She was lost between the pages of her book when he came in. Watching her like that, he smiled to himself and went on to freshen up.
A little while later, he was back holding two mugs of coffee. Placing one on her desk, he leaned down to take a look at her words. He was excited to see what role his princess was playing today.
Yesterday, a guy was proposing her on the moon. A day before that she was in a lab experimenting on a rat. And last week, she was playing chess with some aliens. He had even seen her as a warrior riding a couple of dragons into a battle.
Today, however, she was normal teenager celebrating her birthday.
He kept a hand on her shoulder making her aware of his presence. She kept her pen aside and looked up from her book. Taping his hand with hers, she gave the smile he yearned to see every day. Taking a sip from her mug, she went back to the world of words.
At times, he admired her ability to change the masks so quickly. And on other days, he was afraid she might forget the real her.
But then, the memory of their conversation they had one night assured him that nothing would go amiss.
"How can you live so many lives? How can you do justice to all the characters?" he had asked her that day.
And her reply had left him speechless.
"No, we cannot give justice to all the characters," she had said, "But then, we writers are nothing but a bunch of windows. Every time you take a peek in us, you'll find a different character living a different story. But then, no matter how many windows we have, our door will always remain one. The real us will never get lost."
With a hope that she'd always remember that conversation too, he called it a night leaving her in the world of words. A world where even a cripple like her can dance around with joy. Magic! That was the only thing he could think of to describe the world of words.
***
Inspired by a line written by Rigvedic_Lopa on her profile.
