Where Kings Can't Rule

22. where the king and widow are incomplete

This garden has been a witness to many teary eyed souls, many masked meetings and confrontations. It has been a witness to the clash between
me and Sitara, to the tiff between me and Vivasvat, and to my own nightly maneuvers through life.

The garden is exquisitely beautiful. A bundle of scarlet roses peek at me from the thorny bushes. As much as they remind me of the bloodied bodies of the women I have ended and wish to end, now they also remind me of the beautiful cherry lips of Yama, or the hearty smiles of Estella and Sitara. I guess I have begun to change my perspective of the world slowly.

The apple tree– one of her favourite fruits beside palmyra– stands tall in this royal garden. It's the tallest tree present, towering over everything else. I had once wanted to cut that tree and thus cut all ties with her.

Now I wish to not do it.

"Pray she lives well."

A plethora of stars shine above me. I ask for their wishes. The crescent moon hides behind the mushy grey clouds, playing hide and seek with the little torches of light floating in the oceanic sky.

As I walk and hum to myself, I notice a figure sitting on the familiar bench near the pond. It's a faint outline of luscious pink and soft shades in the dark, and when I am a little closer I know who the lady is.

Someone who has both conquered and burnt my heart. Someone whose life I decorate and destroy.

"Sitara?"

Lately I wish to mend the ties with her. I do not think I have much time left in this life. Life slips like sand from my hands.

How am I to leave this world then without some good parting words?

She turns her head. Her smile is faint and vanishing, but her eyes speak more than her lips. They tell our story– the barriers we have between us, the way I have hurt her, the way I have loved her in the most imperfect attempt possible.

You gather all my disharmonious tunes and weave a song out of it, Sitara.

She pats the spot beside her, welcoming me. I go and sit beside her. We do not speak. It is an incomplete silence that stays tonight.

"How do you feel?" she asks all of a sudden.

I can't help but wheeze. "Better in some way, worse as the rest."

"Better in what ways?"

I purse my lips. "That I can recognise the self from years back, but the recent Borzou seems more like a friendly rival."

With a smiling gaze I stare at her. She returns with a nod.

"And what is worse?"

"My health– the headaches, the nausea, the vomiting– they come and go."

And again, it's quietude between us. We listen together to the swishing of the wind.

"How are you?" I ask.

"Better in some ways, worse as the rest."

"Worse in what?"

She chuckles coldly. "Life is hard Borzou. I have a lot to do to mend this mess you have made."

"I am sorry." My heart throbs with both ecstasy and pain.

"Hmm?"

"You didn't hear?"

"I have gone deaf over the years."

"I said, I am sorry. That's it."

It irks me a bit. But maybe she has the right to act like this towards me.

"And pray tell me, what is better?" I ask.

"I can see a bit of the past in you, and it soothes my soul."

My eyes widen. I gulp, rubbing my face nervously.

Did she just praise me?

That's a lot coming from Sitara.

"How is Yama?"

"Studying in his room."

"So late at night?"

"Yes. He has a weird habit. He suddenly recalled something and had to check it then and there. So I came here to take some fresh air."

He is such a studious boy. No doubt he got this from Sitara. My looks, and her intelligence.

What a powerful combination!

I grin.

"What happened?"

"No, nothing Sitara."

"You are hiding something."

"You will slap me, perhaps, if I tell you."

She scoots closer to me, narrowing her eyes. "I won't slap you. Tell me, what is it?"

The proximity is enough to unsettle me. I do not deserve to feel her breath fanning my face, neither smell the lavender scent of her body.

She is the pearl missing from my eventful life. So close, yet at the bottom of the ocean. "I just thought that it is a great combination, that he got my handsome looks and your wisdom."

She stares at me blankly for a while. I am almost leaning on the side of the bench in fear of what she might say next. "You aren't that handsome."

I gape at her. "You are very rude, Sitara."

She twirls a lock of hair behind her ear. "You want me to be rude. You are used to me being harsh and what not, but not kind and generous."

"You treat me unlike a king."

"Because I can be a better queen than you."

"That you surely are."

Her jaw drops. I stretch my limbs and relax on the bench, beaming from ear to ear. She blushes profusely. "I am not a queen. I cannot be one."

"You can be one, definitely. You have many qualities that a queen should have."

"But not all."

"No one is perfect and complete. We need to accept that there is natural beauty in imperfections."

"Borzou, tell me one thing." I see her face has a shroud of gloomy darkness. Contrasting to that, her irises shine like two stars in the sky and a serene, sublime smile rests on her lips. "Is there beauty in incompleteness, in being incomplete?"

My heart sinks to the bottom.

An uncannily familiar pain clutches my heart, crushing it so hard that I feel like bleeding internally. "True love stories never have a happy ending, because they don't end at all."

Unbeknownst to me, tears have started to stream down her eyes.