The Couple

The traffic was inching forward, an end-less lane of angry cars stretched as far ahead as the eye could see. The evening rush was worse than usual. He glanced at the clock impatiently, not wanting to reach home late. His wife would be waiting.

She was dressed and ready when he reached. A quick shower and they were off. He had advance tickets to the latest flick. More than the movie it was the memory of the old times that they wanted to relish. Somehow the seats seemed smaller now than they used to be just a few years earlier. Funny, she thought, how time comes to settle around the waist, like a tree’s girth around the trunk would tell the age. Then he took her hand in his and she forgot all about trees.

She had wanted to go to the road-side eatery they used to frequent. He thought they had outgrown it. They settled for a new restaurant that had come up in the vicinity of their old college campus. She liked the wine.

They went for a walk afterwards. A passing police-man recognized him and saluted smartly. He looked embarrassed. She smiled to herself, perhaps from memories of another time. Different memories.

A mild breeze blew from across the lake. Her smell still sent a chill down his spine after all these years. She slipped on the pavement, having worn heels after a while now. He caught her. She held on to his arm for one moment longer.

It began to drizzle. The evening was past. He called for his driver. They went back.

Then he dropped her and went home to his wife.

That City

My time here is coming to an end.

Tomorrow, I'll be back to the city.

That city: with its polluted air, noise, the filth, and its total lack of kindness.

That city: with its beaches I love, civic amenities I value, theaters I frequent, libraries I visit.

That city, with its people: The confident, the suave, the hapless, the lost.

That city of endless demonstrations and the consequent break-down of order, while the law chooses to look the other way.

That city, with its dark obsession with people's private lives.

That city, with its palpable lack of enthusiasm and enterprise: where corner-shops remain closed on Sundays.

That city, with its pathetically repressed sexuality, where women are groped in broad daylight.

That city, where pedestrians fall into potholes, and die.

That city, which has my sweat and tears flowing through its sewers.

That city, where I once met a woman, and knew love.

That city, which I refer to as mine, but in truth belongs to no one.

Nobody's city.

That city, which I didn't think I'd ever come to miss.