Daisies...

Sigh…yet another January 13th…I always felt if I could survive this day then what happened the rest of the year never mattered.. the nearest church from here is about 3 miles away and it is only on this day that I ever go there…why, i don’t have anything else to ask the lord.. he took away the soul of my life…but somehow I always have this tiniest hope which keeps me going…

Daisies were never my favourite.. i always loved roses…but today daisies fill my garden…I don’t know.. just the thought of these happy flowers makes me feel am not alone…I took out my poem book from the top shelf.. i have had this for years.. i had the habit of sitting in the cemetery all by myself and writing about anything and everything under the sun.. my favourite place was always by a black granite piece surrounded by daisies.. on it was written Mellissa George- born on 1955…I let her rest in peace while I continued with my writing… “so cemetery must be an awfully good place to write I guess.. so how co operative are they? I mean these ghosts and all…”. For a minute I was even scared to look up to see who was speaking….but I will never forget that first sight of him…its still there in my mind so vivid..so clear..as if it just happened yesterday… I tried to smile..but his eyes were so mesmerising.. I just sat there looking at him like an idiot…”So you are deaf eh? Or is it because you prefer ghosts to humans..just asked because you have been staring at me for quite some time time now…” he said and he laughed…wow..what was he? Was I looking at some greek god?wait a minute..was he laughing at me? How long has I been staring at him? The sudden realisation of this made me blush. I grabbed my bag and some of the papers which were lying around me and walked away in top speed.

“hey!..” I heard him shout.I didn’t look back..i just kept walking away fast..I didn’t dare to go back for a week and then it was Sunday again…I bunked church again and went to my usual spot..back to Mellissa George..I wondered how she must have looked and how she died..i ran my finger over her named carved on the stone…

”so you are back..thought you will never return when I didn’t see you for a week…”
oh..my..not him again…the hypnotizer..pied piper..hmm..what did he want? I looked at the papers in his hand…papers?what?they were mine..i looked at him…
”I didn’t steal it or anything..you left it here…you act awfully dump for a person who writes such excellent poems..”
“why do you care anyway? Just give them back to me..” I blurted out..i could feel that usual blush growing from the back of my neck…i was praying he wouldn’t notice it.
“you are sitting on my mother and you are asking me why do I care?way to go, young lady!”
“Mellissa George is your mother?I am so sorry..i didn’t know..i didn’t mean to sit on her..i mean on her grave…I mean that's my church..you can keep the papers…how is your mother?”…stop talking..stop right now..the voices in my head were shouting in chorus. To my surprise he was laughing.. really laughing..what was he?an angel?God’s most perfect creation?

“don’t get me wrong here..am not laughing at you..its just that your expressions are so comical that I cant help laughing..by the way..am Stephen George”..pause..silence for like 20 seconds..”now will be the time when you say something”..
I smiled..he always made me smile…his witty answers, quick comments and passionate nature…I loved every bit of him…and still do…I wonder if he does too…he used to..i knew that…what would he have said if he saw me dreaming over my old poem collection..his favorite collection…hmmm..

We met every day after that.. every day for a whole summer. I cannot remember another time when I must have enjoyed so much. It was a whole month. He used to love my poems. And ever since I met him they were mostly about him. I couldn’t think of a better subject to write about. He loved daisies, his mom and me….he taught me how to drive, to see things the way it should be seen and many many things I never even knew till then. I have never seen him worry. He never allowed me to. Every day he had something to surprise me with..i loved every moment spent with him..and then it was time for him to go back…may be that was the first time I saw a crease on his forehead….we promised to write and write we did for 3 years.. I never told about him or this relation to anybody..afraid that I might just lose it or just wake up from this very sweet dream…he wrote about everything…the new job he got in the advertising firm, the new bike he bought( we selected the color together..), about talking to his father about me….he told me he will come and take me home with him…he was getting his new home ready…he wanted to surprise me….and then all of a sudden we lost touch…I wrote and wrote and there never came a reply…I waited for 3 whole months and I was literally going crazy….did he forget me? Was this all a dream? Was there somebody else? What do I do? Did I do anything wrong? And then after a couple more months I got a mail from his father…he had found my address from Stephen’s diary…I remember my vision going blurred after reading the mail…I remember waking up in the hospital…I remember crying for a year..lost my job..lost touch with the world…I remember praying not to lose my sanity…I remember going numb in life..i remember colors fading…I remember daisies..his favorites..i remember that summer…his love..

Later I was sent his personal diary and the keys to his unfinished new house…his dream….in it was written a vivid description of his dream he had…his new house, surrounded by daisies, a small bell outside the cottage, with me waiting for him to return…I finished his house, we have the daisies, the bell that nobody has touched so far and here I am waiting…if only he returned..if only he could…
I gave up trying to accept the fact that he is no more. May be no more in this world..but he will be there forever in my heart…and I am still waiting..

