Sense and Souls

A winter evening: Whenever he crosses her mind, she can hear that voice indicating her of a similar encounter. Is it true? Or is she just overthinking of such a possibility? To be honest, it proved right most of the time. There has to be a connection. Why would those eyes look at hers right in front even though there is no such thing in existence? She doesn't have such encounters every day but it definitely happens every now and then. She really doesn't know how to react or who to even ask or confirm. But there has to be something. After all, there is no such thing as accident. There is a calculated conspiracy committed by this universe to make everyone believe what it feels like to live what they call life. It is magic indeed. And so are their souls. People have no clue at times how these souls react to what and when. But just because there is no practical explanation or logical reasoning, it does not mean these things are not true. A night of confession: Some fragrances n...

An autumn afternoon maybe: She has no clue why she feels exactly the same way she used to feel when she felt. Not a thing about it has changed at all. Why would she have this emotional attack every now and then? No, she is not blaming him or anything as such, not even her own self. But she really wants to know why it is how it is right now. It is indeed suffocating something inside her. Is it felt across with the same intensity as well? She needs to know because it can't just happen to her alone, she believes strongly about it. There has to be something mutual. It can't be nothing in vain. She saw an angular picture with a professional camera focusing on something, or someone maybe. She could feel those hands. She could feel the gentle strikes of those fingers. She could feel that touch. She could feel that feeling. Why wouldn't it fade away into oblivion? There is pure negligence and intentional indifference, or maybe natural. Yet that feeling doesn't just die. What w...

An unknown summer evening: He has learned to play with the guitar strings as he told her once. Now he is irreplaceable even if he wants the opposite to happen. Is it some sort of punishment? Was there really nothing at all? Then why is she in tears every other night of retrospection? Why does she still remember exactly how it felt when she felt? She tried to ask him but with no answers. He always remained silent. Should she name it his indifference? Maybe there was nothing at all. Then what makes her feel it exactly how it was years ago? Again, she knows she is only asking her blank self all these blank questions. Why would she feel it so fresh even after years? She had had some of the best bonds and relations for half a decade and some even beyond. But not a single time of it can she recall how she felt then. But him? She feels the exact way it was years ago. What is wrong with her? Is it pure rubbish? An act of acute stupidity? Or her blind imagination? But then, that's not ho...

It was a crowded evening at the restaurant. I was surprised to find it as this was the first time I found this place in this corner of the island despite my frequent visits. I was desperately looking for the cafe I had visited two years ago to celebrate my birthday but with no luck. That place used to serve the best smoothies. I was willing for a glass of red wine but to my surprise there was no existence of that place. The restaurant I came across is with Arabic food specialty as its name suggested. It was a busy Saturday night for them with so many touristy souls hanging in there from across the world. I could not find a better place and decided to take the ordinary-looking table unlike the fairy light-clad hut-tables that are overcrowdedly preoccupied. But my ordinary table gave me an extraordinary view I didn't expect. Right from where I sat could be seen a lean fellow with a Bob cap (my Bob Dylan-inspired headgear I would say!) sitting on a steel-framed chair with a guitar and...

It was a sunny evening, but looked rather an afternoon even at the dusk hours. I made a video call and he picked. It is exactly nine long years since I saw him last. That same old smile. That same old voice. That same old huskiness and seriousness that I used to admire and still do. He has not changed much except the black-haired head which has now gone bald totally. But he still looks good. We talked for quite a while, started where we had left last - something I happen to commonly end up doing when catching up with close friends. He was not exactly a close friend like my other ones. But we had a connection. I remember him baring it all over a quiet dinner at my place years ago. He was invited to our house for dinner - the house with my siblings and cousins where we had spent some of the most memorable winters in Delhi. At first, we were occupied with some serious discussion - politics, government and the likes. It slowly directed us to some personal insights and that's when he ...

It's not the happily-ever-afters that bring magic but the trail of feelings that keeps coming back in the form of different encounters with different faces, binding stories after stories of the purest of feelings which are otherwise next to impossible for words to express. For me, that's the notion of a 'Hallmark romance'. For I know how I felt when I felt and it lives on forever without a pause or gap. In this series of shorter stories, I deeply wish to share some of those extraordinary encounters of forever young memories of how I felt when I felt. It was a winter evening. All the roads were beginning to be covered with more frequent snowfall. I was sitting alone, my feet relaxing on top of each other and my eyes fixated at the snowy window. Suddenly, the doorbell rang. I opened it to find the new self-announced friend standing right there. He stood there with a bottle of champagne and a bag of chocolate balls. I guess he had bought them in the super-mart and headed...

He is an old man by the hills lost in his troubled worlds of forbidden kingdoms and fairies. He has no qualms of the present nor the future but the past of glorious times as he claims. His silent eyes look away in search of a peace he craves in desperate longing. The blurred vision at times fails to look straight into the needle of reality and ends up getting pricked by the slings and arrows of an incomplete paradise of possibilities and love. His despair hope floats every dawn to disappear in nowhere only to return to its familiar home by dusk like an old, broken, abandoned record. The world has traveled past him and his forgotten kingdoms; but he still awaits his fairy princess and her kiss to bring him life. Every solitude of his lost heart pines for that displaced glory in a bleak hope that the charm still works wonder. He is an old man by the hills.