Not this life!

One big slurp of divine smelling Cappuccino filled her with utter refreshment, her blue eyes were gazing down the blazing valley with such satisfaction like a fresh morning bought the hope back of tranquility. The livelihood of shepherds bought a twitch over her hazed lips. Then the train went under the black tunnel built under the mountains, and hence her morning dreams broke in the gloom, and for the first time her eyes-blinked, with her last sip of coffee.

Finally, she had time for Co-passengers. She looked around in hope if she found a companion over her solo trip to Switzerland; she heard that it is heaven on earth, and it was really the way she heard. The soft snow covered the hills like they were embracing their lover, and could die if separate. The green valley looked utterly satisfying; they wore a white-hat of the magician—one chilly breeze waft from them, and the human soul will become their slave. When the train passed through the archway, she closed her eyes to cage the stunning view in her heart forever and so the ice-capped Alps - which were lost in the thick milky clouds.

When finally, she had satisfied and soaked enough beauty of natural scenery within, and finally, it seeped through her eyes. She was gorgeous, the Indian flag cast in her eyes, the blazing sun bought the saffron, the blanket of snow bought the white, pine trees bought tinge of green, and so her eyes blue like Chakra in the mid. Her Sun-kissed skin looked like the shadow of the hazelnut. Her confident eyes stopped at “Not in this Life” the title of the book reading the gentleman. She plunged from inside. He was a young, handsome man from India. He sat in her companion seat at her front. She had found her companion; this trip will be more exciting, she thought; the thought left redness over her cheeks. 

“What so special in this book for which you are sacrificing the mesmerizing view of heaven?” she asked.

She would definitely be embarrassed by her question. Luckily, he wasn’t a goon.

However, he replied gently as he was looking, “I don’t know. Whenever she comes in my breath, my heart beats faster, and so the panacea is this book.”

His gray misty eyes had triggered her old euphoric memories - of her childhood. She had splashed a tiny drop of modest eyes. She gulped the lumps in her throat, “it is beautiful,” she said. 

“Indeed…” he said.

“Where will you go next?” he asked. 

“Zurich, I heard the wafted winds from the Lake Zurich is electrifying; it is a place where turmoil afraid to consolidate and grief shudders of its existence, and the fatuous life gets a reason to move on, isn't it?" she said.

“Yes! I have like to feel it. I have aimed to go there next, and Fraumünster Church after and then eventually will conclude my journey at Mt. Titlis,” he said. “However, I forgot to introduce myself, I am Saif hailed directly from another heaven - Kashmir.” 

“I am Sia. However, I really don’t know where my house is? My dad is in the Army. So, we kept traveling across India.”

“Yeah! What a proud daughter you would be. So, you like traveling, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I come alone. I wanted to explore the world. Hence, started with heaven, isn’t a marvelous idea?” she said.

“We are kind of similar, isn’t it? Look Short and Stay Chill,” he said with pertaining glee.

“Your book intrigued me. Can you tell me more about it?” she pleaded.

“This is the story of my love. A long ago, she had written for me. I don’t know where she is today, but I know her soul exists within me, isn’t it beautiful? If somebody smiles for you: flower blooms, birds start fluttering and chirping the sacred song - composed by almighty himself; to hover over the whirlpool formed in the quagmire of destiny and desires; with blind trust and satisfaction, and a shrilling wind passes, touching your heart. So, whenever her soul demands me to love, I read. I read till I feel her around me. If my death is calling me, yet I will be reading.” He closed his eyes to rejoice in his older memories. The voracious fragrance of love went inside her nose, and knocked her heart. His breath was hard.

“Was she beautiful?” Sia asked like she couldn’t accept if anybody prettier than her. She was jealous. “He is living in hallucination, moving on with changes is called to be living. He is definitely not living for himself, to thrive with integrity in nature. Embrace the blazing sun and adieu the fading one and welcome the grim night, with a moon to lit the path of hope - for a fresh arrival,” she thought within.

“Those who can’t achieve anything they live in the hallucination. Those who indulged himself with an entity; how could they hallucinate?” he asked.

She embarrassed, “did I say something?” 

“No! Your eyes were,” he jeered.

She blinked her eyes in vengeance because they spoke the truth that might not be revealed. 

“I am ashamed!” Sia said.

He nodded with a twitched smile—as a Greek god smiled with grace like he didn't affect of a jibe.

“Yes, she was beautiful than this ice-capped alps, calmer than the shores of Lake Thun, she was the epitome of Brusio Circular Viaduct at Poschiavo Valley. She was the morning breeze of Toggenburg. She was like a dream as the castle beside the Lake Lucerne—where Mount Pilatus looked smoking and released smoke as a misty fog, her eyes were a descendant of Lake Zug - crystal blue like yours. Short hair like tiny alps beside Matterhorn,” his eyes were evincing her delightedness.

