He was always quiet. He never talked more than he was supposed too, sometimes not even that much. But his eyes, his eyes had a different story to tell. I remember lying on his bare chest, his arm around me, telling him once about Doctor Who, and how everything in the world is made of stories. Suddenly, I felt a tug at my neck, and I saw him tighten. I turned around to look at his face. But he looked away, high above, onto the ceiling. His eyes shone, throwing patterned impressions onto the orthogonal plaster-of-paris adornments. I pulled the sheets close to me, slid closer with my back on the bed, and my arms around my chest, and ran my fingers through his curly hair. He lay motionless, and I lay in the shadows of the luminescence of his eyes.
"Do you not think we all have stories inside of us? That our soul is nothing but stories?"
He still looked away. I played with his hair some more. I picked up curly strands and wound them around my fingers, and saw them come undone again. I grazed my hands through his hair, and felt his scalp brush against my fingertips amidst his curls.
"We're made of atoms," he said in a gruff voice, as if his vocal chords were rusting because of being so unused.
I looked in surprise. He had moved, just an inch away, but he still kept looking at the ceiling, piercing it with his glare possibly, to look into the stars above, to see the lights that were his family, that he was a part of. On most days, he felt like an orb of light, quiet, warming, and conspicuous only by his absence. I turned to my side and faced him, and I felt his hand on my back. I raised my head, and he carefully ensured it rested against his arm, and I was again propped up on his chest, he holding me ever so tenderly, but tightly at the same time. There was something about how he held me, something that quite like him, was wordless, but loving all the same.
I stayed quiet, and watched his chest rise and descend for some time. He had ample chest hair, the kind that gave his heavy chest a different shape. He was very conscious about it, I could tell even though he had never told me. Like so many other things. I kept my hand on his chest, and felt his life beat periodically against his taut body. He felt different, like no other man. I dreamed of a life with him always near me, my own special orb of light. My fingers tightened around his skin, and I slowly shifted to hide my face in the sheets, and feel his warmth.
"Nita," he said, and his grip around me tightened. He turned towards me and we kissed, so slowly, so mildly, and I felt all my problems melting away in his warmth, dying away in his glow.
"Stories die out. They fade from memory. Atoms are forever."
I look at him, wanting to correct him, but I stay silent. He closes his eyes, and leans in to kiss me again. He misses his aim, and ends up kissing my nose instead. I smile. Wordlessly, my fears have gone.
The next morning, I wake up to his shiny eyes, while his dark face dreamily looks at me, and his lips twisted in a wry smile. I ended up falling asleep on his arm, and he, like he always was, let me sleep, while he writhed in discomfort through the night. I hurriedly get up, pull the sheets close to me, and apologise profusely, repeatedly till the sound of my morning voice ricochets all across the room, back to my ears. He smiles, nurses his arm, and pats it for blood supply, looks back at me, and tugs at the sheets.
I cradle my bare breasts in my arms, while I see him dress in the hand-me-down from Ram Singh. He slowly comes back, once he finishes dressing, and wraps the sheets around me, flinches whenever he touches my bare skin, and out of habit, each time, he then proceeds to put the end of the sheet around my head, like a veil. Then shocked at his own incapacity to learn, he clicks his tongue, and runs downstairs to wash the car to pick my husband up from the airport.
I watch him leave. And then, I write a story.
