Into the Dark

Life had always meant a whirlwind of activities for Janell, brushing away the dry leaves which had gathered in the lawn, organizing her wardrobe, performing a routine of animal flow movements to keep herself limber and on the go, preparing breakfast and then settling in front of her work desk to attend to pending manuscripts, this had been her daily roster for the past few weeks with the country moving into lockdown following the viral outbreak a fortnight back. The suburban town of Egham Surrey where she lived on her own preferring its solitude and relative isolation had keyed down its daily transactions and with the bars closed the place wore a dreary look in the evening enlivened only by the chatter of voices at the dinner table as families bonded. But Janell shrunk from the sight of these intimacies afforded by the slightly parted curtains of her snug room immersing herself with sterner resolve into her work. She was an island of fortitude trained to navigate through these difficult times without the need for solace from a fellow sufferer. Just week into the curfew on a Sunday morning while browsing through the pages of the Morning Post her eyes surveying the paper with the rhythmic oscillation of a pendulum, updating herself with the state of things with cursory glances, her gaze was suddenly arrested by a snippet in a corner. It was an announcement of an event, a book launch to be hosted online from the author's residence where he would talk about his latest novel "Into the Dark". She sat still for a moment, her well harnessed thoughts always applied to optimum use not lingering on trivial details, were suddenly assailed by a volley of emotions which quite derailed them. She took a moment to regain her momentum and picked up the trail of activities, preparing coffee at the stove, putting the crockery in order while trying to stall a surge of emotions that seemed to make her dizzy ejecting her from the familiar paraphernalia into the dark, an unfamiliar void which resonated with other voices. It was Leonard, a bespectacled Leonard with salt and pepper hair staring out of a newspaper column with his book in hand. He still had a boyish charm about him, an easy going candour his light frame perched on a wicker chair a pipe in the other hand sitting cross legged. Her thoughts drifted back to her university days when they were just acquaintances. They were both in the habit of frequenting a local bookstore adjacent to the campus and whiling away their time leafing through dusty parchments of rare editions. It was during one of these solitary escapades into the pages of yellowing manuscripts that she had spied Leonard, his lean frame resting against a stack of books as he stood engrossed flipping through the pages of a spy thriller probably John Le Carre, she strained her memory. They had briefly exchanged glances and acknowledged each other with a courteous smile. Janell had quickly shied away retreating into a different passageway, her socially awkward self having encountered a stranger quickly retracting into a quiet nook sheltering herself from the possibility of a dialogue. She hated conversations. When they did become lovers she would always prefer texts over long chats and there would be a string of exchanges but not words, emoticons arranged in all kinds of permutations and combinations, perhaps a country song or a couple of lines of poetry their exchanges were always mired in a mystery . There romance was invested in a strange world of signs which would act as a kind of code, each trying to figure out what the other was upto. It was in these moments of silent communion uninterrupted by the banality of banter that cemented their bond and created a secret pact that did not require words but maybe the swiftness of s glance, a passing touch, a silent gesture. The other passion that nurtured their relationship was their profound love for books and the worlds they unravelled, they would both slip into these endless adventures where the text became a gateway to strange universes. Both of them could gauge the depth of words and unravel the mysteries hidden in them. She remembered a poem he had scribbled on a stray scrap of paper and gifted to her on a windy afternoon as they walked hand in hand on the undulating grassland which offered a distant glimpse of the sea with clouds billowing over its heaving waves, the poem seemed to have been infused with the wet winds that blew in their direction and the light rain sinking into the scrap of handmade paper, it had become strangely resonant with the myriad emotions that drifted in the breeze...

Wet drips of ink

On faded sheets

The smudged edges 

Of a lingering mist

Your touch makes the letters

Ooze and bleed

And there is a certain something 

That haunts the pallid hours

Of the night's retreat...

Janell was lost in a thicket of memories that drenched her mind opening a floodgate of old emotions, footage of lost time, which seemed to crack open the fragile wall of mundane activities that she had programmed herself to perform one after the other. She felt quite exposed suddenly, vulnerable to the sudden rush of a strangely familiar sensation, a feeling she had taught her mind to blot out through the austerity of her daily routine and much to her surprise her eyes were moist, her delicate frame quivering under the strain of this powerful gush which held her captive. She dropped the paper on the table, fumbled for the remote and turned on the television to catch a glimpse of the book launch scheduled after the 10:am news update on BBC. There was a certain sense of anxiety that had taken over her now and she clasped the remote with a sense of nervous excitement as if she was about to meet Leonard in person after all these years , this chasm of ages since they had parted ways rather drifted apart gradually weaning themselves of a fondness that had slowly sunk into their systems. The camera zoomed in on the septuagenarian writer immaculately dressed in a charcoal grey coat greeting the mid morning audience with a gentle hello and drifting into a talk about his latest book. As she listened rapt in attention the words seem to filter in wrapped in the gentle cadence of his raspy voice with its subtle intonations, a voice whose texture was suffused with the haunting beauty of an unfinished tale whose characters she somehow seemed to know intimately. A young couple fresh out of college walking on the soft grass, transfixed in the beauty of the moment captured in a stray scrap of paper that sparked off a flurry of emotions floating in the gentle breeze...it seemed their roots were still tangled deep beneath the ground although they had grown apart. Janell lost track of time as she sat transfixed on the sofa finally free from the tyranny of the pressing hours compelling her to stay at the grind and bury her thoughts. At peace with the turbulence within she was no longer afraid to let herself go...