Orange seas and senselessness

I'm only vaguely aware of the person talking next to me as I watch my orange popsicle drip down, drop by drop, from between my legs into the sea below. I look to my right, at the swarm of people perched on the cliff. If all of them had a popsicle in their hand and let it drip into the ocean, the water would turn tangerine. At sunset it would appear like a huge blob of orange popsicle, dropped by a careless kid, was melting into the sea. Then we would have amber clouds and champagne rain and saffron rivers. And perhaps we would all be salmon-coloured. Beauty products would promise a carrots-and-cream complexion...

"Anita, say something, please!" urges the person next to me, cutting into my syrupy daydream on the balmy May evening. The stench of the receding waves brings me crashing down to reality. It had rained earlier and the air is now heavy with the promise of another spell. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of my future, which has just broken every pact we had ever made. I turn to face him and my eyes meet his hair. He looks suitably dejected. That's what you get for yanking me out of my reverie. It takes my brain a whole minute to process his request and another for my vocal cords to comply. But the tongue has a mind of its own. It ends up blurting, "We are such a cliche," when all I want to say is that, "It's okay".

Drop

He takes my hand in his, like he has a million times before. Only today mine are limp, cold and clammy, like a zombie's on a freezing January morning. I'm obviously only assuming. I have never actually held a zombie's hand on a January morning, or on any other day of the year for that matter. But now he can claim he has.

Drop

I see his mouth open and jaws clench as he gestures at me with his hands. I see people gather around us, staring with the mixed delight of stumbling upon something salacious and scandalous on their regular walk home from work. But I can't hear anything. Perhaps all his lies have clogged my ears. Noise-cancelling earphones, you have nothing on me.

Drop

It's like watching a black-and-white film. The world is losing its colours. The roses are gray and the violets are grayer. His pleasantly purple shirt is fading into blackness and his face is a sickly pale white. I don't count but I swear I see all 50 shades of grey they wrote about.

Drop

I look into his eyes but find myself starting into two black holes that had spoken to me for nine long years but now were as blank as the one I was drawing. Why am I sitting so close to a stranger? I cautiously move away and he recoils. I steal a glance and see him crying. I feel bad for him. 

Drop

The weeping man has disappeared, and so have all the others. I'm the only one on the cliff now, staring at the frozen orange sea.

Nothing makes sense. I have lost all sense of senses. Wasn't this exactly like the time it all began, only in reverse?

Soar

I hear him laugh from across the office. He has a distinct, uninhibited, full throaty laugh. He laughs like he finds life to be incredibly funny. I steal a peek and find myself staring at an impeccably dressed man, leaning back effortlessly on his desk, entertaining everyone like he was paid to do so and also laughing at his own jokes. I want to be in on the laughing man's joke.

Soar

We are on a date and I can't look at him. Not because I'm shy but because he is so bright, like someone has injected him and his life with all the colour in the world. The world around us is incredibly brilliant too. The roses are redder and the violets, bluer than blue. Perhaps some of his colour will leech off on me too. A unicorn would be jealous.

Soar

It's the middle of December but feels like summer. Like every bit of myself that I had kept hidden, has been unearthed and laid bare for everyone to see, appreciate, and revel in. I'm blooming and he smiles at me like the sun does at the flowers. I smile back at him too. I'm a sunflower.

Soar

He kisses me on the forehead just after putting a ring on my finger and I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up in delight. I stare into his eyes, pools of blue, that remind of another time, long, long ago, when we promised eachother forever. My heart swoons as he swoops me into his arms and twirls me around. I feel every emotion there is to feel and then some. "I want to feel like this everyday, Rachit," I tell him and don't wait to hear him promise. I know he does. 

Soar

I'm acutely aware of his hand holding mine as we jump off the helicopter, screeching at the top of our voice. Just as I think we will hit the ground and break into a million pieces, he clicks the parachute open and we are pushed back into the air. It feels like we are defying gravity and I wonder if this is what life with him will always feel like. Flying up, up, and above. Perhaps we will go beyond the rainbows, and the skies and the moon and the stars. And keep flying till there's no more air left to keep us flying. And then we will build a world of laughter and colour, that we can call our own. A world of perennial summers…

"Hey, are you alright?" he asks me, and I laugh. "Never felt better" I scream as we land on the ground, foolishly confident that we will never crash into a world of orange seas and senselessness.