I love you, she says.

I nod a few times, comprehending the syllables, and let out a sigh. I pull my body back and rest on the backrest of my chair, rubbing my temple, probably an early sign of impending headache. I sit there for a while before putting my phone away. I again nod a few times, still processing, not yearning to send a text back. I would like to take all my life. All my time. Let the lemon tree in my backyard produce a good amount of it, then shed its leaves and grow old…let my neighbour kid celebrate his 15th then his 25th followed by his ultimate 75th.. Let all the time pass and keep on passing. Because why does it always get stuck?

Why does it always get stuck? I start remembering the moments when my nearby table clock has its minute hands, hour hands moving clockwise yet anticlockwise just to end up in the same number over and over again. The moment when I came to know about my parent’s divorce, the moment when I received a rejection letter from my dream college, the moment when my father told me about the terrible accident which involved my best friend, his dog and his aunt and the moments goes on.

Yes, I have been stuck many times. Stuck in the time loop where your heart pounds exactly the way it pounded some beats ago. And it would be really horrible for me to include the received text message in those moments. I know how I feel being stuck, being suffocated by unmoving time but this is different.

This is different. I consider Love to be a peculiar feeling. It can be soft like your woollen cardigan, comforting like two people conversing not knowing how to put an end to it, beautiful like the picture of your mother in her wedding dress in late 90s on the other hand, it can be as painful as the movie named Hachiko, as scary as a scene of a woman being stalked till their horrid encounter, as upsetting as when a person end his marriage which was supposed to survive forever. If I am being told to be honest then I would say, I am very much ready to experience the good side of falling in love but not the loss that might follow.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is Love.

Socrates

And it is about Socrates or let’s visit Voltaire or Kierkegaard. There’s no pause in it because Love has always been the superior entity in their universe.

Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.

Rumi(Persian poet and theologian)

What if I am the wrong piece of the whole thing? What if I am manufactured in a way that cannot be a part of it? Or what if you complete the whole thing? Rumi whispers.

I am going way too far back. I halt for a while. I am thinking about everything. I am quoting philosophers who were never true to their philosophy. Poets who pass away in search of worth in their own words. I am overly thinking. But a message alert jolts me to my senses. It is a text message again. Sudden rise of temperature in my body. Deep down I am nervous because something is not right. I doubt if anything was ever right before.

“Are you alright on the other side? You don’t usually take an hour to reply and to be precise enough, we were in the middle of a conversation. Let me know if something’s there to know!” she sends.

A freaking hour. What the hell was I even thinking? I clear my throat, sip some water and start to type.
” I mean.. ” I backspace.
” I think.. ” I backspace.
” Ummm… ” I backspace.
” It is difficult. ” I finally type.
Message delivered.
She is typing. She pauses. Again types. A pause. Typing. Seconds of pause.
Typing.
Message alert.
“I don’t understand what is up to you lately. May I know what is difficult??”, she sends.
I nod a few times again. Nodding helps me process or prepare myself for the worst.
“We should meet. The Kochi Cafe at 5pm.”I suggest. She affirms me with a thumbs up emoji.

I can’t understand people sometimes. Can’t predict their state of mind. Can’t read their ways of expressing their needs. I failed. I have been failing and keep watching out for more failures. And I don’t even know what I am gonna say to her. It’s all blank and empty and outreach. Time isn’t stuck at this point. It is flying swiftly, taking me nearer to the moment which would make me experience several thousands of emotions or else, just nothing.

She pushes the door of the cafe and enters the cleverly constructed corridor to use the stairs up for the rooftop. The cafe has these cute little cabins on their rooftop to provide us with the scenery of the lonely town. The town I find to be specifically sad and gloomy. The town that screams heartbreak, depression and insomnia. And I particularly don’t want the town to scream at me. I am not breaking hearts but tend to break it with my inability to give out pure love. But I can give a pretty smile out . And I do as I said. I smile at her and gesture at the empty seat across mine. She wears the colour red. She smells red. How red smells? A voice in my head asks. I can’t clearly grasp the knowledge of feeling colours. But I do.

You surely complete the whole… I hush off Rumi from whispering. I don’t. I can never. I deny the prophecy ruled out by my grandfather. The exact sentence revolves around my head, “He is born to love. He’d die for love” I gasp every time when it crosses my mind. It is obnoxious. And with time, she snaps her fingers and brings me back to life.

“What are you thinking?”, she frowns.
She is all set, ready to converse with a face not wanting the conversation to approach the direction she fears. And I fear the direction it’d take, causing my life to end.
“Shall we order? Two cups of coffee, fries and additional brownies?”, I ask.
“Sure”, she nods.

I call out to the waiter. We wait for him to come. The waiter brushes off his hair from his forehead and approaches with a gentle smile. People are indeed pretty. None sees it or everyone sees it. It is always two different sides. Some hate it. Some love it. Nothing in the middle. I smile back and order our evening coffee.
“I like the cafe.”, she breaks our silence when the waiter leaves.
“Yeah it is lovely. Not like our Damidri Cafe. It was so gloomy and dark.”, I
sigh.
She nods and rubs her hands together.
“So, can we talk about the other thing?”, her face saddens.
It is difficult. It is confusing. It is just a one way ticket to realisation. Once said then it can never change its direction. I am clinging to the concept of time passing by. Two people waiting for each other to utter a word. I am annoyed at my own anticipating plot I’d carve into our story. I am too my dear, Rumi whispers again. This has to end. It is ending. It is finally time. I see her face waiting for my mouth to move and say something out. She is waiting. Time is waiting. The town is waiting. And I am waiting. I inhale and exhale and inhale deeply and say it out. I love you too. I close my eyes and everything is perfect white. White in a bright manner. Just damn white.

Dear Reader, John Keats here…solely emphasising Rumi's statement about love being the whole thing…I surely believe and putting my vague mind into it, I'd say you complete one another, each other's puzzle, being pieces identical to each other.. I didn't get to survive ages. Life's a pretty bitch. But I did manage to write about love and maybe experienced love. Long story short, it is something worth feeling. In today's language, screw the damage, screw the imbalance.. Just lay it out in an open field, stroke your hands around the delicate parts because you fix it and you would keep fixing it. Flowers shedding petals aren't the part we focus on and if you do, you would lose the chance of feeling the best when you nurture one. Modern world it is. I am in the shelves of a million broken people, million passionate lovers, million love enthusiasts and just a million people yet to feel love. I am at her table, bookmarked in one of my most notable poems, Bright Star. She is holding thoughts. I am just a fragment of her memory. Still young in her memory. He loves her back and I know how she feels. She is flying my dear, she is flying