The Diver Touches The Bottom Of The Pool

The Diver Touches The Bottom Of The Pool

She was the physical manifestation of the wish I’d made when I saw a shooting-star in the sky. It was quite a dark and yet clear night, there certainly was a new moon in the sky to alleviate the darkness of the night when I witnessed the celestial event. I badly wanted her to be with me that night.

She was walking out of the park while I was walking in through the gate the next day. Wishes made on looking at a shooting-star are usually granted within a day, I’d heard people say, but I never expected my wish to be granted so soon. There were a lot of other people in the park; I did wonder if any of their wishes too had been granted by the shooting-star. I considered myself lucky. I wish I had made a dozen more wishes.

I was a bit perturbed because she seemed to be all set to enter my heart once she was in my  eyes, the distance between the two not being much. She was already standing at the doorstep of my heart. I didn’t want anyone to enter my heart, it is where Zeenat dwells. There was no way of stopping her, she was already at the doorstep with one of her foot inside the precincts of my heart.

She was going to be someone who would help me get through many things in my life including my past. There have been so many horrifying experiences in the past that I was looking forward to forget all of my past and plunge into the future that stood before me. I’ve been looking forward to the future for quite some time now. There would be the excitement of discovering new adventures everyday. There is certainly nothing exciting about my past now; I only have the future to look up to for some amount of fun and adventure.

My life badly needs a strong dose of fun and adventure, and here was a chance to claim everything my heart ever wanted. The point is that I had been daunted by images of some ghosts of my past till now. They threatened to tear me to pieces if I moved towards the future. I hope they stop tormenting me once I’m a part of my future. I’ll certainly be beyond their reach, but some of them shall continue to torment me for a long time to come.

 I felt like a diver who is faced with a dive so deep that he thinks twice before jumping in. He has never attempted anything so deep ever q before in his diving career although all fellow divers have dived to deeper depths.  The very thought of touching tingling cold water on a cold and frosty morning did take away some of his enthusiasm, but then he thought of the immense excitement, pleasure and satisfaction that would emanate from the adventure.

I was already dripping in the ecstasy and excitement of the future I saw in her eyes even while she stood at a distance. The very thought of diving into all the new adventures I saw in her eyes was quite exciting. There was a mystery lurking in the shadows beneath her eyes. Did they hold a clue to the future? I did wonder what the future would appear to be if I took a deep breath and dived at that very moment.

In the normal course of events, I would have found myself deep in the water a long time back, but then, very little has been normal in my case. I simply can’t expect such an important aspect of my life to have followed the normal course too. Very little in my life has flowed the normal course. There is a huge amount of frustration and anger within me because things haven’t turned out the normal way in my case. Zeenat would have been a part of the world a long time back in the normal course. I would not have had to suffer the way I have suffered had things followed the normal course.

I don’t feel I have been treated in a special manner, but I feel like having to jump on the last bus home at the last moment. In fact, it is not even a jump; it is more of a push. I’m being shoved on the bus because everyone else has reached home, while I still loiter around the bus-stop. The diver has been pushed into the water because  everyone else is already in the pool; he was the last on the spring-board. He didn’t have much of a choice.

The diving adventure might result in a disaster as some of my peers have reported. The aquatic atmosphere is going to present some remarkably new challenges and novelties for someone like me who is totally new to it. I do wonder if I am fit for these challenges. I hope my muscles are strong enough to bear the strain. I’m aware that I’m many leagues behind my peers in many ways.

I do wonder where I took the detour that brought me to the end at such a late point of time. I wish I could go back in time and rectify all that went wrong and whenever it went wrong. Had everything gone well in my case, I would have been all set to plumb new depths today.

On second thoughts, it could be that Allah kept me away from the depths because I may not have been able to handle the extra pressure I would have encountered at these depths  had I touched the depths at an earlier instance. There is certainly a lot of pressure and tension to be found when one dives to great depths as compared to what is found on the surface. I wonder if I could have handled all the pressure and tension marital life throws upon its subscribers had I embraced the novelty earlier. Allah knows the best. I don’t think I should ask any such questions: the diver is already half-way to the water, he is about to touch the water.

The novelty of the experience is going to be with the diver for only a short period of time. The part of the pool he has been forced to dive in is not as deep as the part where his peers have dived. He is sure to touch the bottom of the pool in a short while. 

The night is set to get a lot more dark and somber as time passes by. I hope to discover many  more adventures wrapped in the clouds that would be a part of the night the next day.