IshVeer Chronicles

Chapter 8: Wounds Unhealed

It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. - Grabriel García Márquez.

It felt unreal. His breathing was abnormally unsteady and his heart had never beaten so strange before. Tears would often make their way to down to his cheeks that he would hurriedly wipe away lest someone sees him. No one had known there was still a part of him that craved for happiness and wholeness. Wholeness. He had never truly known the meaning of this word. He had never truly acknowledged he could never be whole. He had somewhere never truly wanted to be so. He was going to be happy or at least satisfied believing there was a reason he could not give up on life and the people he loved. Sometimes memories could suffice for an entire lifetime. That was how he had wanted his life to be. He wanted to spend it in the memories of one woman he had loved all his life, for he never thought she could be his.

But as they say, life is not always the same. Its meaning and essence always keeps changing just like the world around changing its face, the states of the universe changing and often drastically so. Even before he could fathom the agitation his soul was going to witness that fateful day, he had found himself sitting by her side as her groom. He had wanted to see her happy and that was what she could not be. She didn't love him. She never did. It had never hurt so much before like it did today and all he could question himself was: "Why?"

He had never known her to be cruel. In fact, no one else could be more kind than her. She had been his friend even when he was her servant. But servant was the only thing he was. She sympathized with him. Thank God there was this compassion left in her. But there was nothing more than that she felt for him. His lifelong love had just proved to be an inadequate thing, unworthy of her feelings. The last time he had met her was this place only. He had come to meet her; to ask her why she had to stay away from him and all she had answered was she hated him. It hurt still with the same intensity it had done the last time. She had warned him, even if he managed to get her out of jail, she would end up killing herself to be with Chirag.

His heart cracked and an unbearable pain in his chest erupted with a promise of endless torment till the end of his life. But he did not care. He had received a call from the jail authority in the morning stating his wife's death sentence had been preponed. He hadn't believed it to be true until 10 minutes later when his feet had forced him towards his car and from there to the place she lived: Abandoned, non-existent to the outer world. The dark passage of the jail was illuminated only by the light filtering through the ventilator hanging down from the roof. With each step his heart twisted in an agony that painfully wrenched the soul out of his fragile body and his heart wept a million unshed tears of misery. It went unnoticed.

"Can we hurry, Mr. Ranveer?" A woman's curt voice broke the sequence of his thoughts and he was brought back to reality. He nodded his head and quickened his pace to the cell his Ishani was kept for the final day of her life. The jailer nodded as well in understanding and continued to walk. Rest was unusually silent. If there were no excruciating sensations running through his body, Ranveer would very well have considered himself to be lifeless.

The jailer halted and unlocked the door of the cell. Ranveer felt his own heart sink down as he hesitantly made his way towards the cell. In a whit of the second, a myriad of questions and memories passed through his mind and he closed his eyes for a moment to clear them away that exploded in form of tears now. Dreading over something extremely tragic to happen, Ranveer walked into the cell, but to his disappointment, there was no sign of Ishani. The cell was empty and only Ishani's belongings lay there on the floor. He swallowed hard. A brown blanket, a calendar and a few more random objects necessary for survival in jail were placed carefully on the floor. Ranveer picked up the blanket. It smelled like her, and for a moment he could feel her right there. His eyes then followed the calendar with cross marks on the dates of the current month depicting the countdown of Ishani's last days. He picked it up and squeezed it lightly and a drop of tear fell on the dusty paper.