THE COLOURS OF OUR BEING

For a while this afternoon the rain washed down the sunshine and we sat at the same table for the last time.

I walked in. They looked up and burst into two sly grins. I let loose my evil cackle to turn off their smirks. Pauline and Nokdy: the Art and the Heart of our organism.

Pauline was a splash of red and gold today. She didn't know it, but she was. So this time I believed her when she told me that I could do it, that I already knew how to touch my dreams. She had been soft green, happy yellow and royal purple in the past. She had been a dancing piece of silk and a cold stone. Yet each time I’d either laughed or frowned. Today she was a plain splash and I believed her.

Nokdy was warmth. She was the calm flame in the fireplace of our lives, shooting occasional sparks of playful teasing. And she had always been such. She had grown but she hadn't changed. Today I saw why I had waited for her at the metro station everyday all these years, why we shall remain together. Without love and care our organism couldn't live. The quiet energy, the bare curiosities, the simple joys and the silly conquests; they keep us alive, they show us the way.

“Here. Ningning’s gift to you.” They said, and handed me Ningning in a wooden frame. The Soul of our organism. An elegant wildness leaped out and her bouncy bright laughter from all the years past pranced around me, tugged and hugged me a little. “You know what happened today?” her excitement began before trailing off into the distance calling “Himshu!” for her daily dose of chubby cheeks.

And in strode Neha. “What did I miss?” she asked as she sat down in her chair. The Good Sense of our organism had come and brought with her the rational plans to keep in touch after we parted. There were many things she could be and had been for us these years past: the signpost at the fork in the roads, the quilt large enough to hold the four rolling babies inside us, the ice pack. But today she was beautiful; just beautiful. She squeezed her strength into me; her parting gift.

I was the one leaving. Perhaps, leaving for good. It was my goodbye. The Will to Persevere in our organism. But I was happy, full. I could see today the pages and pages of me that I had hammered into them over the years. I knew: like me, they too saw the colours of our organism reflected in the world. 

We had grown, spilled ourselves over each other and into life, into the silken blue oceans, the cotton white clouds, the sharp green grass and glossy gray skyscrapers.

And so for a while this afternoon the rain poured into the earth and they ate their last meal together. Then, as their memories washed the tears clean off their minds, the sun smiled through the clouds once again.