I’m sitting in a chair, my legs up on the bed. You hate it when I sit like this. Say it’s bad for my back and hips and gut and legs. When that does not work, you tell me it’ll affect my productivity. A word that never fails to provoke a reaction from me. But right now those words are like whispers in my mind, a conversation we had only yesterday. And the whispers, unlike your voice, are not enough to get me to comply.
The table, which you got especially commissioned for me, taller than usual tables because I’m tall, sits next to the bed, far enough away for it to be useless to me right now. It’s on my side of the bed of course because you hate it if it intrudes on your space.
The bed is made, the five pillows lined as if they’re at a parade and must stand straight and offer up a salute. It brings a smile to my face, remembering your first reaction when you saw them. How aghast and confused you were. How much you complained because they came in the way…
They’re under my shoulder love, it pokes!
They’re poking at my neck and how’s that supposed to be comfortable?
Why the fuck do we need so many pillow cases?
What do you mean the cases don’t match? This is not the bloody colour wheel!
And look at you now. You love them, cannot sleep without them.
Your bedside table is empty. Does not have your watch, or your specks case or the long winding cord of a phone charger. Even my paperback that would always find its way to your bedside is where it’s supposed to be, on my side. Like it ventured to your side but found it lacking and came back.
You have been gone only three hours and you’ll be back in three days. But I will not lie, not in the confines of my mind, that it feels unbearable.
There’s music wafting from outside the open windows. The windows that are still open because you haven’t closed them. The keys too make noise as I type this – that’s how quiet the house is without your presence. It’s maddening that this is what my life has come to…looking for you in the shapes and shades of my life.
But you…you’re worse! I find that out when I finally go to bed.
There, on my bedside table, keeping the paperback company, with its lid open and the electric lighter all charged next to it, is the midnight blue citrus candle. How did I miss the candle there when I had surveyed the room before? It is a smell I have always associated with you – slightly sharp, slightly lemony, reminding me of freshly laundered clothes and whispered words at midnight.
You left it there, didn’t you, to keep me company while you went off for your mini-holiday?
And you call me the romantic fool.
Just wait until you come back and see the surprise I left for you…three more pillows for the bed, to take your place!
Connecting this post to #BlogchatterA2Z. To read other posts, check Theme Reveal 2022: Without Prearrangement.
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tales of Suchita 
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