Weekly Prompt 2- Entry by Bhawna Khattar

The best thing before winter

“There is a fine line between how we see it and what it really is, the truth”, she thought to herself while walking towards her favourite café. Being alone was the last thing she wanted, but it was better than being with someone she had to pretend in front of, it was better than being with people who won’t say the right thing, yeah, she knew, truth is better than lies even when it hurts but… she did not want to hear it, not right now, she did not want lies either. “What would you like to have, ma’am?” asked the waiter. “Ah, I don’t want to make choices, that’s what I would like to have, I want a free coffee, and a free brownie and some peace, and my phone bill to be paid, it is 3021, I don’t have 3021 bucks, 3021 bucks, that’s what I would like to have.” She did not say any of this, of course, instead she said, “Hot chocolate please, and pasta in white sauce, with extra cheese.” Extra frigging cheese, she was really… flustered.

She opened her book, again, the book she had not been able to get through with since the last 20 days. No, not because it wasn’t a good book, it was a great book, in fact- Sooraj ka Saatwan Ghoda (The Sun’s Seventh Horse) by Dharamvir Bharati, a thin book, 100 pages, and it had taken her 20 days, it was still not over. It was too much to take especially when there was so much to deal with, in life. At this moment, she was reminded of her favourite couplet from the book,
“ Main kya jiya,
Mujko jeevan ne jiya,
Boond boond kar piya,
Pi kar path par khali sa chod diya”

But was she empty yet?

She had got this book from the fair, where she had met him. “Weren’t things better before the fair happened? Oh, who am I kidding, hell no.” It is better to learn from an experience than not having one at all, and she was a learner. One of her crushes had called her ‘a fierce soul’ when she would not quit admitting her admiration for him, sometimes in the form of Bollywood songs- Aapse bhi khoobsoorat aapke andaaz hai, yeah, she wasn’t embarrassed to tell him that, it was a firm ‘no’ from his end obviously, but that would not break her spirit, nothing would. Every experience had a learning, and then the book fair happened.

The hot chocolate arrived. She shut the book & stared into the blank space, there were so many people around, the café was always full but she saw nobody, she was too busy, contemplating life, love & lust. “It is just a fling, one more night with the man, I get to learn experiment & discover things I never knew about myself, should I do it?” She took the first sip & burnt her tongue, ouch, it hurt. All that crap in the movies, nothing hurts more than your heart breaking, well, a burnt tongue hurts more. “He is magic; I will do it, one more time.” Of course he was magic, it was the lust talking, he was magic- intelligent, good-looking, hot, rebellious, & the VOICE, she died every time she heard him sing and not the normal stuff, he liked ghazals. But she wasn’t in love, yet. “I will pack my bags, before I fall, I am a strong, independent woman”, she reassured herself. Everything was great, summer romance is the best thing that can happen before winters, the only issue was she hated lies, and he had lied but he was not expected not to, so she would spend some more time with the man, the man she could never call ‘her man’ and that’s how she knew it’s not love, not yet. The pasta had arrived, and the extra cheese, “OH MY GOD”, she said out loud, it was that good. By now she was at a ridiculous point where she was hoping that her ‘summer romance’ had a wall around him because he was falling for her, she wanted to believe that but she knew she knew there is a fine line between how we see it and what it really is, the truth.

As she was walking out of the café, she saw a new bookstore that had opened, and if it was anything to do with books, she had to check it out. The moment she entered, a guy approached her & said, “Hi, how have you been?” It took her a minute to get over his hotness, and then she remembered, he was the guy from the conference she had gone to last week. Well, she wasn’t empty after all, each experience is a new experience & anything starting in a bookstore has to be intense. They spent an hour together, decided to meet on Sunday again.

While walking towards the metro, she called her friend, “Dude, guess what happened!”

Written By-

Bhawna Khattar

I love Rural Marketing, Books, Traveling & Life.