The Crimson Cat

  It was on days like these that she wished to soar high in the sky and conquer the world with her love and passion. It was also these days that pushed her under a blanket with a copy of Jaisree Mishra’s ‘Ancient Promises’ and her own chain of dreams beaded together by a thread of ‘could-have-been’s in the paradisiacal alternate universes where she lived with her man, 2 kids and a dog in a house surrounded by trees, love, and peace. Rain clouds, dark and dense, always took her to utopian lands as these. Most were real and in the past. Or were they? She had a habit of imagining things so intensely that the line between fantasies and reality blurred every once in a while. The poor mind had been long fooled  into believing in her stories of perfect childhood and romances that followed. This is such a perfect day, she thought. The cool breeze reminded her of the grey rains in Cochin and a coy version of herself from her late teens. Summer rains from then were all about love and ...

  He was everything she could ask for. The true yin to her yang. He was not the fire that would burn her passion or her soul. He was not the wild horse that she would tame. He was not the hunter that would hunt her down. He was this mildly scented stream in the woods that flowed peacefully through seasoned, leveled grounds. Slow, joyous, calm, and familiar, with the power to heal just by being around with countless caresses and deep, deliberate, wet kisses. He was everything she could ask for.. She felt respected and cared for. He lived in a universe diametrically opposite to hers and that helped. There were no wildfires or passionate episodes and resulting bloodshed. But there was so much unexplored, so much to learn, so much to ease into and let grow on each other, like those vines on the walls of the house outside her window. But…… But she felt trapped in a bubble. She felt alienated from him, them and all the beauty. She felt lonely. She felt sad. May be, it was the pills...