“I don’t love you anymore,” she says. I sense her trepidation. It is important for her to be nice. She believes she is nice. There is nothing else she can do. Her whole being cries out to prove it. “I am nice!” It screams in everything she does and says. A nice person cannot hurt another even with her words. She cannot now be any different. It is a habit.
I stare at her without saying anything. I have nothing to say. She has a right to change her mind. I cannot stop that. People change their minds all the time. It is their prerogative. I like to know what she really wants to say. Has she found someone else? Do I bore her? Is she not happy anymore? The questions are many. Yet I wait. If she doesn’t want to explain I can live with that.
“I am sorry,” she speaks looking down at a world I do not see and seems to be at her feet.
“Why?” I am confused by her apology. Why would someone want to do something they have to apologize for.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” her eyes are moist. I want her to know she doesn’t. No one can hurt another without their consent. She doesn’t have mine. I let no one hurt me. I find it unnecessary. The pain, the hurt, the blame game. They all look too stupid and petty to me.
I think about what is it she denies me now. Her love? What was it to begin with? Companionship? A few laughs shared over a coffee? Some nights in each others arms, in a warm bed? Some expectations, unspoken hopes? I wonder what she means she doesn’t love me anymore? What did she love anyway? Me? Who am I? Does she know anything of it? And if she does know who I am and has loved that how can she stop loving me at any moment in time? Has her values changed? How can a man who loves beauty stop loving beauty in life? Is that possible? How can someone who loves honesty stop loving honesty? Does it mean the person has lost his or her integrity? If so, should I be sad now or should she?
“Are you listening to me?” she looks at my face enquiringly. I must have lost something she said.
“Yes. You do not love me anymore. So you say,” I reiterate. To mirror someone’s thoughts reassures them that they are understood. So says pop psychology.
“We had some good times. But I cannot continue anymore. I have to move on. I hope you understand.”
I don’t. I am not interested either. If people want to move on, they can and must. I never was her friend because of any pre-agreed conditions. She wanted me and I wanted her. That was the moment. That was the truth in our lives. Everything else was either a memory or a dream.
“I don’t. But that’s OK. You really don’t need to explain,” I am looking at a fly that is sitting on her shirt, right on top of the left breast. I try to imagine how it felt to hold them in my hands. How they felt against my naked chest. I no longer remember.
I believe everything moves on in life. We move away from places, things and experiences. People move away from us. Nothing is permanent. Unless until a man has integrity. And his values are lasting. Then his experiences last. His love and his relationships last. So does his passion. But what when there is no integrity? What when Man lacks permanence in values? What if he is not expressing his values in his thoughts, actions and speech instead seeking them? What if his very existence is a desperate need to justify his life?
“What did you love in me?” I ask on an impulse.
She looks at me perplexed. “I don’t know. I just loved you,” she is defiant. Yet hesitant.
“I understand. I wish you well. Good bye,” I light a cigarette, and inhale deeply.
“You have nothing to ask me? To tell me?” I am not sure if I heard her plead. But there was an underlying tone that could be easily mistaken for it.
“No. I am clear now. You have been clear before me. So we both can walk away without holding on to the residues of the fog we travelled through.”
The smoke travels in the air and makes strange shapes before my eyes. I wonder if I see truth in it, smiling at me, mockingly.
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