Two lives: Eight compounded time frames

I

It was a cozy afternoon of July. The sun was sinking all over the place and all air held a solemn stillness. Down the meandering lanes, in the sultry café at the corner, as the glimmering lane was fading on my eyes, I, absent mindedly, captured you forever in the inky blots of your name all over the paper napkin!

II

All nature smiled. The breeze from the green meadows pleasantly tickled me from underneath my hair, and sang a soothing song in my ears. As we stood there in abashed silence, my roseate glow of hope filled the spaces between your subtle glances that marked the length between romance and Us!

III

Our smiles floated on the just-after-rain breeze and a scarlet blush remained manifested on my cheeks. Neither of us could discover what needed to be said next. For a space of four seconds, we had stared at each other, eye to eye. I could not tell who owned whom in that play of eyes but either concept made me happy!

IV

The moon gazed at me from the steel-blue night sky in a divinely pitying sort of way. I met its gaze and strange things began to happen to my mind; if I wrote to you a letter, penned in love,
inked in desire, I thought, would you feel sated and happy or would you just throw it away!

V

I love you! Will you be mine?

Oh! How I had longed for this moment! I felt such an upward thrust of immense joy that I grounded my feet into the ground because I thought I'd rise, weightless, through the wind.

I grasped the full reality of your words only in the glimmer of love in your gaping eyes, two months later.

VI

In the orange dew laden dawn, we roamed the smooth lawns and sat on rusty benches beneath spreading cedars, where we laughed carefree till time stood still.

VII

In your midnight song, you took me to dream scapes where you painted passion with a luminous brush and weaved me those dulcet dreams. The smiling walls lustily cocooned our world and the windows lowered their eyes in bashfulness.

* * *

VIII

I woke up in the morning with a wonderful happiness pervading my entire being and I sprung lightly out of bed! Everything is emphatically for my best in this best of all possible worlds, I thought. I beamed at myself in the mirror and wished myself;

“Many happy returns of the day!”

As I stood in my balcony, somewhere in the distance sounded the tinkle of bells and from somewhere further, I heard songs from the shrubbery and cooed back in joy!

Happy Birthday, I shouted!