I stood outside her place waiting for her. We had decided rather
she had decided to go to her favourite place down the highway for lunch. I
couldn’t refuse as it wasn’t always that she asked for something from me. “Give
me five minutes”, she said. I was a stickler for time and I hated to wait. “And
those five minutes mean an hour”, I thought to myself as I kept staring at the
dark clouds gathering in the sky which threatened to ruin our plans for lunch. I
was already hungry as I’d skipped breakfast. Yeah! I always did that! “Hi”, she
called out to me. I looked at my watch and then looked at her. She looked
beautiful and she was ready in the exact five minutes that she had asked of me.
I was impressed. I gave her quick compliment and we got into my car.
The drive to the restaurant took us an hour and she kept
talking about her life. I pretended to listen to her and kept giving her polite
nods every now and then to make her feel that I was listening. But maybe she
understood that I wasn’t listening and kept looking outside through the window.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to listen to her- I wanted to. But none of the
things that she spoke about made sense to me or interested me in any manner.
But I wasn’t like this before. I loved talking to the people around me and I
loved listening to their stories as well. But an incident from my past had
changed that. Just when I was about to go down the memory lane, we reached the
restaurant.
I always used to order the same stuff always and I did that
even today. But she always loved to try new things and made me eat some of the
food that she had ordered. The food was delicious. I ended up eating more of what
she had ordered. The meal was worth skipping my breakfast for. Sometimes I
wished I could be carefree and adventurous like her. But from my childhood, I
was always told to be careful about everything and was made to follow the path
that everyone had taken. Though there were times when I wanted to step out of
the beaten path, I wasn’t much of a rebel. I would easily put those thoughts
aside and go on doing whatever I was supposed to do.
We were on our way back now. “Did you enjoy the food?”, she
asked. “Yes! Thanks to you that I got to try some wonderful food.”, I replied. “That
is why you must try different things and not stick to your all time fixed menu”,
she said. “Hmmm” I said and I got back to being quiet. May be she sensed that I
didn’t want to talk about it and went back to watching the green fields that
were on the either side of the road. But she couldn’t keep silent for long and
she asked, “Since when have you become like this? You were never this quiet.
You had your problems but then you would share them”. I didn’t know what to
answer and she understood my hesitation and said, “It is okay if you don’t want
to answer but sometimes it feels good to share what is on your mind”. I kept
quiet for a while and then took a deep breath and said, “I am scared”. “Scared
of what?”, she asked. “I am scared of the unknown. I am scared of trying new
things. All my life I have been told to do this and that and I have obeyed.
There were times when I wanted to go against it but then I couldn’t because I
was scared. And people close to me have broken my trust. When people whom I
knew hurt me, I started going away from people. I stopped socializing and I
gave all my time and energy to my work”, I said.
“Anything more to add?”, she asked. “Nope nothing!”, I said.
“Do you think that you are the only with problems? Do you think you are the
only one that is scared? Everybody has their own demons to face. And things don’t
get solved if you run from them. You have to face them. And one incident from
the past is never a reason enough to not believe in people. Let go of your
inhibitions and life will get better”.
I thought about it. Maybe she was right. But what if things
go wrong? I was still afraid. The car gave a sudden jerk and came
to a dead stop. It had already started raining now and the car stopping didn’t
make my mood better. She opened the door and went out of the car. I was
wondering here thinking how to get back home and there she was dancing in the
rain without a care. I ran out and pulled her and asked her to get inside the
car as I was worried that she might fall sick. Instead she pulled my hand and
asked me, “Have you danced before in the rain?”. I shook my head. “Come on try
something new today! Let us play in the rain”, she said. Though I hesitated
initially, I gave up after seeing her dance like a child in the rain. I let go
off my inhibitions and let the rain wash away the fears that I had. This was
the beginning for me. The beginning of being a different person- a person who
followed his heart! I was enjoying every moment dancing with her in the rain.
This post is written for Three Word Wednesday
PS: Writing a short story after a long time!