Zeno (A Chunklet)

(Its not a short story. Its only a collection of thoughts with a bit of ficiton. I often call it a chunklet.)


“And are you still in love with him?” Her husband asked angrily.

She thought of replying bluntly but refrained and let her silence fill in the answer. It might hurt him more and she never wanted it. In fact this was the reason which held her back for four years. It took some time but things happened quite smoothly after that, as her husband was quite an understanding person. She was thirty two then. Now with graying hair and kids of her kids playing in the lawn outside, she was sitting on a rocking chair and passing a retirement life. Since she had left her job she used to sit like that and ruminate over the past.

“Zeno Aapa”, her house maid called her and her thoughts jostled for a while.

“You asked for tea”, the maid said.

She left a cup of tea beside her and let Zeno dive in to the sea once again. Time literally flies by and in her case it flies away like a bird. She always correlated it with a bird as the bird flies away from where it nestled and leaves behind the nest. For her the nest is a bunch of memories which are to be abandoned, whether good or bad. Past is past. She was quite a practical woman. Even balancing between her love and marriage was much of a mechanical task. She fought with her own self to prove that she was a good wife and she did. But after four years of her marriage she broke out that day in front of her husband out of nowhere. It was not actually that much out of nowhere. She was never been infidel towards her husband and marriage but she had a secret life - a world where only her thoughts can penetrate. She was always secretly justifying herself for marrying an innocent man and not loving him and kept immersed in love with the man who was her lover but not her husband. Coming out was not easy. But what reinforced her was the fact that it’s better to hurt her husband now rather than hiding a truth for a life time. At least he deserved this for all his kindness and love towards her. It’s never too late.

Now a widower of her 2^nd husband (her lover) and a mother of a daughter and two sons, she was said to be the luckiest woman in the society. But she was rethinking and re-evaluating the decisions she made in her life. She had made some right choices but she had regrets in her life too. The regrets – not over the matters which happened to her but the way she carried them out. She thought she should have not succumbed to the idea of marrying her first husband in the first place. Later when she was married to him, she thought, she should have continued with that. It always pinched her that she had been mean towards him for running away like that. It actually was a proof that she had not been strong enough in implementing what she chose or even had to choose. Humans are mean in majority after all.