[Some extra information my readers might be interested in: The outline of this story was spun some years back for my best friend under some circumstances...For all those who wish for a different ending, keep coming back to this blog..there is one coming up for you.. :)]

My Experiences with the teeth

I jumped up when I heard the door bell ringing. I was nearing the climax of a detective novel. I threw the book aside and went to answer the door. Now who in the world is this? Her face seemed so familiar , but..then it suddenly dawned on me..”jenny!” I screamed and we hugged each other and we laughed and I invited her in. jenny had changed a lot. She looked so different from how she had when she left school. I just couldn’t point out what made her so different. The same hairstyle, same eyes, nose, beautiful smile..wait a minute! Did I say beautiful smile?? When she was in school she was popular for her so called “Dracula teeth”. Now here she was sitting next to me with shinning white teeth all set in a beautiful straight row. I was green with jealousy as I listened to her boast about the number of boyfriends she had in college. After she left I ran upstairs to my room and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked at my features one by one very closely and after about half an hour of close examination from different angles I made a great discovery. I had just then found the answers to all my major problems( which included why I didn’t have a single boy friend when people around me had three or four). My teeth was my problem. Not only were they large, they were “outstanding” too ( by which I mean standing out of my mouth). How could I have not noticed it till now? Why didn’t anyone point it out to me? At least my parents could have given me a hint. As soon my mother reached home I told her about my latest discovery. After giving her an hour’s lecture on the defects of my teeth I came to the point which I had to present before her. I wanted to put braces on my teeth and they have to look perfect before I enter my new course. Though my mother disagreed to the whole matter in the beginning, after a week long strike and satyagraha she finally agreed.

It was then after a day or two that my elder cousin sister decided to stay with me for a month. To my surprise she too had decided to put on braces. And that is how I got to witness the entire series of torture that was awaiting me…

On our way to the dentist she made me sick with her boasting(non-stop). What did she think of herself? She thinks her teeth is her only defect and once that is all put in right order she would look exactly like Aishwarya Rai. I felt like stuffing some cotton into my ears( though easier and soothing would have been into her mouth). An hour of waiting outside the doctor’s cabin almost drove me crazy. And after two long hours we met the doctor. There were two of them. Both had very serious expression on their faces. I had a sudden dislike to one of them. I know why. He closely resembled my maths teacher in school and since he has not gifted me any pleasant memories I couldn’t help hating him. My cousin climbed into a very high seat and the doctor’s poured their head into her mouth. What happened next was a series of incidents that somewhat looked like scenes from a wrestling competition. Hammer, plier, syringes one by one each found its way to my cousins mouth. By now she was screaming loudly. The doctors were trying to pull not one or two but 4 large teeth out of her. They were pulling the teeth as if in the middle of some tug of war. Blood was dripping from her mouth. I felt dizzy and my view was becoming blurred. I ran out of the nearest exit I saw. When I came to my normal state , the cabin door opened and my cousin or I rather say someone who looked like her came out. Honestly speaking she looked uglier than ever. Her mouth was filled with cotton soaked in blood and her makeup was smeared in tears. Her hair looked as if she had received a shock. That day she didn’t eat anything or I better say she couldn’t eat anything for a week. She lived on liquid food. All my irritation towards her slowly melted away. I was filled with sympathy and pity for her though I never knew then that worse was in store for her.

This time I let her go inside the cabin alone. I chose to sit in the waiting room. Why should I scare myself ? I don’t know why but I have always felt a doctor’s cabin isn’t a great place to explore. I chewed through the magazines kept there (twice). I was nearly falling asleep( as usual) when the door clicked open. Then something that looked like an extra territorial emerged from it. I craned my neck to see where my cousin was. “fan-fe-fo?”it said. “ what!” I suddenly realized this so called alien was my cousin. I could hardly make out what she was trying to say. Her face was pale and mouth filled with steel fences that went zig-zag and it was all decorated with colourful rubber bands. She was so tired and weak that she couldn’t even stand straight. I stood there rooted as if I was seeing a ghost image of her or something. By the time we reached home she was running a very high temperature. The doctors prescribed a handful of medicines for her all of which looked like bullets to me. She could barely eat anything. All this worried me so much.

What is teeth for if you can’t eat anything? I don’t think all this pain is worth the result. After she went back to the hostel I re examined my teeth again. May be they stand out a little. May be they are not so perfect or arranged perfectly in a row. May be I wont get to be popular in college. But who cares? My teeth weren’t an issue to me any more. Thus ended my experiences with teeth.