to live upto the expectations of his wife. His mind was away, he was a different man, but still the same in many ways. He was too disinterested in this arrangement, but he held on. But his wife couldn’t.
I heard his wife left him, and he left off for somewhere then, no one knows where. It must have been like his previous life of loneliness revisited him, but he couldn’t react to it as he could have when he was younger.

I miss him terribly, his memories came back to me again and again, and I get confused in the grammar while writing his story, in the tenses. I often think, how worthwhile is it to hold on to promises, to ‘duties’, for I am that woman, I was talking about.