Rajan

He was late for their early dinner. Had it been any other day, she wouldn’t have made a big deal out of it. But today, it was testing her patience.

She sat restlessly on the wooden chair of her office cafeteria, shifting her weight from one side to the other. The thick jute threads that made the seat of the chair weren’t as comfortable as they were meant to be. Tiny threads stuck out of the thicker ones, like short loose ends of unmanageable hair sticking out of her braids every morning. Sagging down an inch due to the weight of its occupant, the chair made her look shorter than she would have liked. Hence, she had her left hand tucked beneath her left thigh, in an attempt to look taller and also pull out one of those tiny threads that was poking her.

She felt irritated. Frustrated, at how she had hurried to make it on time for their dinner for which he was now running late.

Maybe, he was not to be blamed. He could be stuck in the traffic, a last minute meeting or an unexpected discussion with his manager. She was the one at fault. She was to be blamed for assuming his earlier displays of punctuality to be an excuse for not carrying her huge novel to the cafeteria.

The restlessness of being alone, devoid of a book in her hand made her feel miserable. The idea of watching people walking casually around the café, ordering, exchanging pleasantries with the café manager while waiting for the order, eating, drinking, discussing projects over sheets of paper scattered over the café table – were not what she was particularly fond of. For, this was just a world she dwelled in because she was expected to - a hectic world that kept her far from the crisp pages of books, their places, their beautiful details, their characters and their emotions.

To her fiction was real and the real, far from fiction.

She lived in a world of her own, that was hidden in the books she read. She knew that the places described in the books existed, but she never desired to visit them, for she was content picturing their beauty in text.

Over time, she even began to sketch the character of people based on the books in which she had come across their names. She was madly in love with some characters in the books, so much so that her heart skipped a beat whenever she read their names in others. She hated the way the character with that name was portrayed in total contrast by another author. There were characters she detested. Some pitied. Some envied. Some, she wished could be her.

It troubled her, confused her, to live in one world and merely exist in the other.

The restlessness of the wait grew on her, forcing her to finally get off the chair and quickly walk up to her office cabin to fetch the book. As she swiftly traced her steps back to the café, her wrists were already aching of bearing the thick leather bound novel.

Placing her purse on top of the book and holding them both against her chest, she walked faster. Having just a few more steps left to reach the café, she noticed that he was sitting in the chair she had occupied a few minutes back.

to be continued..

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