by Manali Rohinesh
[box]Here’s a tale of a woman and her man, both deeply in love. A short story by Manali Rohinesh.[/box]The sound of his voice still thrills her and it brings back memories of a trip to Shimla. It was so soon after their marriage that it almost seemed like an extended honeymoon, so, they had been teased about it. “The lovebirds can’t get enough of each other” was the common thread that ran through all the ragging but that hadn’t changed their plans much. After all, they were going with friends who had just come down from abroad.
Bags were packed and they had flown away to a week of fun and reminiscing over hot cocoa, in front of a warm fire while the snow outside chilled everyone. The cold got through the windows no matter how tightly they were shut and that just drove her to the comfort and warmth of his arms.
They were all going to take the cable car ride over the gorgeous valley the next day. But she remembered getting up with a bad fever so he told her to stay tucked up in bed and he said he would be right there to get her anything she wanted – hot soup, medicines and lots of tender loving care – the best antidote of them all.
She said she was fine and insisted he carry on and have fun with the others and not fuss around her all day. But he said the others had already heard about her being unwell and knew he would want to stay with her. So, they had gone ahead to do some sightseeing. But she clearly remembered saying, “Go join them then and have fun.”
He kissed her goodbye and went away to have a good time. She went to sleep and woke up at the end of the day to find he had not come back yet. She soon found out to her horror that he was never really going to come back to her ever again.
The hotel manager told her that he had decided to take the cable car ride by himself and had planned to come back to tease her imagination just enough, so she could go with him, when she got better. To cut a long story short…the cable car had snapped and had cruelly cut short the life of a young man…a young husband who didn’t even know he had just become a young father.
He had plunged to the bottom of the valley, taking her heart and her sanity along with it. Grieving friends brought her back to her shell-shocked family. But she didn’t feel anything. She kept asking for him as if he had just stepped out to buy groceries and hadn’t returned yet.
He had left her some things, as if she needed any reminders of him. He had left her a recording of his voice. He had recorded a message for her just as he had got on the cable car and sent it to her mobile phone and that’s the only voice she responds to…20 years later. The message haunts everyone else as being so prescient, as if he had known or felt something eerie was going to happen.
His message to her was: “The view here is so beautiful but if I were to choose the most beautiful thing that I want to see before I die, then it’s you,will always be you.”
He also gave her me – his daughter. She gave birth to me almost eight months later from the day he died, but she didn’t see him in me. Yet, people always say I have my dad’s looks.
But she does not recognise me. I realised long ago, I had lost her to that ghostly voice.
Pic : diebmix – http://www.flickr.com/photos/diebmx/
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