… and she said, “I’m all yours.”

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The school bell rang, and finally the moment she had been waiting for had arrived. She was free from school, and she couldn't wait to be back home. To be with the one she had been thinking of, for so long.

“Have a nice weekend!”

“You too!”

“I’ll drop by at your place around five, ok?”

“Sure thing. It’s gonna be so much fun, you guys spending the night over.”

“We’ll stay up all night long!”

The conversations amongst her classmates surrounded her, yet she seemed far away from it all. She was lost the her own thoughts, lost in the memories of the long hours she had spent in the company of her one true love.

She got on the bus, and sat at her favorite window seat. She wished with all her will that the bus would start moving soon. Her impatience paid off in the end; the bus jerked to life, and slowly trundled off in the direction of her house. She felt excited at the thought of someone waiting for her. Her thoughts wandered back into the memories of the countless kisses they had shared, the warm feeling she got every time, the subtle high she experienced from it all.

The bus stopped in front of her house, and she hopped off it. In seconds, she ran into her room and locked the door. In the semi – darkness, she whispered, “I’m ready, my love.”

Cautiously, she took out the stock of ground marijuana she kept in her closet. Her lovestruck eyes lit with delight, as she took the drugs and rolled up a joint. With trembling hands, she lit one end of the joint, and kissed the other end. The warmth of the kiss travelled all over her senses; she took a deep drag, and whispered in the silence, “I’m all yours.”

***

Been busy almost the whole week, which is why there was a delay in the story. Wish I had a bit more time to work on this, it didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted it to be. Still, I wanted to post something here, and so, here it is. Tried to take into account the many requests of a love story, but I don’t think this one quite qualifies to be a part of that category.

Image Courtesy fa73

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The Lake Lady

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Gulshan was a typical ‘US Return’, as they called him in the little village of Shantinagar. He had come over for spending the summer, but most of it had been a bust. There wasn’t really anyone with whom he could spend time. His cousins were just so different from him, and they all were at the age where acceptance is hard to give out, yet they were all seeking for it.

He wasn’t really accepted in the inner circles of his cousins, so consequently he spent a lot of time browsing around the crumbling village that Shantinagar was. The older side of the town always had a wonderful new surprise waiting for him, and equipped with his father’s camera, he found that he did have a good time in that bit of the village; the one place in the whole village that seemed to be his own.

It was at this eastern end of the village, that he had stumbled upon the green murky pond. He remembered the wonderful ponds that were there at the perfectly manicured parks back home. A part of him, thus, had expected something along those lines as he drew closer to the murky pond. He was in for a shock, though. The steps leading down to the pond were broken and worn. The whole pond seemed green, unlike the pristine blue clear watered ponds that he was used to. However, it didn’t seem that the water was that dirty. One look at it, and he knew that this little body of water was a world of its own.

“It used to be much more beautiful than this before,” said a soft voice behind him, “the water was clearer, and you could see the fishes zooming around in the water.”

He turned around, and saw a beautiful teenage girl sitting a few steps behind him. She was wearing a simple white dress that seemed to glow amber in the setting sun. Her face glowed as the dying sunlight played its charm on it just before saying goodbye, and even the breeze seemed to smile at her beauty. She was covered from head to toe, and just her face was visible. She sat there, smiling slightly, while he just stood there gaping at her.

The smile eventually turned into a small laugh, and he knew she was waiting for him to stop staring and say something.

“Hi, I’m Gulshan. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you sitting there, I wanted to get a good look at the pond, and get a few shots before the sun went down.”

“I know who you are, I’ve heard about you. You’re Ranabir Babu’s nephew. My name’s Chhaya. I hope you’re enjoying the village life?” she said, with the same teasing smile from before.

“I don’t know how to say this, I’ve seen everyone is quite sensitive about the ‘precious’ little village of yours!”

“I promise, I’ll try my best not to judge you,” she answered. “So, what is it that you cannot say to everyone, that you’re so desperately want to say?”

“My vacation blows. I’m doing nothing here, I feel so completely out of place, and I miss my friends back home,” he thought aloud, and realized for the first time how much he missed everything back at home.

“Don’t worry, you’ll see them soon enough. Life’s very long, you’ll see,” she said, with that radiant smile again, the one that glowed amber with the sun, and he smiled along with her, in those final minutes of the day.

~~~~~

He was back to the pond the next day, and saw her sitting there again. Once more, he couldn’t help but keep admiring her beauty from the moment he had seen her, until she noticed of course. After that, he had a very hard time not to keep looking at her, lest she understand what was going on in his heart. He really didn’t want to scare her away…

“You know, there was a time when this pond was much more than that. It was a lake, a proper sized one too. See the other side of that ditch, where the fields are, with the buffaloes? That’s where the lake used to stretch to. I was a little girl when I first saw it. I’ve been hoping ever since, that someday, the pond would once more become a lake,” she said, with a faraway, wistful look on her face.

“Wow, you can hardly see till that side from here. Some sight it would have been too, in those days,” he wondered aloud, trying to imagine how wonderful the lake would have looked, in those last few beautiful rays of the sunlight, with Chhaya sitting on the bank, reflected in the clear water.

He couldn’t help but look at Chhaya once more, and this time, he didn’t really care that she had noticed. A tiny smile formed at the edge of her lips, and she asked him without looking at him, “What?”

“You’re Beautiful,” he smiled back.

