Through The Smoke

Two figures stood under a tall maple tree, exchanging glances and a thin white stick in between breaths. Their fingers brushing ever so lightly, completely by intention, while they breathed in and out, like one muscle contracting and the other relaxing. It wasn’t just cigarettes they shared that day, but ice cream too. A scoop of vanilla and one of chocolate, served together with two spoons; both of their favourite flavours combined. If you saw them under that tree, surrounded by a nebulous haze, eating ice cream from the same cup, you would think they were permanent; concrete. You would romanticize their smoking together, their low whispers, their attire; they were complementary. To a passerby, yes, they were faultless, exemplary, even, but that’s because that was as far as the eye could see. It was almost like the smoke that had now engulfed them veiled the truth of their relationship. It was true they loved each other, but love is an easy thing to feel. 

One of the lips that the cigarettes rested between belonged to a young man called Khushhal. As exuberant as he was, he was also the polar opposite. He was an oscillating pendulum, moving back and forth between euphoria and melancholy. His contentment, albeit rare, came in random bursts. Then just as it came, it would dissipate. No matter what he did, or who he loved, or who loved him, he couldn’t hold onto that happiness for much longer. On the other end of the cigarette was Shaggy; Shagufta, he called her. She liked Shaggy more; it was less conventional. Her hair was as dark as the dead of night with a few premature grey hairs. She was one to practice what she preached, no matter how bizarre what she preached was and she never took no for an answer. For her, the traffic light was constantly green. Khushhal was the day and she was the night, such was their dynamic. A summer’s day would be more suitable a comparison for him. They were slow and filled with endless opportunities and a lot of potential, yet wasted. She on the other hand was a beautiful winter’s night, mysterious and warm. The night was when the poets, artists, lovers, and criminals alike, came to life. She was a lover, and a poet too in the way she saw the world and a criminal and a poetic lover. However, an artist she was not, as for that one needed a fluidity of the mind and of the soul; of one’s whole being. Like the night, when the moon had a hold on you, so did she have a hold on Khushhal. He was sensitive, maybe even the most sensitive man she knew and he loved her. Like day and night, she was not what he was. Instead, she was insensitive to most stimuli that would normally trigger others. She did not wince at the shrill cry of a baby, nor laugh at an accidental fall, which would cause most to double over. Instead, she found it highly disgraceful to laugh at someone else’s expense and condemned such a response. Like the true poet that she was at heart, she was great at twisting her words. She would mean “I love you” yet say “let’s hang out together at your favourite spot by the river”. They both had never told each other how they felt but she was worse at expressing herself. She was no artist; she couldn’t paint him a picture of her love. She had never felt so strongly about anyone, yet her tongue failed her each time. Love was one feeling she constantly felt and that too came in waves, washing over her. She loved so deeply yet failed at articulating it. Somehow, she always succeeded in conveying a contradicting message, pushing people away. Khushhal was good at reading her, that was one thing he was proud of, and so he knew she loved him but not how much. He liked to believe there was no measure of it. Love flowed between them, suspended in the air between their bodies. Sometimes it was the only thing and other times there were words, like a song, beautifully sung. These words, when came in waves, flooded the distance between them. It was these moments in time that could change everything, but they passed just as quickly as they came and many things would be left unsaid, yet again. 

There were complications, they both saw them; smelled them on each other. They knew how different they both were yet they kept on consciously fooling themselves for their own sake. And yet somehow, amid all the love and smoke and the occasional touching, there was a space, like a void. They were both aware of this void and the void was ready to consume them; it had done so; parts of them. In reality and all honesty, they were doomed from the moment she had looked at him and he had looked back. There was the spark, the damned ignition. The both of them were the underdogs of their packs, yet their similarities began and ended there. In truth, they were both sad, to put it simply. One was sad and showed it, the other was sad and disguised it with whimsical behaviour. Together it wasn’t so bad, but ‘not so bad’ was not good enough. So, as they stood there, under that maple tree, they knew what they had done, to each other and to themselves in the process. It wasn’t so hard to grasp; just veiled by their smiles and demeanor, which to a passerby seemed all too good to give a second thought; to question. What nobody knew was that as she took a drag of the cigarette, Shaggy was mentally somewhere else. She was fading away. Khushhal could not read her this time, for he too was deep in thought. As they stood under the shade of that giant tree that kept on growing over them, he suddenly wanted to embrace her. He had snapped out of his reverie and seen her face right in front of him; soft and olive. Was he in love with her?  

Yes.  

While the realization hit him, she, like ashes in a gust, was flying away, piece by piece. He had known that he loved her before, there was no doubt about it, but as he stood there now, inhaling and exhaling smoke, it slapped him across the cheek. He loved her. That was it. But tragic it was, for she was already leaving, in fact, in her mind, she had left already. That was her nature, the part that I didn’t mention before, and by conscious choice. She never stayed. She loved him too, but their whole relationship had been of sporadic meetings in alleyways and car parks on sunny days and long nights. They shared ice creams and cheap sodas and cigarettes, but she would always leave. It would be near perfect and she would run away before it reached the pinnacle. He would endure it all and he was ready to do it again, for he loved her and she loved him. So, he reached out to her through the mist, but it wasn’t her he felt. He stood there a while longer than he usually did after she would leave. Somehow, this time it was different.  

 Now stood under that same tree the same young man. Khushhal was his name but he went by Khush now. There were too many memories attached to the old name. He now shared the cigarette with no one but himself, waiting. He knew he would stand here all day and night, doing just that. He was the same man he was before she left, just more patient yet less at peace. Would she have stayed, would things be any different, or was it doomed from the moment they met eyes in the park as they both smoked, cigarettes between their fingers? What began in a haze, ended so.