Hi Friends, This time I made sure that I post the next part in the series well in time. Hope You are enjoying it. If you’ve stumbled upon my blog the first time, be a sweetheart and make sure that you read the earlier 3 parts before diving into this one. Enjoy!
Part 4
He came out of his reverie with a start and realized that he was slumped in the middle of the marble staircase with his back supported on the banister. His head was feeling heavy and his mind was swirling with the effect of the vision he’d been through. He tried getting up but his head swam violently and he had to hold on to the banister to avoid toppling down the stairs.
What he’d been through since entering this house was too much to swallow. He had always prided himself to be a scientifically logical man and an atheist who believed only what he saw with his own eyes. However his logic and senses seemed to be pulling him into opposite directions in this instance – his logic pushing him to not to believe what he’d just witnessed and his senses refuting his logic.
‘May be the exhaustion has numbed my senses and my mind has started playing tricks, conjuring up all kind of funny stories and visions.’ He thought, trying to justify the illogical sequence of events in some logically comprehendible way. He blinked his eyes, shook his head to clear his foggy mind and looked around.
The things were the same as he had seen just after entering the house – broken, dirty, covered with grime and cobwebs. ‘Ya…right, my tired mind was playing tr…’
He couldn’t even complete his thought when things started transforming again under his gaze, just like before. ‘What the fu**!’ He swore and turned to look at the huge picture. It too started clearing up for him to see the faces in there. He climbed up the stairs to go near the picture and touched it to check that it was not an illusion. It was real, with no trace of dust and cobwebs visible just moments ago.
Though his mind was still groggy, he knew what he had seen moments earlier, and what he was seeing at that moment. It was beyond any logical explanation his scientifically nonbeliever mind could think of.
A corridor was leading to the left and he decided to explore further. The corridor too was in shambles but as he looked that way, the similar astonishing transformation commenced and within moments, he was moving along a neat and well decorated passage.
He hesitated at the closed door at the end of the passage. His gut feeling said that opening the door would be his point of no return. His sixth sense warned him to turn back and get as far away from this wretched house as possible, but his curiosity got the better of him and he pushed the door open.
As he entered, the room immediately started changing from its present tattered state to grandeur. The four-poster bed captured his attention as it refreshened the memory of the associated intimacy from his vision. Suddenly he missed being in the arms of someone sensuous, someone who loved him, someone whom he loved.
He had never been in any stable relationship, moving from woman to woman, in search of the one perfect for him, not really knowing what he was looking for. And at that moment, he suddenly felt the deep loneliness inside him; the vacuum and the craving for someone whom he could love with all he had, without ever needing to turn to another.
A whiff of sweet aroma overwhelmed his olfactory senses; it felt so familiar, so own, so exhilarating. He turned to find its source, and there she was, sitting in an armchair, next to the corner window overlooking the clearing. The picture in the staircase was all wrong; it was no where close to do justice to her real beauty. She was simply breathtaking; rather he even forgot to breathe. The combination of her intoxicating fragrance and beauty made him weak in the knees.
She was looking at him with her large doe eyes, with a mix of love and complaint in them. “I have been waiting for so long.” Her voice was melodious and hypnotic. She got up and took a step towards him; she was wearing a sheer white gown which accentuated her curves in the most titillating ways, making her look like a Goddess. He just stood there, gaping at her exquisite form. It was like he was in a fantasy dream.
“Now stop staring at me like that. What took you so long? It’s been ages since you left.” She demanded knitting her brows. Her sculpted face looked all the more beautiful, and kissable, in that mock anger. He somehow found his voice- “Me…?”
“Who else would I be waiting in this godforsaken place? You only left me here, told me to wait for you. Never knew you’ll take so long otherwise I wouldn’t have let you go.” Now she genuinely looked furious.
‘What the hell she’s talking about? She’s probably taking me for her husband.’ A part of his mind said, while another part was almost happy for the mistake. There was some unexplained attraction pulling him to her, an irresistible desire to hold her in his arms and never to let go ever.