“How did you get separate from her? What did this book tell you?” She asked; she couldn’t put an embargo on her desperate questions.

“This book says love selflessly without expecting to get loved. When she loved me, I didn’t understand. When I understood, it was veritably late. She had gone away somewhere and left this book behind,” he said with trepidation filled grunt, so low to be heard.

“Argh! Where did she go?”

“She had written that where your heart will say stop reading and discover more about the beauty around you, and when your eyes will glimmer with the beauty with no meanness with better understanding, tender, and outlook. I will be found there; she left a puzzle behind, like saints wander in search apparent truth of God as I am doing for her. She is my truth and she is my wisdom,” he said.

“Oh! Wow! You changed fully. Did she do sorcery?”

“No! It was her faith, her boundless love. Don’t you know the sheer power of love?” he asked with furrowing his brows followed by a slight playful wink.

She nodded as she understood it for centuries as she was a veteran of understanding love.

“So, what took you to Switzerland?” Sia asked

“This book. She talked about heaven, where she dreamed to go with me. She wanted me to kiss where her heart already been ravaged by the beauty of nature, so to flourish it again and deluge it with my love like the rain to drought. Where she would be lost in the fading evening at the meadows in the mid of hills with the beautiful orange, violet, gray, and blue skies. And so my embrace will procure her a new freshness, a exuberant moment that will beautiful than a heaven.

“Your story is beautiful, look when we reached Zurich, I hardly realize… I hope you kiss the blue-eyed Aphrodite. You will kiss someday; a true saint would definitely seek his God someday,” she consoled him.

He shook his head with the same coquettish hope.

“Did you ever talk to her?” She asked like she would write his biography.

“Yes, I did. I am embarrassed about the way I talked to her. I didn’t love her—I was already making in love with a girl. She tried her head-to-toe to seek my attention, my cares, and my love. She had been irritating me and so I called her a Wh… Whore! Even, I asked for a one-night stand in favor. I hadn’t intended so, yet I said, to abandon her out of my way. So, she called it infidelity. I never saw her face, thereafter. I received this book one and a half months after her sudden departure from my life and from everybody she knew. I’m highly ashamed. I have to plead for sorry. I have to snatch my position in her heart that she had before. I read the book, and I realized a genuine love is what she did to me. Her love was like a boundless soul destined for eternity,” he told with a shame.

“Argh! What did you do? You knew whore means, right? What is their status in our society? You called an innocent girl a whore. And she judged by the person whom she loved you as a squirrels with the nuts, alps with the clouds, and cloud with the rain,” she barked over him.

He turned his eyes low and said, “don’t make me die of shame." His shame was peril and harbinger of falling hope; he would return to India empty handed - disappointingly from Switzerland.

He jerked the tears off his face before falling on the floor. 

"You never told me about yourself, Sia? What is the reason for your solidarity; you came alone from India to travel,” he asked with piqued interest at sudden, however his voice filled with a sob, and he stammered.

“An unusual story of an unusual girl. She is wandering between the Alps of heaven of the money that her credited for her operation. What do you say to that girl?” She asked.

“Insane...” he said.

“Exactly! What I am,” she said, criticizing herself as she knew she had broken her parent’s last hope to cure her life guzzling disease.

“Cancer? You look fine, healthy, and fit. I couldn't overcome this predicament, you took your decision confidently. I appreciate. I would die taking this decision wether to go and live my dreams or stay with my parent and see compassion for me in their eyes, and hope.”

“I am not totally fine, this is my last month as predicted. I might die before reaching India,” she said with her eyes down.

“Can I kiss you?” Saif asked. He was looking sad, his eyes became wet and his eyes were beholding her - the helpless, beautiful creation of God.

She didn’t resist. She nodded in yes. A fat drop of tears slid down her cheeks. Her face was blazing with grief. Her eyes were piqued by fantasy, and excitement. She started liking him. Isn't that beautiful the person you like, you want to be with him and he asks for a kiss?

“I think she is around me. Everything is looking beautiful to me; those passing Alps, meadows, and you are the prettiest of all. Everything seems important to me. She is around me,” he said like a fantasy-piqued to five-years kid.

Their kiss remained incomplete. He jumped out of his seat vehemently and gave a quick glance around in the berth for his love of life like a kid waiting for the rainbow - who is the most important part of his life. She wasn’t there. He became distraught, and back to his seat with a disappointment. Sia had gone. He searched her around, he couldn’t see her. She was disappeared in his self-thrived hallucinating world. 

He had a drop of tears splashed, and the book titled Not In this life stained the In, and it became Not this life. He understood her message. Living in the hallucination of nostalgia—is not living. Move one with changes called living.

“Sia, I will live for myself. I will walk for myself," he said. “I am coming for you.”