Painting Portraits With Whispers

Painting Portraits With Whispers
After all these years, I can still feel her breaths whispering secrets of her era  into my ears. I gladly gave an ear to her secrets whenever she had any to share. I had quite a lot of them concealed within myself too, but I wasn’t as articulate as she was. They were dreams she had seen once upon a time with her eyes closed.

She wanted to chase them like a wild bull chases a matador in an arena. It was going to be a long and hard chase, she knew, but then, everything in her life had been tough. Echoes of bells her dreams chimed within me at that time can be heard to this day, although they are not as shrill today. I did wonder if they created similar ruptures within her being too. There was a typical joy bouncing within me whenever her secrets echoed around my being, and they did so for quite a long time.

I haven’t shared them with anyone, I never shall. I feel so honoured when I realise the merit she attributed to me by confiding them in me. She left some invisible but strong marks of her presence on my subconscious mind to remind me of her absent form even today. Although they have begun to fade with time, quite a few of them shall remain with me in a prominent form for a long time.

I hate to remind myself from time to time that she was only a short chapter in the book of my life. The chapter is now over, and I have been reading another  one since I opened my eyes this morning, but I simply cannot forget everything about. She was a chapter that defined my entire book. My entire life was summarised by her. A whole lot of chapters remain unread and unexplored, a lot of secrets remain to be whispered into my ears, but life has changed. The chapter is closed, and is never to be opened ever again.

 I felt honoured when I realise she was on the verge of sharing at least some classified information her eyes had discovered. They had concealed all of it within them from everyone  around her while she lowered her gaze while with the diaspora. Her eyes were one of the points where the whole world converged and created a whole new world. I began to wonder if her eyes drew a similar interpretation of all chapters of her life I had browsed through. It is very important for both of us to look out of a window and see the same picture whenever we look out.

The sea of life has often taken an active shape within her while she remained away from me, and she had flowed on with it over time. she has found him on a shore he had drifted to on a raft.  They found themselves in a situation similar to what Adam and Eve must have been in in the Garden of Eden. Adam didn’t have a companion except Eve, and they fell in love with each other by default. Eve was beautiful, Adam never doubted it.

She had been told she was beautiful about a thousand times. I had articulated a few words signifying the message about a thousand times, and so had he. She had become so used to being beautiful that she had forgotten what an honour she was bestowing on everyone around her by casting even a slight look. For a moment, she wondered if he considered himself honoured by her presence, or did he consider it to be a favour bestowed upon her. It is irrelevant. What mattered was that they loved each other.

I didn’t figure anywhere in the picture now, although I badly wish I could repaint the picture with some special paints I borrow from a different world. On second thoughts, even if I am able to paint the picture in different colours, none of them are ever going to consent with any of the colours of my life. The picture of life she has painted for herself has been quite different and quite good.

It doesn’t have me in it. It shouldn’t.