“I can’t be the one you’ve been waiting for. I d…don’t even know you.” He blurted out with great will-power, knowing that he would lose all control over himself if only she came any closer.
“Oh you know me for sure; you just don’t remember it yet. The dust of decades gone by have clouded your memory. You will surely remember everything once you are in my arms.” She said with an innocent smile.
‘I sure want to get lost in those arms.’ A voice shouted in his head. “Wait a sec; you said decades. How long you’ve been waiting here?” He asked, ignoring the voice.
“How long!…I’m not sure… I had stopped counting after fifty.” She said scratching her head.
“Are you kidding me!?” His tone agitated, “You must have been twenty when your husband left you…er…I’m just guessing…give or take a couple of years; and if I were to believe you that you’ve been waiting here for more than fifty years, then you should be seventy years plus…but you don’t look a day older than…um…well, definitely not that old.”
“It’s bad manners to discuss a woman’s age but…well, if you must know, I think I must be close to ninety.” She said blushing.
“What crap…er…I mean you can’t be serious.” He was now getting really disconcerted. Then with a sudden flash of an idea, he decided to play along. “Okay…let’s say you are as old as you claim to be. In that case, how can I be your lost husband – I being just about thirty and you being the age of my grandma. Though I won’t mind having a hot and sexy granny like you.” His lips curled into a smirk with the last sentence.
“You think I’m joking! Okay then, how do you think this house and everything around which is supposed to be as old and beaten as me has changed into new just by your one glance. If you are not who I say you are, how do you have the power to make this happen?” She said with a similar smirk and a strange glint in her eyes.
“Do you mean you too have changed just now…the way other things have been changing?” Her logic made his mind wobble again. His head was feeling even heavier and it was difficult to think straight.
“Look!” She said with a straight face, pointing to one corner. He looked at the massive oak-wood dressing table placed in the corner. The grime, cobwebs and termite nests evaporated away as he looked. As the mirror became clear, the image of a broken termite ridden bed got visible in it. Amazed he looked at the bed directly – it looked new; looked back at the mirror image – broken.
He shifted uncomfortably and the image of an utterly worn and ugly hag with her skin hanging loose like the rags on her body with a few strands of matted hair sporadically placed on her cracked and scarred scalp came into view into the mirror. Startled he turned back and found her standing beside him, with all the blooming youth and beauty. He literally jumped away from her, stammering – “Is th..that.. the..r.. real… y..you..?”
“Yes and no.” She said with a sad smile. “What the mirror shows is what I am supposed to be today, without you, waiting for you; and what your eyes see is what I’ve become in your presence, under your glance. You are like anti-Medusa for me; you’ve un-turned me from stone back to life. See.” Said she, holding his hand. Her hand felt so smooth, so soft, her skin so youthful; it wasn’t possible for him to imagine her being any older than twenty something.
He desperately tried to clear his head — whatever he was experiencing and witnessing, and what she was narrating, was too much for his foggy mind to process. “Our deep love for each other and my indissoluble faith in your return made it possible for me to survive against all odds during this impossibly long wait. I guess my unyielding will forced the fate to reincarnate you, and to return you back to me.” She continued, coming a step closer to him.
“I don’t believe in this crap…this reincarnation shit.” He whispered hoarsely as she stepped in front of him.
“You will, once you remember… so let me help you remember.” saying this, she wrapped her arms around his neck and put her lips on his. He wanted to push her away but her exhilarating aroma and the taste of her soft luscious lips fogged his thinking instantly, flashes of their wedding and intimate moments spent in a seemingly different life-time started playing in his mind, and his arms went around her waist.
He felt as if he was finally where he belonged, where he longed to be all his life, or rather, over so many lives of wanderings through meaningless blizzards. They pulled each other into each other with all the strength, to fuse into one, all the senses going numb, losing all perception of time and space; and then fell on the bed, entwined with each other, inseparable like a creeper on a moss-stick.
Phony Nonie 