Forever And A Day || Completed

57. A Father's Turmoil

~ And in the end, we are all humans, drunk on the idea that love, and only love can heal our brokenness!
-F. Scott~

The field was really vast, and it was all fenced around, with beautiful trees around the circumference. Each one of those had beautiful and colourful flowers blossoming in clusters, a few scattered on the ground too. Nandini found herself running to collect them, giggling all the while, aware of the eyes following her every move. When she thought she had collected enough, she turned around and smiled, her eyes shining with joy as she walked with her tiny feet, wobbling half the way, straight into a pair of waiting arms.

"I will weave you a garland Appa", her toothy smile made her father dearest laugh, and he picked her up to twirl her around and all Nandini could hear were the echoes of her own, bubbling laughter.

The sudden, unexpected thunderstorm scared Nandini and she turned around to find the flower blossoms gone, and only dark clouds around, the beginning of the drizzle petrifying her. The water drops on her extended palm also brought the realization how she wasn't little any more, she was all grown up. She frantically looked all around, her eyes searching for her father but even after calling his name out loud several times, she could not hear a reply, nor could she locate him.

Tears began to roll down her cheeks, but before she could break down into full fledged sobs, she found two frail hands wiping her tears and she jerked her face up to find her Appa standing with a smile, shaking his head at her, rebuking her for crying when she knew he hated her tears. Nandini smiled back too, but when she took a step towards him, wanting to hug him, he Disappeared, like he was never there.

Nandini sat up with a jerk, sweat beads glistening on her forehead, and all over her neck and chest. Her cotton kurta had been soaked despite the AC. She breathed hard for a few minutes, taking in her surroundings and letting herself believe it was just a nightmare, nothing else.

Just a nightmare!

She turned her head and watched Manik sleep by her side for some prolonged minutes. He was sleeping on his stomach, his hands making a mesh over the pillow on which he was resting his head, tilted to a side. His breathing was soft, and regular. She found herself relaxing as she concentrated on his breathing instead. With a shake of her head, she leaned down and kissed her husband's head, before moving out of the bed.

Throwing multiple rounds of cold water on her face, Nandini took a deep breath and looked into the mirror.

"It was just a nightmare Nandini, it's okay. Appa is okay, okay?", she talked to herself, wanting the particular dream to be wiped out of her memories. Outside, in her room, the wall clock read 4 am. Nandini's eyes stopped at her sleeping Manik's face for a moment again, before wavering over to the window bed. With slow steps, she walked over and sat down, her eyes taking in the blue sky and the thousands of stars twinkling across.

She then found herself walking back in her memory lane, to the night she had found Manik sitting here, watching the sky for the first time. That was their first proper conversation, the first time he  had shared something with her, and she had felt like she was still his friend. The first time she had realised that Manik was very different and yet, he was something she could grow used to and never get bored of. His words from that night came running back to her, and she found herself grinning. Trust Manik to relive her deepest worried without doing anything.

"I like watching the stars disappearing into nothingness, with the rising sunrays. Its like, just a few moments ago, it was their teritory, the sky, and now, with just the air of sunrays, they are gone! It makes me believe nothing is going to last, no matter how beautiful it is, but that also doesn't mean what comes after is any less pretty!"