~~~~~

They met almost every day after that, at that same spot. He would come to the lake, at that very specific twilight hour, and find her sitting there in the beautiful orange sunlight. He would rush every day to her, armed with the camera, and together they would sit there, and take many pictures. The gnarled branches, the birds, the pond, and the dilapidated huts they could see behind the fields, the lazy buffaloes.

He had brought a bouquet of flowers for her, but for a strange reason, he felt nervous giving them to her. He really wanted her to like him, and the flowers too. He had picked them out himself, spending two hours in the hot sun, choosing the best ones in the whole village that he could find.

When she gave it to her though, she couldn’t stop laughing. “Oh, I love the flowers! Sorry, but it’s just that – look around, Gulshan. I’m surrounded by the most beautiful flowers,” she said, with that familiar, beautiful smile back on her face.

“Wow, you’re right! How come I never noticed them before here?” he asked, although he knew the answer to that very well. In truth, he hadn’t noticed much around the place. It wasn’t really easy to focus on your surroundings when there’s as beautiful a girl as Chhaya in front of you.

“I got you a gift too, you know,” she said to him, with a hint of a blush on her face.

“You did? What is it? Where is it?”

“Well, it’s actually a silly little poem that I had written last night.”

“I want to hear it! Go on, recite it. I promise you I’ll like it,” he said, eager to hear the poem.

“Ok, but don’t laugh. Here goes.

“The hillside looking like an artist’s palette

The colors, the hue, the green, the blue

A freshly laundered day awaits

Two lovers walk, first steps in the dew

Hand in hand, heart to heart

They walk away from the eyes of the world

The look, the touch, the sweet promise

A gift of love, the flowers she yearned….

“I know it’s not much, and I know it’s a very silly, stupid poem. It’s ok if you don’t like it, really, Gulshan!’

“Are you kidding me? That’s one of the sweetest poems I’ve heard in a long time now,” he said, with all honestly. He really hadn’t expected her to have written a poem for him. “Although, there’s one little thing; how did you know that I was going to bring you flowers today?”

“I didn’t. I just hoped,” she said, locking her eyes into his, and smiling while the sun set behind them

~~~~~

It was his last evening in the village. He had never thought that there could be anything here that would make him want to stay on so much, as Chhaya. He knew that he wanted to stay here forever, to be able to meet her every day on the bank of the lake. He knew that he wanted to stay over forever, so that he could share the little joys of his life with her for the rest of his life. He knew that he wanted to stay on, so that someday, he could go up to her and say…

“I love you, Chhaya.”

“What?”

“I said I love you,” he said again, “and I really mean it. All I want to do is stay with you, right here next to the lake. We can have a house right here, and live on forever.”

“Go on,” urged Chhaya, with a look on her face that said that she had been waiting to hear these words for a long time now.

“We would live in this village, right here. I won’t leave. I’ll work at the fields, whatever it takes, to be with you. And someday, I’ll see the pond become a lake, sitting right here, with you. I love you, Chhaya.”

“Say it one more time, Gulshan,” she said, with that same hungry look from before.

“I love you.”

“Oh, it’s been so long since anyone has said those words to me. Gulshan, you’re so wonderful. Of course I love you too. I’ve been waiting so long, for someone to tell me those words again, so many years I’ve spent waiting for someone like you, on these tired, old and worn out steps.”

“Chhaya, are you alright? You seem a little weird. Should I not have said it? Was it too early?”

“No, no. You’re wonderful, Gulshan. You just reminded me so much of my fiancé.”

“Your fiancé? You were about to be married, to another man?”

“A long time ago, yes,” Chhaya said, with a tired look on her face. A look that didn’t suit her at all, and made her look mysteriously old.

“Were you ever planning on telling me this, Chhaya? What happened to him?” demanded Gulshan.

Chhaya turned around and faced him, and said, “He killed me. He threw me into that lake. I drowned that day.”

Gulshan couldn’t speak for a few moments. Then, his senses came back to him, and he laughed, “You’re winding me up right? This is a joke, right?” he said, wanting his brain to believe that he wasn’t scared by what he was hearing.

“No, Gulshan. I’m not joking. I was killed by the man I loved, the man who I was set to be married to. 213 years ago it happened. We had an argument, and he pushed me into the lake. I couldn’t swim, so I drowned.”

“213 years ago? How can that be? You’re standing here, right in front of me! Are you telling me that you’re a ghost, Chhaya?”

“I don’t know what I am, Gulshan. I really don’t know what I am; but I do know that now, we are in love, and we shall be happy together, won’t we?”

And she took her hand, and gently touched his cheeks – only now, her hands were not the same beautiful hands that Gulshan had seen for so many days. Now, they looked deathly white, and bloated, as though they had been underwater for days. When the hand touched his cheek, he could feel the cold, clammy wetness of the fingertips right to his bones.

Gulshan turned and ran back to the village, screaming like a madman.

~~~~~

Mahesh wanted a Love Story.

Sowmi wanted a Poem.

And I wanted to write a Ghost Story.

Another long one, I hope you guys had the patience to read it through. The second ghost story I’ve written ever; the first one was written back in 1993. I hope this was a better attempt at it.

Image Courtesy goodonpaper